欧空局NAVISP资助英国PNT数字孪生项目取得里程碑

How digital twins can strengthen the resilience of position, navigation and timing capabilities Earlier this year, the UK National PNT Digital Twin Environment (UPDATE) project, funded under the European Space Agency’s NAVISP programme, reached a key milestone in helping the United Kingdom understand and manage its dependence on positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) across critical national systems. Across Europe, reliance on satellite navigation continues to grow as power grids, financial transactions, telecommunications, transportation networks and defence operations all depend on stable and accurate position, navigation and timing (PNT) services. At the same time, threat activity is rising, with spoofing and jamming incidents becoming more frequent. When those services are disrupted, the impact is immediate and widespread, affecting operations, safety and economic activity. For the UK, even short disruptions can translate into significant financial and operational consequences. A 2023 report estimated that a week-long outage would cost the country up to £7.64 billion, with even a 24-hour one amounting to £1.42 billion, mainly in emergency services and road transportation. The challenge is not simply technical performance, but understanding where vulnerability exists, how disruption propagates across interconnected systems, and what actions can be taken to maintain continuity. The UPDATE project addresses this by providing a digital twin capability that allows government and stakeholders to model dependencies, assess risk, and test resilience strategies before disruption occurs. Rather than reacting to incidents, it enables informed decisions on how to prioritise mitigation measures, strengthen system resilience, and support national policy on PNT assurance. Through its Navigation Innovation Support Programme (NAVISP) Element 3, ESA is supporting this work as part of a broader effort to help Member States move from awareness of PNT risk to practical, deployable resilience measures aligned with national policy frameworks. This digital twin will provide virtual representations of various systems and services that could form the future British PNT system-of-systems, aggregating data from satellite systems such as GNSS and complementary systems such as eLoran, which offers navigation capabilities based on terrestrial towers, and the UK’s National Timing Centre, which provides accurate, resilient and secure timing, traceable to the global time scale, Coord…