Episode 73. Out of Sight, Out of Mind: How it’s easy to overlook our reliance on GPS.

Bernie Fette (00:16):
Hello and welcome to Thinking Transportation. Conversations about how we get ourselves and the things we need from one place to another. I’m Bernie Fette with the Texas A&M Transportation Institute. We are here today to catch up with Greg Winfree, TTI’s agency director. Greg, welcome back to the show. We’re really grateful that you could take time to join us. Thanks so much.

Greg Winfree (00:41):
Oh, it’s a great pleasure, Bernie, and really appreciate all that you and the team have done to put Thinking Transportation at the top of the pile with respect to podcasts, talking about this important subject matter.

Bernie Fette (00:54):
Well, it helps when we have great guests. So thank you again. There’s been a lot going on since our last visit. You have been settling into your appointment to the, make sure I get this all right. National Space-based Positioning, Navigation and Aiming Advisory Board. I’m guessing that does fit on a business card.

Greg Winfree (01:16):
Sorta of kind of, it’s a oblong shape, so it’s.

Greg Winfree (01:18):
Okay. <laugh>, you

Bernie Fette (01:19):
You have to use small font. On the surface, that sounds like it might be a little unusual to some of our listeners because the appointment was not made under the DOT umbrella, but rather, your appointment was made by the administrator of NASA, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, right?

Greg Winfree (01:37):
Yes. The way the group works and the responsibilities for, at this point GPS amongst the executive branch agencies, they all provide a contribution financially. But NASA took a different tack and said, well, we will support the advisory board and host the advisory board under our agency umbrella. So NASA is the home agency for the advisory board, meaning that we are special government employees that are appointed by the administrator of NASA.

Bernie Fette (02:10):
Okay. So tell us a little bit more about the work itself, what you and your fellow committee members are working on, and how it relates to transportation.

Greg Winfree (02:19):
You know, it’s one of those quiet utilities that gets taken for granted. And then interestingly, like I said, when you talk positioning, navigation and timing, it’s largely GPS, which is the global positioning system, satellite based navigation systems. It’s called GNSS or RNSS, Global Navigation Satellite System or Radio Navigation Satellite System. Started out as a military asset and then in the nineties, president Clinton opened it up for, uh, use for the public for the typical positioning and navigation services that we’re also familiar with. But it’s exploded to become really a foundational utility under the global economy. But it’s quiet, it’s silent. It always works. There’s never been a reason to look as far as the end user is concerned or, or stakeholders like, uh, legislators are concerned. Never been a need to look for complimentary services. But there are threats and challenges out there that have become much more apparent over the years that need to be addressed.

Greg Winfree (03:27):
But as I was saying, GPS started out as a Coast Guard utility. Coast Guard. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> was the branch of the military responsible for navigation around the United States. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And we took a trip fairly recently down to the Houston Galveston area, Coast Guard Station, where their deputy commander said, yeah, GPS has always been like magic to me. And that’s from somebody who’s skilled and informed about what GPS is, but that’s how the rest of the world sees it. It’s some sort of leprechaun inside your phone that gets you from point A to point B or inside your, uh, navigation device in your vehicle. And there isn’t a whole lot of thought given to what it does and how it supports positioning, navigation, and timing.

Bernie Fette (04:15):
And that magic has become more precise as things have developed. Because I can remember it wasn’t that many years ago when you might get instructions from your navigation system in your car and you might not end up where you were intending to from time to time. Things have changed quite a bit, have they not?

Greg Winfree (04:34):
Well, they have, you know, the technology from a transmission standpoint had always been there to guarantee accuracy, but there was something known as selective availability so that civilians didn’t have the refinement that certainly the military had. So the system is capable of, we call it down to the centimeter accuracy, with respect to knowing a point on earth at any given time, but it was dumbed down for civilians that’s been scaled back. So mm-hmm. <affirmative>, we now have access as civilians to much more accurate signals. There are other augmentations to it that help really define and refine and bring out the best of what that system technology can provide.

Bernie Fette (05:20):
And GPS issues and and concerns reach far beyond transportation. And I am guessing that that is true for the work of your committee as well. Can you talk just a little bit about the broader universe, if you will, the various applications beyond transportation and some of the ways that GPS technology is woven into our lives?

