GNS-denied locating and the European Defense Hackathon 👩🏻‍💻

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Jannic Meyer, Jack Wang & Matthias Joest
June 27, 2024

Welcome 🇪🇺

This week we are happy to have Matthias Jöst writing about a seminal topic on location technologies in conflict zones.

With over 25 years of experience in the field of location-based services, Matthias is passionate about creating seamless access to location data for a better world. Besides running an own startup for locating services - called Flowcate - he serves as committee for the open locating standard – within the non-profit industry association PROFIBUS and PROFINET International – PI and contributes to various other industry initiative to shape the understanding of location data in industry.

We’re also supporting the inaugural European DefenceTech Hackathon in Munich this week. If you want to meet us, sign up here.

Yours,
Uwe, Jack and Jannic

The Resilience Conference 🇪🇺🇬🇧

We are excited to be supporting the Resilience Conference in London in 26 - 27th of September. You can find a full list of amazing speakers here including Mike Butcher from TechCrunch, Blythe Crawford from Air and Space Warfare Center, UK Royal Airforce as well as GPs from funds like General Catalyst, DCVC and of course our very own Uwe Horstmann.

Learn more and apply for a ticket: https://www.resilienceconference.io/

Resilient Locating in Conflict Zones

Positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) services provided by Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS), such as the European Galileo and the USA Global Positioning System (GPS), are foundational to our society and economy. For the European Union (EU) alone, the economic benefits from GNSS between 1999 and 2027 are projected to reach €2 trillion, creating over 100,000 highly skilled jobs.

GNSS is indispensable across various sectors, including mobility, logistics, energy infrastructures, telecommunications, and financial networks within the EU. Additionally, precise geo-location data is vital for operational forces in areas of conflict or during natural disasters.

Despite the undeniable benefits and widespread adoption of GNSS, it is essential to acknowledge potential vulnerabilities. GNSS systems can be disrupted maliciously through jamming as seen in the Ukraine or recently in the Baltic Sea.

Figure 1: GPS Jamming on Flight Radar – www.flightradar24.com/gps-jamming

To ensure the resilience of GNSS, several mitigation strategies can be employed:

  • Utilizing terrestrial base services like EGNOS to increase location precision while detecting and counteract malicious GNSS signals.

  • Enhancing GNSS-based locating with other locating technologies, such as:

    • Incorporating carrier-based signals.

    • Deploying sensors like cameras in drones for self-locating and mapping (SLAM).

    • Utilizing the earth's magnetic field for additional navigational data.

    • Further satellite signals, e.g. coming from low-earth satellites

In 2023 the European Commission published “The European Radionavigation Plan” that aims to identify future trends and challenges, also outlining how the EU position navigation and timing (PNT) ecosystem can become more resilient by utilizing multiple sources of position and time.

In addition to a combination of existing technologies for more robust locating, also novel locating approach appear on the horizon. The UK has successfully completed commercial flight trials of advanced quantum-based navigation systems that cannot be jammed or spoofed by hostile actors. Infleqtion, a quantum technology firm, in collaboration with aerospace companies BAE Systems and QinetiQ, completed the trials at MoD Boscombe Down in Wiltshire, with Science Minister Andrew Griffith aboard the final test flight on Thursday 9 May.

  • The UK has successfully completed commercial flight trials of advanced quantum-based navigation systems that cannot be jammed or spoofed by hostile actors. Infleqtion, a quantum technology firm, in collaboration with aerospace companies BAE Systems and QinetiQ, completed the trials at MoD Boscombe Down in Wiltshire, with Science Minister Andrew Griffith aboard the final test flight on Thursday 9 May.

  • Early research highlights the potential usage of cosmic-ray muons for navigation purposes. Cosmic-ray muons have a relativistic, ad penetrative nature and can be received even underground. Using those kind radiation would by nature been uneffected by any jamming.

Locating technologies are advancing rapidly across multiple fronts, enhancing the precision and reliability of positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) services.

Relying on a single technology poses significant risks, making it crucial to integrate multiple systems for resilience. Combining satellite-based systems like GNSS and low-earth orbit satellites (LEOS) with ground-based signals such as EGNOS, and additional technologies like carrier-based locating or SLAM, is essential. It is encouraging to see Europe establishing a resilient locating infrastructure, ensuring the continuity and reliability of these vital services.

European DefenceTech Hackathon 🧑‍💻

Project A supports the inaugural European DefenceTech Hackathon taking place this week in Munich from 28-30th of June 2024. The Hackathon is aimed at innovators at the intersection of deeptech and dual-use in Europe and will be focused on prototyping and validating ideas around defensive and life-preserving tech. Together with d3, inflection, ARX Robotics, Auterion, Entrepreneur first, Helsing, Bundeswehr University, Tytan Technologies and TUM Venture Labs, we want to bridge the gaps between technologists, the public sector, investors, and operators in dual-use and defense technology. Sign up here to participate.

News That Caught Our Attention 👀

  • Rebooting the American Industrial Base: Software and the Future of Manufacturing - American Affairs

  • AirForce seeks on-board against small drones. - BreakingDefense

  • The British-Baltic Defense Model - Cepa

  • The EU’s fresh designs for funding a defense resurgence - DefenseNews

  • Lockheed Martin subsidiaries reach $70 million settlement for claims they overcharged Navy for parts - AP News

Every week we feature a list of interesting roles in European DefenceTech start-ups and scale-ups for readers seeking their next challenge in their careers.

If you are a founder and would like to promote your open roles, please get in touch with us!

Passionate and want to contribute? 👩🏻‍💻

The European Resilience Tech Newsletter is always looking for regular and guest authors, writers, reporters, content creators etc. If you like what you read, you are passionate about improving European resilience regardless of your background and want to contribute, just reach out to us!

European Resilience Tech Newsletter Team

Uwe Horstmann co-founded Project A Ventures in 2012 as General Partner and has built Project A to be a leading European early stage investor with over $1bn USD under management and having backed 100+ founders. In addition to Project A, Uwe serves as Reserve Officer in the German armed forces and advises the German Ministry of Defence in digital transformation issues.

Jack Wang is a software engineer turned product driven tech investor and joined Project A in 2021 to lead the firm’s deep tech investing, which have grown to include DefenceTech. Prior to joining Project A, Jack worked in a variety of organisations such as Amazon and Macquarie Group across Australia, US and UK / Europe. Jack holds a MBA from London Business School and Bachelors of Engineering (Bioinformatics, 1st) from UNSW, Australia.

Jannic Meyer joined Project A initially contributing to what is now known as the Project A Studio, partnering with founders at the pre-idea stage, where he covered a variety of topics ranging from energy infrastructure to dual-use robotics and led our investment in ARX Robotics. He is now part of the investment team at Project A covering all things resilience.

Project A Ventures is one of the leading early-stage tech investors in Europe with offices in Berlin and London. In addition to 1 billion USD assets under management, Project A supports its 100+ portfolio companies with a platform team over 140 functional experts in key areas such as software and product development, business intelligence, brand, design, marketing, sales and recruiting. Project A have backed founders of Trade Republic, WorldRemit, Sennder, KRY, Spryker, Catawiki, Unmind and Voi as well as founders building in European Resilience: