Splash247: Governments start asking shipping the uncomfortable questions on GNSS spoofing

Published by Splash247

The maritime industry is moving towards a new phase of GNSS resilience, with public authorities beginning to examine whether ship operators can actually navigate safely when satellite positioning becomes unreliable.

For years, warnings about satellite-navigation interference have focused on the growing number of ships encountering jamming and spoofing around conflict zones and politically sensitive waters.

Now the questions being put to ship operators are becoming far more pointed. SplashTech has just received one questionnaire sent out by a government, though to be the UK. Questions include: Has the company properly mitigated the risks from Global Navigation Satellite System interference? Do crews know which bridge systems will become degraded or unavailable? Has the organisation conducted a GNSS-denial drill within the past six months? Can its officers operate ECDIS in dead-reckoning mode and fix the vessel’s position manually?

Operators are also being asked whether they would buy modestly priced receivers for alternative positioning services and whether the time has come to deploy complementary technologies such as enhanced Loran, or eLoran, and Ranging Mode, better known as R-Mode.

Governments are beginning to move beyond describing GNSS interference as a theoretical risk and towards examining whether shipping companies are operationally prepared for it.

That shift could eventually have consequences for bridge-equipment purchasing, crew training, safety-management systems, insurance assessments and port-state inspections.

Jamming prevents receivers from obtaining a usable satellite signal. Spoofing is potentially more dangerous because it can feed a receiver convincing but false position or timing data, leaving the bridge team unaware that the information displayed on ECDIS, AIS or other connected systems is wrong.

The UK Hydrographic Office has warned that even a weak interference source can cause receivers to fail or generate misleading information. Its guidance calls for operators to develop response plans, practise drills and ensure crews understand how to place ECDIS into dead-reckoning mode, plot positions manually and compare satellite data against radar, depth and visual information.

The questionnaires now emerging closely resemble an audit of those capabilities.

Asking whether a company believes it has “properly mitigated” GNSS interference risk forces management to look beyond a generic paragraph in its safety-management system. Asking whether crews know every piece of equipment affected by GNSS loss raises a harder issue: satellite-derived position and timing data can feed far more than the primary navigation display.

ECDIS, AIS, autopilot, voyage-data recorders, communications equipment, dynamic-positioning systems and alarm functions can all depend directly or indirectly on reliable positioning or timing inputs. The precise impact will vary between vessels and equipment configurations, which means operators need ship-specific answers rather than fleet-wide assumptions.

The question about recent denial drills may prove the most revealing. Many bridge teams know how manual fixing and dead reckoning work, but fewer will have tested how quickly they can identify corrupted data, isolate an unreliable input and safely reconfigure integrated equipment while navigating in confined waters.

The survey questions also point towards a potentially significant new market for alternative positioning, navigation and timing technology.

The UK has committed £71m to begin work on a national eLoran programme and a further £13m towards monitoring GNSS interference. The terrestrial system is intended to provide positioning and timing independently of satellites and to be substantially harder to jam or spoof.

In January, 13 Baltic and North Sea coastal states, together with Iceland, called on governments and the maritime industry to cooperate on alternative terrestrial radionavigation systems that could be used when GNSS is disrupted, lost or interfered with. They also urged companies to ensure vessels have the equipment and trained crews needed to operate safely through navigation-system outages.

R-Mode offers a different route to resilience. Rather than creating an entirely separate long-range network, it uses signals from existing maritime radio infrastructure, including medium-frequency beacons and VHF Data Exchange System stations, to calculate a vessel’s position.

A large-scale Baltic testbed has demonstrated satellite-independent positioning, and the technology is moving through standardisation and expanded trials. Its strongest potential use is in coastal waters and port approaches, precisely where navigational margins are narrowest and the consequences of incorrect positioning are greatest.

Neither technology is likely to replace GNSS. The emerging model is layered navigation: satellite positioning as the primary source, supported by independent terrestrial signals, radar, inertial sensors, visual fixing and software capable of comparing inputs and identifying anomalies.

For maritime technology companies, the questionnaire is an early demand signal. The industry has historically struggled to build a commercial case for alternative positioning systems because GNSS is global, accurate and effectively free at the point of use. Shipowners have had little incentive to install another receiver for a threat often treated as geographically limited.

That calculation is changing as interference becomes more frequent, more sophisticated and harder to dismiss as an occasional problem confined to war zones.

Government-backed infrastructure will still require shipboard receivers, integration with existing bridge systems and interfaces capable of presenting alternative positions without overwhelming crews. Equipment makers will also need to address how navigation systems select between sensors, flag conflicting data and prevent a spoofed input from being accepted simply because it appears precise.

The opportunity therefore extends beyond standalone eLoran or R-Mode receivers. It includes multi-source navigation processors, interference detectors, resilient timing equipment, ECDIS upgrades, bridge simulators and fleet-level monitoring platforms.

The industry is unlikely to face an immediate mandate to install eLoran or R-Mode equipment across the world fleet. Infrastructure remains uneven, technical standards are still developing and coverage will initially be regional.

The more immediate change is one of accountability. Until recently, a company could acknowledge GNSS interference in a risk assessment and consider the issue addressed. Governments are now beginning to ask whether crews have practised the failure scenario, whether ships can navigate without the satellite-derived position appearing on ECDIS and whether operators would adopt an affordable independent alternative.