GPS Alternatives: Another Conundrum for Army.

• Author: Magnuson, Stew

The Army in 2017 listed "the network" as one of its six modernization priorities. Included as a subset of that category was "precision navigation and timing."

As adversaries improve their ability to wage war in space and jam GPS signals, the service is contemplating how it will function if this crucial capability is degraded or eliminated.

Seth Spoenlein, deputy director of the space and terrestrial communications directorate at the Communications-Electronics Research, Development and Engineering Center, said the difficulty is that it's a different problem set for each of the Army's six modernization priorities: long-range fires, next-generation combat vehicle, future vertical lift, the network, air-and-missile defense and soldier lethality.

"Precision navigation and timing means something different to each of the six categories," he said at the National Defense Industrial Association's Army Science and Technology Conference. Long-range fires, for example, has an acute need for precise timing. Soldiers in the field are more concerned with...