Greg Winfree (05:41):
Sure, sure. And maybe I’ll just take a step back and talk a little bit more about the transportation angle, which will then put everything else kind of in relief with respect to Department of Transportation’s responsibility. So the US Department of Transportation, specifically the Secretary of Transportation and the Secretary of Defense in a 2004 document called NSPD 39 National Space Presidential Directive, I believe. But NSPD 39 directed the Secretary of Transportation and the Secretary of Defense to co-manage GPS. So GPS started as a military utility. The spacecraft, the satellites are flown by members of, at the time Air Force Space Command. Now the Space Force. So they are the ones charged with the operational side of making sure the constellation is up running and healthy. There are 31 satellites in orbit 24 operate continuously to provide the positioning, navigation and timing that we rely on. So it uses triangulation, basically better known as trilateralization, where three satellites triangulate where you are, and the fourth satellite provides timing.

Greg Winfree (06:59):
So that’s how the system works, that’s how the responsibilities break down. USDOT is responsible for all civil users. So DOD has military, their name implies, DOT has everybody else, and that everybody else is quite broad and largely, as I said, a silent utility. So folks don’t even realize what they’re relying upon. We all know the positioning and the navigation. That’s your Garmin, Tom Tom, Magellan, and any other device, uh, your iPhone, your Android phone that takes positioning and navigation signals from space to give you your position. But the secret sauce is what we call the fourth dimension, which is time. So every satellite Aires an atomic clock, either a caesium clock or rubidium fountain, but that provides accurate time between satellites, literally down to the nanosecond or the microsecond nanosecond. So that’s how that works to guarantee a handshake between the satellites that allows for as minimal an opportunity as possible for bad actors to be involved.

Greg Winfree (08:17):
So it’s a timing handshake. So that accurate time handshake is used to coordinate cell phone signals. We all remember the old days when cell calls used to drop routinely when you went from one tower to another. Right. That happens much less frequently because of the ability to have accurate time involved with cellular communication processing. Importantly for us here in an agricultural state like Texas, precision agriculture relies upon GPS as well. That’s more the positioning and navigation side. But what that does is it allows farmers to put down fertilizers, plant crops, appropriate distances to get maximum yields, minimum environmental impact and runoff from the chemicals used in the agricultural process. So precision agriculture could not exist without GPS reliance. We also have tractors, combines, threshers, et cetera, that literally can operate from a self-driving perspective. So, uh, you know, we’re looking at self-driving on our roadways.

Greg Winfree (09:28):
It’s already been adopted in agricultural communities because much of the equipment they use and rely upon can operate in a self-driving fashion. And so that’s a huge factor. And then there’s all other manner of devices that utilize GPS signals, tsunami detection. There were buoys in the oceans that detect if and when a tsunami is to occur to give advanced warning for those that would be immediately impacted on the shores, whether it’s on the Pacific side or on the Atlantic side. And it’s certainly foundational to the FAA and what’s called next gen. So next gen is GPS based navigation aids for pilots in flight. So there’s a lot that goes on with respect to GPS, but importantly from a transportation perspective that hits TTI, right in its wheelhouse is the technology that’s used to support self-driving vehicles.

Bernie Fette (10:27):
Right.

Greg Winfree (10:28):
It’s literally foundational and self-driving vehicles will not work if a utility like GPS is not available. Every vehicle manufacturer, every innovator in the self-driving space has interwoven in GPS into their platforms.

Bernie Fette (10:45):
Well, listening to all the examples and descriptions that you’ve just shared, it may not constitute magic in the words of your contact there in Houston, but it does seem to come pretty close.

Greg Winfree (11:01):
It’s pretty remarkable how the system was developed. I mean, the science that goes behind it with respect to being able to put satellites in accurate orbit, not just with respect to how they’re oriented toward the earth, but how they orient toward each other. This is quite a remarkable feat. I’ve been to several satellite launches and it never fails to, to catch your breath.

Bernie Fette (11:28):
You’ve been involved in GPS work for quite a few years, even prior to this committee assignment. Given that background and what you’ve been working on with your fellow committee members over the past year, is there anything about our present or future GPS needs or GPS circumstance that keeps you up at night?

Greg Winfree (11:51):
Absolutely. I got involved with GPS when I was with USDOT back in 2010, 2011. And at the time, there was a proposal from a company named Light Squared that had originally had a license to build out. A best way to put it is a satellite telephone network. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. So if you look at the radio frequency allocation, it looks like a timeline, right? It goes from the lowest hertz all the way up to the highest gigahertz. But there’s a section that’s designated for system technology, and that’s because signals coming from space are extraordinarily weak. The signal for GPS is behind background noise in some of the numbers I’ve heard are it’s 10 to the minus 15 decibels, which is the number that I couldn’t scrawl out on the back of a napkin. But it’s extraordinarily weak. I do know that much. Right? So it’s important for those weak signals from space to have compatible usages, uh, in their slice of radio frequency spectrum.

