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Are We Too Reliant On GPS?
RedEaredSlider writes "A new report from the Royal Academy of Engineering in London suggests developed nations have become too reliant on GPS systems. The report from the Academy focuses on global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) and their vulnerabilities. These vulnerabilities include deliberate or accidental interference, both man-made (such as jamming) and natural (such as solar flares). While most people equate GPS systems with the tiny screens which get drivers from point A to point B, the report says society's reliance on the technology goes well beyond that. The Academy says the range of applications using the technology is so vast that without adequate independent backup, signal failure or interference could potentially affect safety systems and other critical parts of the economy."
VOR/DME is still the way to go. ADF will get you by in a pinch, but it can throw you a real curve ball sometimes.
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
We relay on Technology to the thinking way to much these days. GPS is just another way to not take person responsibly.
GPS is just the latest iteration of navigational assistance. Before it was Google Map printouts. And before that was AAA trip books. And then hand-written maps and directions given over the phone. And it goes on. Think of "Go down about two sees and look for a red barn, then turn left." How are any of these different from a GPS? What happens if the barn fell down, or was painted, or was too dark to see?
Each has the same issue of the driver not intelligently understanding when things go different from what the directions in front of them say. Overall, GPS does help because it means no longer stopping to ask for directions.
I can't see it being a bad thing to become reliant on a technology to help you from getting lost.
I was on a shuttle bus with a set of Marine veterans going to Vietnam. They were reminiscing about training and someone threw in that a group of recruits were kicked out for cheating on their basic fieldcraft/map reading. Apparently, the defence used by the guys who were caught is that basic fieldcraft isn't relevant because they know where they are from GPS. I found it unbelievable that the thought even crossed their minds.
All it takes is the US GPS system to be jammed, and they are in a hell of a lot of trouble...
We are also too reliant on electricity, computers, cars, airplanes, ships,...
Let's just fly it all in to the sun, and mate with cavemen!
Dead Reckoning for life.
PS) CAPTCHA: insight
I was cleaning the basement the other day and came across an old compass of mine. It got me thinking, I wonder if future generations are even going to be able to operate the things.
Sent from my PDP-11
First of all, why are the Slashdot abbreviated comments using gray type on a gray background! This is painful. Secondly, given human nature, if the GPS info is reliable for more than a few days at a time someone will make an app for that... After a while it will end up controlling our nuclear arsenal. It's the same reason people live on the sides of volcanoes. If it hasn't blown up for a while, someone has to move there.
Sorry, but gray text on gray background is making my eyes bleed.
He's an inertial nav test guy, I'm a former avionics developer.
We both agreed that we can understand the financial incentives to remove inertial nav from planes, but that it's misguided.
You *NEED* a backup in case GPS fails (and dead reckoning has a good chance of leaving you just that -- dead).
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
With the South Atlantic Anomaly getting bigger, going back to compass readings might not be reliable during a pole flip either. GPS might need some hardening to prevent spoofing. But I thought it would be a good system to have in place when magnetic poles move.
Well all I got to say is I'm yappin' with someone on how get to where I want to go and they say, "I'm at 37.655, -121.998."
dammit how about a street address? and a cross street will be helpful as well. and if you got brain one, how about Thomas Guide page/grid number?
mfwright@batnet.com
See the original text of the report.
Why does the Railroads need GPS when they they have FIXED TRACK and like 30-40 year old systems for keeping track where trains are at.
There was an article a few weeks ago on how people have died through following their GPS into Death Valley, then getting into trouble - no water, no cellphone coverage, very high temperatures. Go figure.
I've got a slide-rule, if that helps with the math and trig.
As an American that has been to the UK (the apparent location of the authors) and has driven around with both a GPS and just a map, I will take the GPS hands down! The signage in a typical UK town is bad. You generally need to look at the buildings to find out what street you are on if you can spot it before you pass it. The roundabouts seem to tell you what town you are going to end up in if you take that particular road instead of what street that you are turning onto. Navigating with a map was painful!
Now it could just be because I am not used to it. I know that there are parts of the US (Maryland and NY come to mind) that I have been to that can be similarly difficult to navigate, but not to the level that I experienced in the UK. So I am curious if there are any Brits that have driven in the US and what their impressions were on driving here compared to the UK. Would you take GPS over a map also?
