The government is being urged to invest in an updated version of
a radio system developed during the Second World War, as a back-up
to
GPS satellite navigation and
Galileo systems because of fears of
electronic interference, MPs have been told.
Loran
is less vulnerable to jamming than GPS and could protect vital
infrastructure after a terror attack, the all-party
Defence Committee
has been told.
Doug Umbers, whose firm runs an updated version of Loran for UK
coastguards said it was far more robust than GPS.
The Committee was quizzing a panel of defence industry
chiefs.
Asked about keeping communications going in the event of a
terrorist incident or other emergency, Mr Umbers said: "The last
man standing, typically, will be the high frequency radio
communications that we run, on behalf of the military."
But he said the low frequency Loran, which stands for Long Range
Navigation, could be used as a back-up to GPS.
GPS jammable
"GPS is quite jammable - very easily jammable," he said, adding
that a "biro" sized device could "stop ships in a port being able
to receive GPS".
But, he added, "you need a huge field of transmitters" to jam
Loran. It was "highly resilient and mission critical clearly, for
the maritime market, and could also have uses elsewhere".
Loran was originally developed during the Second World War as a
maritime navigation aid and is based on the principle of the time
difference between signals from a pair of radio transmitters.
Critics, who have called it for it to be switched off, say it is
not cost-effective as a navigation tool and has too few users.
But after nearly dying out a few years ago it is enjoying
renewed interest as a possible back-up system to GPS and Galileo,
the proposed European satellite guidance system.
Lighthouses
Mr Umbers' company, VT Communications,
last year landed a 15-year contract to develop enhanced Loran,
known as e-Loran, for the General Lighthouse Authorities (GLA) in
the UK, at its station in Cumbria.
Hand-held GPS jamming devices, aimed at drivers worried their
cars have been fitted with tracking devices, are available to buy
over the Internet.
But security experts are also concerned about the possibility of
more large scale jamming of GPS.
Satellite navigation systems underpin much of the world's
infrastructure, including financial markets, telecoms, power
generation and distribution as well as transport and the emergency
services.
The US Department of Homeland Security in February this year
announced it was developing a version of e-Loran to protect
critical infrastructure that depends on GPS for position,
navigation and timing.
Dr Sally Basker, the GLA's director of research and radio
navigation, urged European governments to follow suit.
She said Europe was the only part of the world now not
developing Loran as a back-up to satellite navigation systems.
Dr Basker said:"We all see that GPS and Galileo have the
potential to do great things and also how far satellite navigation
has got into our critical infrastructure but we also know that it
has some weaknesses."
She said Loran should be considered as a relatively inexpensive
complement to GPS and Galileo which, as the GLA's own jamming
trials had shown, was easily taken out of action, leaving ships
without navigation.
Jamming trials
The Ministry of Defence last year carried out a series of GPS
jamming trials to find out how interference could affect military
personnel.
In one test it jammed GPS over a 50 square mile area of Cornwall
over two days, warning emergency services and coastguards in
advance.
In a statement issued at the time, it said: "Although GPS
provides highly accurate information, the radio signals from the
satellite are extremely weak and are susceptible to both jamming
and unintentional radio interference.
"The trials are taking place to better understand these effects
on military equipment and therefore will help to protect our
forces."
Panel quizzed
The Commons defence committee, which is investigating UK
national security and resilience, quizzed a panel of five defence
industry experts at its evidence session on Tuesday.
Tony Baptiste, of Fujitsu UK,
said the electronics giant was trying to interest the British
government in an emergency radio system, of the type used by the US
authorities during the Hurricane Katrina emergency.
He said the system - which involves dropping radio and CCTV
receivers and transmitters into tunnels - could have been used
after the 7 July bomb attacks, when the emergency services found
they could not communicate underground.
All five industry experts being quizzed spoke of the difficulty
of finding a single point of contact for anti-terrorist procurement
in the government.
But they also agreed that a new Homeland Security department, of
the kind set-up in the US, was not necessary as the disruption
caused while setting it up would cancel out any advantage.