Greg Winfree (13:05):
Well, what Light Square did was convince, uh, FCC that they could expand upon the license they had and put a terrestrial, an Earth-based radio system in that same spectrum neighborhood near GPS. And the best way to put it is it would’ve completely drowned out GPS, certainly here in the US would’ve made it absolutely ineffectual. When I was out on the speaking circuit, I said it was the equivalent of putting Van Halen in Sun City. Right. Not saying Van Halen’s a bad band, but they’re awful loud and you don’t want them in the community that has an expectation of quiet. That’s what happened. Not the best match. Yeah. Not the best match at all. And that’s exactly what happened. So that got to be quite a huge, I can’t even call it a kerfluffle that would downplay it. It became a significant national security issue to the point where the Secretary of Defense had to issue an ultimate statement about the proposed usage of that spectrum by Light Squared.

Greg Winfree (14:12):
And FCC backed off of that license. Light Squared is still around, it’s name now, is Legato. They still continue to press to put a network in the satellite system spectrum area, which remains problematic despite all of the engineering machinations that they’ve tried to do over the years to demonstrate, uh, compatibility. So that is how I got involved looking at the threats and the challenges to GPS from known actors. But it became apparent the more involved I got. There are nation states. There are bad actors that also have interest in disabling, if you will, GPS for whatever ends they may have. So there was a criminal component started out innocuously with devices known as GPS and cell phone blockers. And these were being billed as privacy devices. So the first instance we found of its usage was when FAA was testing next gen equipment at an airport that had a major highway running alongside it, and periodically the test equipment would get knocked out.

Greg Winfree (15:30):
Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And there was no explanation why it would be working fine, working fine. All of a sudden it was knocked out. Well, that spawned pretty significant detective work amongst FCC and others. And the net kept getting narrower and narrower only to find that there was a gentleman who worked for an alarm company in a major city that liked to take beach lunches with his girlfriend, which were outside of his service area. And the vehicle he drove had a GPS tracking device so that the company he worked for knew where all of the drivers were at any given point. Right. So he bought this privacy device off the interweb, plugged it into his, um, cigarette lighter and thought it just kind of gave him an umbrella of invisibility. Didn’t realize that the device had a much broader effect on other GPS and cell in the region up to the point where it was knocking out GPS at this FAA device a quarter mile away from the road where he was driving.

Greg Winfree (16:38):
So this was a major disruption, this was the major disruption, and it, it also threatened the next gen project because they were validating the equipment to be installed globally with respect to avionics and aircraft navigation. So working with the state police in that state, they were able to identify the driver, pull ’em over, he wound up getting a $25,000 fine from FCC for illegal transmission on the radio waves in the country. And that’s how the jammer issue got on our radar screens. And then we started to hear of incidents, particularly in Ireland with car theft rings that would use these devices to knock out the LoJack or any other tracing device on a vehicle. We heard of instances of these jammers being used for criminals that have on GPS anklets in the other tracking devices that law enforcement use. So it’s a huge potential issue with respect to getting arms around that technology.

Greg Winfree (17:43):
There’s also something known as spoofing, which is when you provide a signal that looks authentic but is completely false and can lead drivers or those reliant upon the signal completely off course, you’re seeing some of those manifest in some of the conflict areas in the world. Right now, Israel in particular, Ukraine, North Korea, has been sending GPS jammers towards South Korea for decades, to the point where certain airports in South Korea can’t rely upon GPS for landing and takeoff. So there is a nefarious aspect to interrupting GPS signals where bad actors in certain nation states need to be monitored closely. But then there’s also a natural phenomenon like solar weather. We just had a major solar flare and that solar flare interrupted radio signals here on Earth, they are known to do that. But because the GPS signal is so weak, that’s one of the signals that’s inherently subject to space weather, things we call ionospheric interference and other anomalies way above our heads in places, right. Spaces we can’t see. So there’s a lot that’s going on. Right.

Bernie Fette (19:07):
I think you referred to this a little earlier in the conversation as GPS being a silent technology, it sounds like these threats that you’ve been talking about are equally silent. These are not things that we typically think of part of how we take this capability for granted, it seems.

