Products and services providing actionable intelligence for critical infrastructure, law enforcement and services dependent on GPS
Lydbrook, Gloucestershire, UK, 19 November Just six months after completing the SENTINEL Research Project, Chronos is pleased to announce a range of GPS interference and jamming detection and monitoring products and services for critical infrastructure, law enforcement and services dependent on GPS and (in the future) Galileo signals for mission critical operations.
A portfolio of products and services are now available including hand-held and remotely operated sensors. Capabilities include hand-held monitoring and detection as well as 24×7 remote sensor monitoring with centralised web based viewing of events and email alerts. More feature rich capabilities include actual real-time geolocation both with hand-held units and remote sensor operations.
Prof. Charles Curry, Founder and Managing Director of Chronos Technology and leader of the SENTINEL collaboration explained. “The SENTINEL research project has clearly shown to Government agencies that GPS jamming from small, low-cost, commercially available GPS jamming devices is a clear and present threat. Now our research will enable organisations to assess their vulnerability to this threat so they can explore mitigation options. We are currently working with clients to roll-out rapidly deployable trial sensors in the vicinity of their operations for short periods such as two to three months and generally long enough for potential clients to determine the risk to their operations. We use 3G communications and are trialing the new 4G services at some locations where they are available.”
Curry added, “We see SENTINEL trials potentially leading to more extensive deployments of meshes of early warning sensors using technology jointly developed by Chronos and US-based partner Exelis Inc. These mesh networks known as Signal Sentry 1000™ networks can accurately geolocate a moving or stationary jammer. If the jammer comes to a standstill, security operatives using the Chronos CTL3520 hand-held detector can then be directed to the location, as directed by the Signal Sentry 1000™ operator, and accurately pinpoint the actual vehicle hosting the jammer in order to mitigate the threat.”
Prof. Curry explained, “A key feature of the system is the ability to reduce the data at source and just communicate the event signature back to the server. The earlier GAARDIAN project, also funded by the UK’s innovation agency, the Technology Strategy Board, focused on the data reduction challenge. SENTINEL dealt with the nature and extent of the problem, as well as discriminating between natural interference and actual jamming.”
He went on to say, “There is no doubt that without the assistance from the Technology Strategy Board grant, this research could not have been undertaken and we would not have worked so closely with academia and power-users of positioning, navigation and timing solutions. Not only have we built enduring relationships with UK businesses, this has enabled our technology to be showcased globally and has resulted in the partnering relationship with Exelis. Exelis is now marketing our 24×7 sensors as the field deployed part of their Signal Sentry 1000™ Interference and Geolocation product.”
Tim Just, Head of Space with the Technology Strategy Board, said "Chronos have had an enviable journey, from identifying a potential threat to their core business they engaged through our Knowledge Transfer Networks to find both the technologies that could help them address the threat but also to find partners who shared similar concerns. Not only have they developed a solution to address their own issues but have been able to turn this into a commercial service offering to others, developing international partnerships along the way.
In part the value of their project has not only been to prove their technologies but also to prove the threat, thereby validating their market as well as their technical solution"
About Chronos Technology
Chronos is recognised as a global expert in timing and synchronisation for telecoms, energy, broadcast and financial systems. Chronos’ business broadly forms three areas of activity: designer, manufacturer and exporter of electronic equipment; value added reseller for major non-UK suppliers of equipment and systems; and 24×7 support of critical infrastructure solutions including telecom network synchronisation and protection from GPS jamming. Chronos designs SyncWatch™, the most versatile sync testing and measurement solution available on the market today, and TimePort™, a low power, lightweight, portable device that maintains time to within a few hundred nanoseconds of Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) in GPS denied locations. Established in 1986, Chronos is also a global leader in GPS jamming and interference detection and location products and solutions and is a specialist technology company in the wider field of position, navigation and timing (PNT). Chronos supplies GNSS (GPS) products including receivers, recorders and simulators, and GNSS infrastructure (antennas, splitters, repeaters) for the distribution of GNSS RF signals into indoor environments in military and civilian applications. Chronos has developed a range of bespoke GPS timing products for time and frequency synchronisation introducing one of the world’s first GPS disciplined Chip Scale Atomic Clock products for OEM applications.
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The Technology Strategy Board is the UK’s innovation agency. Its goal is to accelerate economic growth by stimulating and supporting business-led innovation. Sponsored by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), the Technology Strategy Board brings together business, research and the public sector, supporting and accelerating the development of innovative products and services to meet market needs, tackle major societal challenges and help build the future economy.