A lot of people think of GPS as only positioning, but a lot of embedded things pull time through GPS (either PPS for real time, or 10MHz for use as a timebase).
I'm sure there are plenty of things with sloppy code that doesn't exactly fail gracefully when losing GPS, especially for long time periods.
Anyway, another aspect to think about.
Sent from my PDP-11
I wonder whether IBTimes pays RedEaredSlider per submission or per word for his work?
In his brief time on Slashdot, RedEaredSlider has submitted many dozens of articles; every single one of them references IBTimes and only IBTimes. I could even forgive a little Roland-Piqepaille-like self promotion, but this pattern of behavior screams paid promotion.
I ask a question in rebuttal: has Slashdot become too reliant on corporate media promoters?
relying on your gov to 'work? there's a book for that too. better yet, consider joining us at any of the scheduled million baby+ play-dates, consciousness arisings, georgia stone editing(s), & a host of other life promoting events. be there or be scared. gauaranteed to activate all your senses.
First, there's no reason why a cell phone tower or an ATM should need GPS data to operate. There are many other ways to get timestamps, and in neither case is the facility likely to move much.
Anything important should have a GPS smart enough to tell when its data is no good. If you can receive from four satellites, you have enough information to tell if the data you're getting is bogus. Life-critical applications like aircraft should receive from GPS, GLONASS, and Galileo, and cross-check.
GPS satellites fail occasionally, and there are occasional gaps in coverage. Also bear in mind that GPS control is very centralized. It's run from Colorado Springs, and if the control center goes down, the constellation becomes inaccurate after a week or so.
we are too reliant on all technology.
If it all breaks down or stops working, we are fucked.
Be seeing you...
And this is just another desperate intellectual struggling to find something to talk about.
Come on! The above commenters all seem to be under the impression that the only GPS application is the maps systems in your fancy new car. There have been several stories running around the net for the last few days, including here on /., about the havoc wreaked by simple GPS jammers. Many technologies rely on the accurate time signals from the GPS system. Recently the US Navy was conducting an excersize off the coast of San Diego in which they jammed GPS for a few hours. During that time various systems failed including cell phones, pagers, aircraft landing guidance, and ATMs! Several dozen $30 GPS jammers scattered around a city could shut down all sorts of critical services. I would say that we are undoubtedly too reliant on GPS.
Emphasis required:
GPS isn't the problem, it's the lack of backup.
Just like how communities in earthquake areas have developed earthquake plans, we need to develop GPS-Down plans.
The RAE correctly points out that GPS has become a near ubiquitous solution, but without backup plans in place.
Which is an excellent technical question for /. -- what is a good, economical, backup plan for emergency services and industry? This thread shouldn't be drowning in water-cooler 'told-ya-so' and 'get-off-my-lawn'. It ought to be one of the better Ask Slashdot threads.
Is the Royal Academy of Engineering in any way involved with Galileo, the European counterpart/competitor to GPS?
!#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
Do you ride horses? Do you make your own shoes? Do you make fire with flint and tinder? Probably not. Why? Because it extremely unlikely you will ever actually need those fallbacks—technology is reliable. That is why it persists, despite these original solutions.
Stars? Luxury! When I was a young'n the earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters.
So we had to develop a Spirit of God (SOG) navigation system. And He kept moving over the surface of the waters, which made it even more difficult. This is still in use today, as some US soldiers will tell you that they are assigned to SOG, but are not allowed to tell you exactly what they do.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Seems to me both these problems can be solved by something at the same time. Doesn't exist yet but here's the spark.
I so public domain this.
Functioning GPS alternative, Russian: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GLONASS
European system which will launch its first satellites in 2011, with network to be completed over the next several years: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_(satellite_navigation)
All these systems should have a decent local clock to fall back on. Calibrate a local clock based using gps, and they'll be able to go for a long time before degrading significantly.
I lived in what was then Zaire for three years back in the late 80s. Flew in a significant number of small planes using visual sight rules, maps, compass, etc. Had some close calls when the weather socked in over a dirt airstrip right before we got there, but for the most part it worked just fine.
just as you thought
Three main uses of GPS -- nav, position, and standards (time and frequency).
I can connect a GPS antenna on the roof to a small box in the lab and have frequency and time references at an accuracy that previously were limited to national laboratories! (search for Trimble Thunderbolt). When the green lights are on, I've got accuracy on the order of ten to the minus eleven or better.