Greg Winfree (19:26):
We certainly do, and that’s part of the problem. So GPS has been the gold standard ever since the civil signals were made available. If you recall, when GPS was first made available, there were nations that said, we don’t wanna rely upon it. This is a US military system and you know, we don’t want the US whatever spying on us controlling our ability to navigate, et cetera. Right, right. That has changed over the years as it became apparent that the US was not utilizing it as some sort of backdoor into activities, whether personal, private or governmental. But since that time, other nations have seen how impactful GPS has become and built their own system. So China now has a system called AL that is fully operational and provides GNSS global navigation satellite signals for anyone who cares to take advantage of those. Russia has the Glonass system, which is also operational.

Greg Winfree (20:32):
Its track record is nowhere near as significant or as robust as the GPS system has been. Europe has invested in their own, it’s called Galileo, Japan and India, well, India aspires to have its own global system. Right now they have a regional augmentation to GPS as well as Japan. So there are nations that are putting up competing global navigation satellite systems in middle Earth orbit, is the way to put it. And lower Earth orbit, as the name implies, a lot closer to Earth, is now populated by Starlink. That’s the Musk mesh network of small satellites that had the potential to be used for positioning, navigation and timing. And there were other companies that are looking at low earth orbit as a means for providing that service.

Bernie Fette (21:26):
So these are all systems that are, if not direct duplications of the US-based system, then that’s at least the intent. It’s, it sounds like. Yeah. And each one of these systems based with other nations has its own cadre of satellites, I would guess?

Greg Winfree (21:46):
Yes, correct. They do.

Bernie Fette (21:47):
Yes. Okay. Well, I know that space is immense and vast. There’s room for an awful lot of satellites out there, but does the proliferation of satellites from all these different countries start to create a threat of its own or a concern of its own? For our system?

Greg Winfree (22:05):
The answer is yes. The proliferation of space junk, whether that’s out of commission satellites that are still in orbit, there have been some nations that have conducted land to space missile tests for the purposes of destructive satellite technology, call it space warfare. So there are some satellites that have been exploded where the bits and pieces are still available in space. And the issue is these things aren’t sitting still. They’re moving at 17,000 miles an hour. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So it presents a hazard, not just for the satellites that are up there, but for the International Space Station, they’ve had issues where they’ve had to predict and dodge and maybe even take other evasive maneuvers with respect to the junk that’s floating in space. And there’s no real global agreement on how to manage that.

Bernie Fette (23:08):
Shifting gears just a bit, let’s talk about the upcoming annual meeting of the Transportation Research Board. Sure. Discussions there every year, give a focus to just about every conceivable element and mode of transportation. There will be literally thousands of professionals there, as you will be. But given your background as a former Assistant Secretary of Transportation, I’m thinking that maybe you have a somewhat unique outlook on things. So where do you see the TRB spotlight shining this year?

Greg Winfree (23:44):
Interestingly, great question because for the first time I’ve arranged along with some colleagues from the advisory board and from NASA to have a panel presentation on this very topic. So this will be for the first time with the 10,000 plus transportation professionals in the room, that many of them will hear how impactful and how foundational GPS is for their operations and innovations, and also more importantly, how vulnerable it is. So looking very much forward to that conversation. Just to reflect back on the previous question real quickly, I was talking about the other global competitors that have put up systems. Yes. Because GPS has been the gold standard, it’s operated practically flawlessly for its entire time that it’s been available for the public, which is what kind of undercuts the urgency to put complimentary systems up there. You know, one of the phrases I’ve been using is we need to take the bullseye off GPS, whether that’s from criminal actors, whether that’s from intentional actors, whether that’s from space weather and other natural anomalies, and have a complimentary system that provides the services that GPS does, but perhaps in a different format.

Greg Winfree (25:05):
So there’s an old military technology called Loran. It’s a radar navigation. Yeah. And Loran utilized gigantic towers across the continental US that could provide navigation. There were some early conversations about repurposing those towers to provide a compliment to GPS. So GPS is low power, high frequency loran would’ve been high power, low frequency, so almost the analog of what GPS, but, but at the end of the day, it was about having more than one system so that we’re not reliant on one particular technology, particularly one that’s as fraught with challenges as GPS has become over time. So all of these conversations will be taking place at TRB.

Bernie Fette (25:56):
We are having this conversation at the beginning of a new year, and sometimes people want to make resolutions at this time of year. If the transportation industry, public and private sectors together could make a resolution for 2024, what would it be if, if you could script that, what would that collective resolution be?

