A British satellite navigation system has been launched to give pinpoint locations to aircraft, ships and driverless cars after Brexit meant the UK was ejected from the European alternative.
The satellite company Inmarsat has switched on a UK “space-based augmentation system” (UKSBAS) designed to provide more secure and accurate positioning data than the public GPS used by smartphones and car sat-navs.
Britain lost access to the equivalent European system, known as EGNOS, last summer as a result of Brexit. It is also unable to access the secure encrypted signal from the wider European Galileo system.
Concerns about reliance on GPS have increased as more businesses and technology become dependent on satellite navigation, and amid Russia’s war on Ukraine. The Kremlin has repeatedly interfered with the signal using jamming technology.
UKSBAS works by adding an additional signal to GPS, which is run by the US government. The extra signal makes it less vulnerable to interference and provides more accuracy, down to a few centimetres rather than several metres.
It is expected to be particularly important for aircraft when taking off and landing, and for ships navigating narrow channels.
Todd McDonell, who runs Inmarsat’s government business outside the US, said that the signal would now be monitored before it is tested on planes, with a wider use of the technology coming as soon as 2024.
He said that governments are becoming increasingly dedicated to having their own positioning systems.
“The drive for this is going to increase as the world becomes more awakened to the benefits of national accuracy and reliability,” he said. “As we move to more autonomous aircraft, ships, land vehicles and so on, the reliability and positional accuracy of navigation systems will go up substantially.”
The company is working with the Goonhilly Earth Station in Cornwall and software company GMVNSL on the system, which has been funded by the UK Space Agency. A similar test in Australia is already leading to real-world trials of the service.
Theresa May ordered work on a British equivalent to GPS in 2017 but the programme was cancelled due to the expected high cost of building a sovereign system.
Kwasi Kwarteng, the Business Secretary, has said that OneWeb, the satellite internet company that the taxpayer has a stake in, could serve as the basis for a fully-fledged positioning system, independent of GPS.