To the over-reliance claim, when the green lights go off on that box and the red lights go on, I'm back to using the references in each of my lab instruments. More important, the red lights let me know I'm not operating at those higher, known, levels of accuracy.
The "over-reliance" argument is more an argument against not having a Plan B to put into action when Plan A goes down the tubes. Am I "over-reliant" on electric motors because I use an electric shaver in the morning rather than a straight razor? Or because I use a motorized coffee grinder rather than some manually operated device? No, it's a trade-off, and hopefully one I have made knowingly.
Its important to note, the military has authenticated GPS.
Its only commercial/civilian GPS that can not authenticate the signal.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
avoid collisions that the job of the signals!
+1
Grey type sucks already. Grey backgrounds just amplify the suckage.
Here signs are illegible, missing, misleading or nonsensical because of our highly competent (heh-heh) DOT. No road goes in ANY direction here and, as a result, all navigation is point to point. Businesses and people do not put numbers on their houses or buildings. You are screwed without a GPS here.
Parent post should be first post seen by anybody reading comments about this article.
I wish I could upvote you, but alas Slashdot is stuck with an outdated moderation model.
Signed, a 10-year /. AC reading his last /. story and posting for the last time.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yyKrS8jwSY
Also don't forget SONET/SDH, they need very precise timing signals too. Though in this case atomic clocks might be used, as they are getting cheaper and smaller.
Came across a couple of articles recently here and here specifically talking about GPS interference and "dead-zones".
Curious part, is that this technology is APPROVED by the FCC. The frequencies used by LightSquared (1525 MHz—1559 MHz) is just below the GPS frequencies (1559—1610 MHz). While it SHOULDN'T interfere, the power levels used by LightSquared is much higher than the signals from satellites.
cell towers and wimax towers use GPS for timing and synchronization.
There may be a better system evolving. There is a project on mapping all the known pulsars, this will allow a mapping system to be created in space and by useing the radio signals from the pulsars called the Galatic GPS
...because when GPS inevitably goes down, stupid people will be that much clearer to identify.
-Styopa
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulsar#Applications
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulsar#Significant_pulsars
As far as I can tell, this entire article is really just a scare tactic to push an agenda but it was thought provoking.
I was recently having a conversation with some classmates talking about pulsars when I suggested that they could potentially be used as natural alternatives to GPS satellites. Sure enough, this is discussed in the wikipedia article as one potential application of Pulsar astronomy.
For space travel outside of the earth's orbit, the options available for navigation seem to be computer vision star mapping, precision accelerometers to find significant gravity wells, or potentially, using pulsar triangulation.
No megalomaniacal media baron would screw up GPS to cause Britain and China to go to war. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120347/
is that what your mom told you?
Most industrial dependence on GNSS is as a frequency standard. Standard atomic clocks are too expensive, a good dual frequency GPS received costs about 20% of an atomic clock and outputs a 10MHz clocking source more than good enough. That goes for GNSS dependency on telecommunications, financial institutions. GNSS = All GPS like systems (GPS, Glonass, Galileo, Compass, ...).
Now we have Chip scale atomic clocks which seem to be just as accurate as dual frequency GNSS receivers as a frequency standard. That should eliminate some dependency on GNSS.
WAAS/EGNOS augmented GPS gives 20ft or better accuracy all the time.
In a decade with L5 fully operational, it will give 8ft accuracy all the time.
VOR is dead. DME/DME is worth something, but won't give time, and its only useful for aircraft. But it's accuracy is about 600ft, and lateral positioning only.
What we really need is a ground based GPS pseudo lite network that gives GPS accuracy regardless of GPS signals. Each pseudo lite should broadcast on L5 for line of sight users and on a much lower frequency for non line of sight users.
Killing eLoran was the dumbest decision the Obama administration did in my opinion.
But there are commercial applications, too. Suppose you're in a mall, and you want to know how to get from where you are now to the Old Navy store. A forward-thinking mall might provide an app for that.
A forward thinking mall would provide a map for that and not assume that everyone uses the why!?Phone.
This seems to be winner at best terrorist attack with upto 30 people and 500000$ 30 terrorist just dispersed in USA launch meteorological baloons with 30$ GPS jammers and see power grid collapse. It is even better than winners 1. Genetically modify corn to produce botulitoxin, plant it at several field and watch americans die as they refuse eat corn 2. Buy copper wires and throw them at power/rail lines. 3. Donate 500000$ to republicans
(Unrelated to parent post)
Using a GPS jammer will really screw up GPS based ticket system at public transports, at least in some cities.
