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Positioning, navigation and timing

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Architecture
How positioning, navigation and timing is built.

One reference architecture under every deployment: the layers of a site, the protocol functions this platform relies on, and the evidence that travels with every observation.

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Areas · 5 Technologies · 59 Industries · 6

At a glance

GNSS positioning and augmentation

In Positioning, navigation and timing, the GNSS positioning and augmentation layer holds multi-constellation, multi-frequency receivers, RTK networks and NTRIP and PPP and PPP-RTK, each drawn against the standard it follows. Receivers using GPS, Galileo, GLONASS, BeiDou and regional systems on several frequencies for accuracy and robustness.

问题所在

Where and when, with the error bound

This page shows how Positioning, navigation and timing is put together, layer by layer, from the instrument to the record. GNSS reference stations tied to the geodetic frame, PTP and SyncE time distribution engineered to the budget, grandmasters and holdover that ride through outages, and resilient PNT that finds jamming and spoofing before a timestamp goes wrong.

Components

  • Geodetic GNSS station on a deep-drilled braced monument (generic class, no brand)
  • Robotic total station in a monitoring shelter
  • Slope stability radar on a trailer
  • Haul truck with onboard network and autonomy kit
  • Private LTE mast on a solar skid
  • “AI tower in a box”
  • PTP grandmaster clock with GNSS antenna
  • Data hall row pair with cold-aisle containment

Interfaces

Time and position
GNSS 1PPS

Where it works

  • Spectrum monitoring and interference management
  • Interference, jamming and spoofing detection

In the story below

  1. The system, part by part
  2. Assembly
  3. Installation
  4. Deployment
  5. Connections
  6. 运行
  7. Failure and recovery
  8. Scale and federation
  9. What you get

Scenes · 13

Next steps

Plan a deploymentOpen the Field Deployment StudioSee Positioning, navigation and timing
  1. Positioning, navigation and timing · Architecture

    Where and when, with the error bound

    This page shows how Positioning, navigation and timing is put together, layer by layer, from the instrument to the record. GNSS reference stations tied to the geodetic frame, PTP and SyncE time distribution engineered to the budget, grandmasters and holdover that ride through outages, and resilient PNT that finds jamming and spoofing before a timestamp goes wrong.

  2. Architecture · Spectrum, timing and PNT

    GNSS positioning and augmentation

    In Positioning, navigation and timing, the GNSS positioning and augmentation layer holds multi-constellation, multi-frequency receivers, RTK networks and NTRIP and PPP and PPP-RTK, each drawn against the standard it follows. Receivers using GPS, Galileo, GLONASS, BeiDou and regional systems on several frequencies for accuracy and robustness.

  3. Architecture · Spectrum, timing and PNT

    Spectrum regimes and access

    In Positioning, navigation and timing, the spectrum regimes and access layer holds exclusive licensed spectrum, tiered shared access and local and light licensing, each drawn against the standard it follows. Auctioned or assigned spectrum licences with defined areas, terms and conditions, used for public mobile networks.

  4. Architecture · Spectrum, timing and PNT

    Spectrum monitoring and interference management

    In Positioning, navigation and timing, the spectrum monitoring and interference management layer holds fixed, transportable and mobile monitoring stations, spectrum occupancy measurement and emitter location, each drawn against the standard it follows. Calibrated receivers and antennas that measure what is actually on air around a site or region.

  5. Architecture · Spectrum, timing and PNT

    Resilient PNT

    In Positioning, navigation and timing, the resilient PNT layer holds resilient PNT frameworks, terrestrial radionavigation and time over fibre, each drawn against the standard it follows. Structured ways to assess and raise how well equipment resists, detects and recovers from PNT disruption.

  6. 运作方式

    From instrument to record

    In a network for Positioning, navigation and timing, the base node stands between the instrument and the link: it checks each value, stamps its time and place and signs it. The edge refuses any record for Positioning, navigation and timing whose signature fails, and the core keeps every admitted record with its metadata, its quality flag and its licence.

  7. 信任

    Proved before it is trusted

    A network for Positioning, navigation and timing admits a node only once its hardware root of trust has answered an attestation challenge, whoever supplied it. Signed software, keys kept in secure hardware and a signature on every record let anyone check where a value for Positioning, navigation and timing came from.

  8. Architecture · Spectrum, timing and PNT

    Grandmasters, reference clocks and holdover

    In Positioning, navigation and timing, the grandmasters, reference clocks and holdover layer holds PRTC and enhanced PRTC, primary reference clocks for frequency and atomic and quartz oscillators, each drawn against the standard it follows. GNSS-traceable time references at 100 ns or 30 ns accuracy that anchor a timing network.

  9. Architecture · Spectrum, timing and PNT

    Interference, jamming and spoofing detection

    In Positioning, navigation and timing, the interference, jamming and spoofing detection layer holds GNSS interference monitoring, spoofing detection and jammer location to support enforcement, each drawn against the standard it follows. Fixed sensors that detect and characterise GNSS interference near critical sites; detection and reporting only.

