Spirent Partners with Nottingham Scientific for Robust PNT

Spirent Communications has entered into a strategic partnership with Nottingham Scientific Limited (NSL) to enable the detection, characterization and regeneration of threats to GNSS receiver systems.

NSL is one of the companies in Europe involved in satellite navigation, specializing in developing reliable and robust GNSS technologies for a variety of applications, such as those that impact safety or are critical in terms of business, finance and security. NSL has carried out many successful GNSS research programs within the UK and internationally for government organizations, regulators and policy makers, Spirent said.

Martin Foulger (left), general manager at Spirent Communications, meets with Mark Dumville, general Manager of NSL, at NSL’s headquarters in Nottingham, UK. (Photo: Spirent)

The combination of NSL’s acknowledged expertise in the research of GNSS vulnerabilities with Spirent’s leadership in GNSS simulation and test development enables the provision of a range of planned robust positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) solutions.

“Threats to GNSS and related PNT applications are becoming more orchestrated and coordinated, with the motivation to disrupt or cause financial loss becoming the driving factor,” said John Pottle, marketing director at Spirent’s Positioning division. “Real-world threats are wide-ranging and affect navigation and timing system performance differently. Our partnership with NSL enables not only detection, but also regeneration, of real threats in the lab. This allows users to understand which threats are most relevant to them, and informs decisions on improving robustness.”

“NSL and Spirent share a vision that building robust position, navigation and timing systems is enabled through evaluating system performance against a real threats baseline” Mark Dumville, general manager at Nottingham Scientific Ltd, said. “By auditing system performance, decisions on how to improve resilience can be based on facts, not guesswork.”