The ticket system for the public transport in Gothenburg, Sweden uses GPS to determine how much a trip costs, and in general people lose money on a frequent basis in that system. A great rip-off since they claim that GPS is infallible.
Another limitation for GPS is that it's not that good when you are in polar regions, the precision is not as good as in warmer areas.
However GPS is a great system too - especially if you are going somewhere the first time. A side effect is that it doesn't take into account that roads may be closed and stuff like that so you may sometimes need to take a detour. And having a real paper map works fine as a backup, but even paper maps has their limit since the resolution is often rather crude.
But to some extent we are getting reliant on GPS as a technology - it doesn't have common sense, and it does contain bad or conflicting information from time to time causing delivery trucks ending up in a backroad in a neighbor town and all kind of stuff like that.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
I guess we should go back to looking for moss on the backs of trees.
Non bene pro toto libertas venditur auro
Since Google Maps does not accurately place my house on my street, pizza dude takes an extra 20 minutes to get my food to me.
For the record, it's not that big a street.
Me? I use paper maps.
I think the subtext of the argument is "don't rely on another nation's tools". Not an issue if you're from the USA, but if you're not from the USA this is a bigger issue of concern. Your shipping, military, directed vehicles etc are all dependent on another government's political and military preferences. If you have a different opinion from the USA, you could be in big trouble. And you don't have a vote in how the USA wants to guide its policies.
This is one of the big reasons why the EU and Russia want to build their own GPS-like systems, they want sovereign control over satellite guidance, not to be dependent on how much the Americans like them on any particular day.
self-reliance is treason against the corporate state.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Idiots are too reliant on GPS!
Recently in quebec, a Woman failed to program her GPS correctly and let her GPS switch her to an alternative road, that road (up north) proved to be barely used by anyone during winter time.
i mean what's next? A pitfall but if your GPS says it's ok,,,,,go ahead anyway?
What is that, some sort of telecom microwave repeater site?
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
We had Omega on a couple of ships I was on, and... it never worked. LORAN was cool if you were close enough to shore, Transit was (usually) good for a couple of fixes a day, but I don't recall ever, ever getting an Omega fix.
This wouldn't be world-wide, though, unless you could convince a bunch of other countries to play along. And that might be a hard sell: countries interested in their own nav systems are already building satellite constellations (GLONASS, Gallileo), or just free-riding on GPS.
Most of these effects don't have anything to do with the position of the equipment involved - it has to do with timing. Keeping power stations all in the same phase is critically dependent on knowing *exactly* what time it is. GPS does that very well.
In a way, I agree with the GP, though - a sense of perspective is warranted. GPS is relatively easy to jam... over a small area. So sure, maybe your local airport will have schedule disruptions, or maybe your local power plant will go offline. Those are indeed bad things. But individual power plants and airports have problems all the time, and life goes on. What's not easy to do is bring down the ENTIRE GPS system. Jammers can screw things up locally, but it's not as if our entire national air traffic system will go on the blink after being attacked by a few soda-can GPS jammers.
The US military can't simply "turn off the satellites you're using". For one thing, I'm not sure it's even possible to switch them off. Further, the satellites are not geosynchronous, so they'd have to continually be switching satellites on and off as they rose over your home territory, and that would blind huge swathes of the world (including the US military itself). The only conceivable thing they could do is turn selective availability back on, and that doesn't degrade the position all that much. The DoD has also agreed that they will not use SA anymore because it pisses off the FAA too badly.
I think you can breathe easy with respect to continued use of GPS - denying it to certain parts of the world is such a pain in the ass that I doubt it would ever be done.
That must be why we've never had a train collision in the age of signals! Dude, seriously. Signals are not that great of a way to prevent collisions.
Polaris had an inertial nav system that was initialized by a star fix. I believe some of the Russian ICBMs worked the same way.
... when it's cloudy. My first deployment in the Navy we had a casualty to our Transit system while enroute from Hawaii to Samoa. No problem, we'll just do celestial nav. Except it was cloudy... for days. We had to dead reckon for like 3 days before we got a fix. Luckily we weren't too far off track, but you can get really screwed up.