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BPS is a GPS alternative that nobody's heard of

jeffgeerling.com

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Re: BPS is a GPS alternative that nobody's heard of

#61

Post by petre »

plextoria wrote: post #54
typewithrhythm wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't really beat a jammer, sure you can compete for power output, but there is no real stopping it. Aircraft and military positioning concepts are evolving towards more map and dead reckoning, lessening the benefit of GPS jamming.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but wouldn’t a jammer be very easy to disable kinetically? A missile would simply have to follow the jammer’s signal.

The obvious problem with this approach: destroying a jammer in foreign country with a missile is an act of war.

Re: BPS is a GPS alternative that nobody's heard of

#62

Post by Flatterer3544 »

petesergeant wrote: post #46
LeoPanthera wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Galileo. Controlled by the EU, and therefore a better choice than GPS, since the United States is no longer trustworthy.

It's a little unclear to me from reading the Wikipedia page; is it fully functional today, and worldwide? It'd be cool if my phone showed me which systems it was using at any time, but I have chosen The One True Apple Way so I don't think that'll come any time soon

Yes it has full world coverage, see the esa navipedia for more info.

No idea how it is in the US, but in EU you can't really easily choose, it will by default use GPS+Galileo combined for better accuracy.

I guess you can through developer settings on android though.

Re: BPS is a GPS alternative that nobody's heard of

#63

Post by firesteelrain »

plextoria wrote: post #54
typewithrhythm wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't really beat a jammer, sure you can compete for power output, but there is no real stopping it. Aircraft and military positioning concepts are evolving towards more map and dead reckoning, lessening the benefit of GPS jamming.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but wouldn’t a jammer be very easy to disable kinetically? A missile would simply have to follow the jammer’s signal.

Be an interesting feature to add to the AGM-88E.

Re: BPS is a GPS alternative that nobody's heard of

#64

Post by throwing_away »

1970-01-01 wrote: post #34
geerlingguy wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah... and that's one of the most innocuous new "features" in ATSC 3.0. Almost everything I've seen (besides BPS, and maybe HDR if you're one of the few who has a really good home theater setup) is a benefit for broadcasters and advertisers, and a bit worse for consumers (especially requiring new hardware/decoders... and sometimes persistent Internet connections!).

Same feeling here. ATSC 3.0 with DRM and persistent Internet requirements tells me this is going to be the downfall of OTA television. I can see ATSC 4.0 being a discounted ISP subscription paired with some OTA location checks via BPS.

There is 1 provider for ATSC3 DRM (which is already rolling out in major markets): Google Widevine.

There is 1 operating system for ATSC3 DRM: Android.

There are several SoCs that can be used for "Level 1 Widevine".

When a SoC is compromised and the key is leaked from the TEE, all models of that device with the key are now untrusted for Level 1.

I think people should just be aware of the state of play.

Re: BPS is a GPS alternative that nobody's heard of

#65

Post by [deleted] »

plextoria wrote: post #54
typewithrhythm wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't really beat a jammer, sure you can compete for power output, but there is no real stopping it. Aircraft and military positioning concepts are evolving towards more map and dead reckoning, lessening the benefit of GPS jamming.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but wouldn’t a jammer be very easy to disable kinetically? A missile would simply have to follow the jammer’s signal.

[deleted]

Re: BPS is a GPS alternative that nobody's heard of

#66

Post by bmacho »

jen729w wrote: post #11
publicola1990 wrote: post #10

While this is is interesting, the "nobody's heard of" phrase is rather condescending and such phrases leave a bad taste in the mind.

Hmm it's just a turn of phrase. I would bet you $100 that no more than 0.001% of the population have heard of BPS. I hadn't. That's functionally "nobody".

It's worse in every way than just omitting it. 'BPS is a GPS alternative' is better as a title, on HN at least

Re: BPS is a GPS alternative that nobody's heard of

#67

Post by namibj »

fnordpiglet wrote: post #56
The_Double wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does it solve for time without location? With GPS location and time are one solution to an equation with 4 unknowns (x,y,z,t). Without location you won't know the time delay between you and the transmitter.

The the transmitters are of fixed terrestrial locations.

The satellites are on known positions too, once you know the time.

Re: BPS is a GPS alternative that nobody's heard of

#68

Post by Tawy74 »

petesergeant wrote: post #46
LeoPanthera wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Galileo. Controlled by the EU, and therefore a better choice than GPS, since the United States is no longer trustworthy.

It's a little unclear to me from reading the Wikipedia page; is it fully functional today, and worldwide? It'd be cool if my phone showed me which systems it was using at any time, but I have chosen The One True Apple Way so I don't think that'll come any time soon

If you're on Android there's an app, GPS Test that shows you a chart with all the signals it's picking up with different symbols for each system and a filter too. My phone is currently picking up 5 GPS, 4 GLONASS, 8 Galileo, and even 3 Beidou sat signals (I'm in Western Europe).

Also you should be able to look up your phone specifications to see what GNSS services it's capable of using on GSMArena

Edit:oh I missed that you're on Apple so that app is useless for you. Still might be of some use to others though.

Re: BPS is a GPS alternative that nobody's heard of

#69

Post by Scoundreller »

jeffbee wrote: post #35
lxgr wrote: post #21

High-power, and ideally authenticated, alternatives to space-based GNSS are desperately needed, given the sharp uptick in jamming and spoofing incidents in many places. In a true "end of history" moment, the US and other NATO members discontinued both of their ground-based systems (which are inherently harder to jam due to their much higher transmission power, since transmitters are not power limited) – Omega in the…

A university of Texas research group demonstrated more than ten years ago that they could spoof GPS in the vicinity of an automatically navigating UAV, and force it to land at a point of their choosing. This has been within the reach of garage hackers for a long time.

Now the UAV needs to track where the signal is coming from. “Hey, this isn’t coming from the sky, what gives”

Re: BPS is a GPS alternative that nobody's heard of

#70

Post by Calwestjobs »

skissane wrote: post #27

Is there any DVB-T equivalent?

Czech technical university - 2018 - https://www.radioeng.cz/fulltexts/2018/18_04_1155_1165.pdf

But concepts are translatable to other technologies, for example mobile phone network signals (even without decrypting it) which in most populated areas can have hundreds frequencies by itself.

there are literally literally thousands of radio signals around us which can be used for various unintended / non-cooperative purposes. also not only ground based signals, satellites are transmitting all kinds of signals towards earth, some for communication, some for remote sensing / earth observation.

Or not only is it possible to use non-cooperative signals for timing, but also for passive radar. For example DVB-T - you receive bounces/echoes of signal from airplanes, drones and measure its characteristics.

NATO public document - UAV Detection and Localization Using Passive DVB-T Radar MFN and SFN - https://www.sto.nato.int/publications/STO%20Meeting%20Procee...

Good community is around GNURadio, they have all kinds of enthusiast and profesional usecases, explorations, videos, ...

Or just simple 30$ RTL-SDR + laptop, you can sit next to road and listen for tire pressure monitoring sensors data, they contain unique ids, so you can know when postman enters your street...

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