Greg Winfree (26:20):
That is a rather broad topic. My default, of course, would be to have folks purposely focus on positioning, navigation, and timing, just because it’s so interwoven as we’ve discussed. But I don’t want to be a one issue candidate in responding to that question. I, I, we still need to have a significant focus on shovel-ready projects from an infrastructure perspective. Right. Consistent with what the BIL, the bipartisan infrastructure law provided. I think that’s significant. I think having self-driving freight vehicles get the nod from USDOT and we’re getting closer to that, I think that would start to open the door to the possibilities of what automated mobility looks like and what it provides. So that’s significant. You know, we have a pretty major loss of talent from the overland heavy truck driving workforce population. We’re about a hundred thousand drivers short. So having self-driving freight capability would augment that and not put people’s professions and livelihoods at risk.

Greg Winfree (27:40):
That’s always a fear and a retort that we hear from the labor community, but I think there’s enough of the table for everyone at this point. So I would say those are kind of, and, and you know, it’s always about roads and bridges. We’re gonna be driving on these roads and driving on these bridges for the foreseeable future. As much as I would like to have a Star Wars land speeder, that’s not quite in the near term yet. So if we’re gonna be on these roads, we need to figure out how to take better care of the infrastructure that we have, how to utilize it more efficiently and more wisely. So common sense, things like juggling the departure and arrival time, or arrival departure time for folks heading into the office. Why is everybody heading to work at the same time? That’s why you have rush hour. Why can’t exactly stagger it? Right? Why can’t we get companies to come on board with that concept? So just low hanging fruit like that, that would help manage the infrastructure and the assets we have, we need to do a better job of and, and be better custodians for the generations following us. We’re still, to me right now, focused.

Bernie Fette (28:55):
Right. I’ve asked you this one in the past, but I’ll ask you again. What is it that keeps you eager to come to work every day?

Greg Winfree (29:05):
It’s a tremendous honor, pleasure, and thrill to come through the TTI headquarters doors every morning. It’s a tremendous responsibility. It’s one that we all embrace as employees of TTI, so I don’t elevate myself in that regard, but the things that keep me engaged, you know, I, I come at this from a legal perspective, uh, mm-hmm. <affirmative>, uh, having spent most of my career as a lawyer. So I’m not a true technician. I’m a technophile, but not a true technician. Right. So I get it, it, I understand it. I’m a quick study and I know what I know, but more importantly, I know what I don’t know. That’s one of the things I learned as lawyering. So I enjoy the role and the opportunities that the role that I have provides, whether it’s interaction with the Chancellor or the Board of Regents or the Legislature, other university presidents and system CEOs.

Greg Winfree (30:08):
That political aspect is what I think my time in DC prepared me for best. And I think I’m, uh, very effective at being able to position TTI and keep our names and our accomplishments in front of those that are stakeholders, and then influence wielders with respect to how TTI continues to operate. With that. I, of course, would add TxDOT and our state DOT partners or other University Transportation Center partners. So that part is the part that I really feel is in my wheelhouse, and that I’m able to provide the best top cover for the institute because by providing that top cover, it allows the world class professionals we have on our staff to continue to do what they do without encumbrance, without interference, without assistance, if you will, to let them be the best that they can be. And at the risk of a postscript, I would add one more shout out. I was recently asked to take over the chairmanship of a foundation called the Resilient Navigation End Timing Foundation.

Bernie Fette (31:21):
Okay.

Greg Winfree (31:21):
Yeah, it’s a tremendous honor. I met these folks when I was back at DOT. It is a 501-C3 educational organization that focuses on PNT issues working alongside the advisory board. So just, uh, thrilled to have that opportunity as well.

Bernie Fette (31:38):
Greg Winfree, agency director for the Texas A&M Transportation Institute. Thank you for being with us again, Greg. Thank you for yet another enlightening and enjoyable conversation. And thanks of course for your continued public service to the state and to our nation. We appreciate it very much.

Greg Winfree (32:00):
It’s my great pleasure, Bernie, greatly appreciate your time, your expertise, and again in making, taking transportation the number one destination for conversations of this type.

Bernie Fette (32:11):
My pleasure. Thank you, Greg. Thanks for listening. Please take a minute to give us a review, subscribe and share this episode, and please join us again next time for a conversation about getting ourselves and the stuff we need from point A to point B Thinking Transportation is a production of the Texas A&M Transportation Institute, a member of the Texas A&M University system. The show is edited and produced by Chris Pourteau. I’m your writer and host, Bernie Fette Thanks again for joining us. We’ll see you next time.