Assured PNT for smart grids
In-depth national defense
Today’s critical infrastructure is reliant on positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) services. From communication to energy to national defense, nearly all sectors depend on accurate PNT information delivered by global navigation satellite systems (GNSS). But these satellite signals are weak and subject to a variety of vulnerabilities and in-network timing cyber threats, including deliberate spoofing and jamming of PNT services. The risk to homeland and economic security is huge. That’s why Executive Order 13905 was issued in 2020, followed with the DHS Resilient PNT Conformance Framework and NIST PNT Cybersecurity Profile guidelines, outlining the need to swiftly deploy mitigation controls to secure our economies and societies. Assuring PNT by securing timing against cyberattacks and unintended disruptions has become key for in-depth national defense.
Figure 1: PNT cyber threats and GNSS vulnerabilities
Making PNT robust and resilient for your time sync service
We’ve responded to the growing danger of PNT cyber threats by developing our aPNT+™ technology. Building on decades of expertise, our aPNT+™ solution is designed with a scalable framework of three fundamental building blocks. Firstly, it offers multi-layer detection of malicious and unintentional disturbance to satellite signals. This involves GNSS antennas and receivers, and PNT devices and network management working in dynamic combination. Secondly, it provides multi-source backup, including cesium, PTP network timing and in-device holdover oscillators. Lastly, multi-level fault-tolerant mitigation is achieved through the intelligent management of real-time sync data.
Figure 2: aPNT+™ technology components at scale
The trusted standard for assured PNT services
Our aPNT+™ platform offers the power of cyber threat detection, mitigation, protection, and analytics across the end-to-end sync network. Its resilient and robust design ensures it can self-survive and recover from cyberattacks, including unintentional jamming and spoofing. Our aPNT+™ system minimizes human error through automated management and offers a high-degree of AI/ML-assisted assurance. It encompasses our comprehensive Oscilloquartz aPNT+™ portfolio, embracing coreSync™ and edgeSync™, and including accessSync™ grandmasters and NTP servers in combination with high-performance cesium core clocks. Our aPNT+™ technology for in-depth defense is fast becoming the industry benchmark for augmented resilience, robustness and cybersecurity for trusted PNT services.
Figure 3: aPNT+™ platform overview