Call for embedded timing network across Europe
“Ideally we need a global, diverse source of timing, probably eLoran,” said Prof Martyn Thomas. visiting professor at Bristol University and one of the founders of consultancy Praxis. “The safety community needs to watch out for accidental systems and I believe they are more common than we currently realise,” he said.
He points to the timing in the GPS and GNSS navigation systems which if they were to fail, be jammed or hacked would have catastrophic consequences for transport and mobile networks. These would range from errors in navigation to complete system failure and could be triggered by a huge solar flare called a Carrington event which is increasingly probable. “We have never really had a massive coronal event in the era of satellites so we just don’t know what the effect would be,” he said.
“Many organisations declare they have no dependence on GPS and hence no need for backup. They are wrong,” he said, speaking to the industry at the Safety Critical Systems Club symposium in Bristol, UK, this week.
eLoran is a land-based, low frequency, high power alternative wireless timing signal that would be difficult to jam and cheap to run, he said. “It would cost just £1m to £2m a year to maintain the system across Europe, it’s a no-brainer but the question is who would pay for it,” he said.
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