The European Commission’s Directorate General for Defence Industry and Space (DEFIS) issued a call for tender in December 2020 to evaluate seven state‑of‑the‑art alternative positioning, navigation and timing (A‑PNT) platforms. The Joint Research Centre (JRC) acted as scientific lead and carried out an eight‑month testing campaign that began in September 2021 and concluded in early 2022. The tests, conducted at JRC facilities and at additional sites suggested by the platform providers, assessed both timing and positioning performance under static and kinematic conditions, indoors and outdoors. Positioning accuracy achieved by the tested systems ranged from meter‑level precision for Satelles and Nextnav to centimetre‑level accuracy for Locata when a more complex approach was employed. Timing performance was measured against a 10‑⁶ s requirement. Only GMV and Satelles were able to generate or maintain UTC time for over 100 days. Other providers demonstrated GNSS‑independent time transfer but could not sustain UTC without supplementary atomic clocks or a connection to a National Metrological Institute (NMI). SCPTime, for example, could guarantee UTC at 10‑³ s without GPS and 10‑⁶ s with a GPS receiver at the user end, offering up to 24 hours of 10‑⁶ s backup; however, the company is now winding down. GMV’s solution relied on two Passive Hydrogen Maser time chains and fixed telecommunication networks, achieving the 10‑⁶ s target but with a single point of failure and dependence on third‑party hardware. Satelles already operates a LEO‑based UTC distribution system, requiring no further research and development in Europe. The report concludes that the main limitation of current A‑PNT technologies is the provision of UTC, for which NMIs represent the most resilient, cost‑efficient, and precise source. It recommends a system‑of‑systems approach that combines multiple PNT infrastructures to achieve continuous, resilient service, rather than relying on a single technology. The analysis also notes that the 10‑⁶ s timing accuracy requirement may be too lenient for emerging sectors such as autonomous driving, data centres, and smart cities, where 10‑⁹ s precision could become necessary. Legacy systems may also struggle to meet the cybersecurity standards demonstrated by the tested platforms.

The project was funded by the European Commission and coordinated by the JRC, which provided the testing facilities, test plan, and data analysis. The seven A‑PNT providers—Satelles, Nextnav, Locata, GMV, SCPTime, and two others not named in the excerpt—participated as contractors, supplying their systems for evaluation and supplying technical documentation. The JRC’s role encompassed scientific oversight, experimental design, and compilation of the final report released in March 2023. The report also outlines three implementation scenarios for A‑PNT deployment across the EU: a baseline scenario with no action, a single‑technology deployment at local, national, or EU‑wide scales, and a market‑driven system‑of‑systems scenario that the report recommends. The recommendation includes concrete actions for the Commission to provide budget commitments and long‑term plans to stimulate industry investment, as well as “low‑hanging fruit” initiatives to strengthen the EU PNT ecosystem and enhance Europe’s global standing. The collaboration between the Commission, the JRC, and the A‑PNT providers demonstrates a coordinated effort to assess and advance resilient navigation and timing solutions for critical European infrastructure.