Spirent Communications, now part of Keysight Technologies, a provider of test and assurance solutions for next-generation devices and networks, has partnered with the European Space Agency (ESA) to lead an initiative aimed at increasing the resilience of Positioning, Navigation and Timing (PNT) systems used in Critical National Infrastructure (CNI). The partners aim to deliver a comprehensive test framework designed to drive measurable resilience in PNT systems for users, operators and providers of CNI in the UK.
“The increasing reliance on PNT underpins operations that people and businesses rely on every day,” said Mark Holbrow, Vice President of Engineering and Product Development at Spirent Positioning. “But for years, organizations have been wrestling with a fundamental challenge: they know PNT resilience matters, but they do not have a clear way to measure it or benchmark their progress. This new initiative changes that by building the tools and frameworks that let critical national infrastructure operators quantify resilience, track it, and improve it over time, and we’re proud that ESA has entrusted Spirent to lead this exciting three-year project.”
The new initiative will support the UK Government’s Resilient PNT Strategy by enabling access to rigorous, quantitative test evidence and operational insights that help evaluate and validate PNT systems across essential sectors.
The Spirent PNT Alliance will include the Royal Institute of Navigation (RIN) and other strategic partners to complement their activities and help build a resilient PNT ecosystem in the UK by commercializing best practices and connecting CNI operators with new technologies and test approaches. The annual PNT Health Check assessments will help organizations understand their dependencies, identify vulnerabilities, and track improvements over time, with a technical framework that scores resilience against standard benchmarks to create a pathway toward industry-wide test methodologies.
CNI operators in the UK finance, energy, and telecommunications sectors are increasingly recognizing vulnerability to GNSS jamming and spoofing, and will benefit from the development of the new framework, while the project also has strong export potential, positioning the UK as a leader in PNT resilience testing services.