  10. Failure and recovery

    When a node fails, the fleet knows first

    A failure on a network for Positioning, navigation and timing is caught by the fleet before anyone reports it: the node buffers its data and fails over where it can. The responder for Positioning, navigation and timing gets the evidence with the alert, and the record neither loses data nor counts it twice.

  11. Architecture · Spectrum, timing and PNT

    Packet timing: PTP, SyncE and NTP

    In Positioning, navigation and timing, the packet timing: PTP, SyncE and NTP layer holds Precision Time Protocol, telecom profile with full timing support and telecom profile with partial timing support, each drawn against the standard it follows. The base protocol for distributing time and phase over packet networks.

  12. What you get

    Open where it can be, contracted where it must be

    What is open for Positioning, navigation and timing is free: the protocol, the methods and the open data can be used and built on by anyone. What must be contracted for Positioning, navigation and timing, sites, fleets, managed operations and data tiers, Nexus Observatory Inc. delivers at a price per site and per fleet, with service levels in numbers.

  13. Next step

    Positioning, navigation and timing, planned with you

    Tell us which layers of Positioning, navigation and timing you already run and which you want us to design and deliver. An engineer replies with a survey proposal, a design and a scope for Positioning, navigation and timing, and the plan grows from one site to the network you need.

    Plan a deploymentOpen the Field Deployment StudioSee Positioning, navigation and timing

More presentations

See it from every side.

Each opens as a full-screen presentation: deeper pages on the same subject, explainers, stories, guided tours of the places, network scenes and the observatories that came before.

All presentations

In depth

Use case Highway corridor coverage and safety sensingUse case Utility grid-edge private LTE and wildfire weatherUse case Wildfire camera and fire-weather nodeUse case Community cellular and sensing

Explainers

Explainer · Environment and climate Environment and climate — SectorsMethane fencelines, acoustic biodiversity grids, flux towers, river sondes and smoke networks: an interactive explainer with the method behind every number.Explainer · Communities and rural Communities and ruralCommunity cellular coverage on real terrain, fixed-wireless Fresnel clearance, corridors, a remote microgrid sized from its load and interim public-safety broadband.平台 Positioning, navigation and timingA wrong timestamp is a wrong answer平台 Sensors & instrumentsA number without its story

Stories

Story · Timing and PNT Time as infrastructureA 5G cell must hold its phase within 3 µs of its neighbours, ±1.5 µs of a common reference; a synchrophasor’s one per cent vector error leaves room for only…Story · Mountains and avalanche terrain Snowpack, slope and signalAvalanche forecasting reasons about the likelihood and size of avalanches on given terrain. The observations behind it come from a few stations in hard…Story · 6G and sensing Networks that senseThe framework for 6G names integrated sensing and communication as one of its usage scenarios: the same radio that carries data also measures range,…

Places and networks

Guided tour · Guided 3D tour Arctic stationA self-powered station on the ice: a microgrid, a low-orbit satellite terminal, a weather station, a GNSS monument and an edge node that holds data through the polar night.Guided tour · Guided 3D tour Orbit viewGround tracks of a sun-synchronous imager and three shells of a broadband constellation, computed from their orbits over a rotating Earth.Guided tour · Guided 3D tour Coastal portCoastal radar and AIS watch the approach, a met-ocean buoy reports the sea state, and crane-side edge compute closes the control loop on a private network.Network scene · NTN · Satellite Satellite direct to device in a mountain valleyWhere the valley cell cannot reach, phones on the pass road connect straight to a low-orbit satellite, which relays through its feeder link to a gateway.Network scene · Private 5G · Port Private 5G at a container portSmall cells on the yard lighting masts and a sector site on the operations building serve remote-controlled cranes and trucks among steel container stacks.

Heritage observatories

Heritage observatory · Germany · 1781 Hohenpeißenberg Meteorological ObservatoryA mountain-top weather station in Bavaria that has recorded without a break since 1 January 1781, started as a node of the first international weather society.Heritage observatory · World ocean · 1999 Argo profiling float arrayAbout four thousand small robots drift through the oceans, sinking to 2,000 metres every ten days and rising to report temperature and salinity by satellite.

Interactive tools

Interactive tool · Plan a site Field Deployment StudioTerrain, devices, coverage, viewshed, power and the best spot for a station, then a deployment request with the plan attached.

01Reference architecture

From one instrument to the grid.

Every deployment is drawn on the same six layers. A typed contract sits at every boundary, so parts from different makers fit together.

  1. 01InstrumentThe sensor or radio that makes the measurement, with its calibration.
  2. 02NodeThe device that hosts instruments: identity, time, power and storage.
  3. 03站点Nodes in one place, on one mast or in one shelter, with their links.
  4. 04CellSites that share a backhaul, a power plan and an operator.
  5. 05ClusterCells run as one service, with one fleet plan and one evidence trail.
  6. 06GridClusters that federate across owners through the open protocol.
01加入Identity, attestation quote, signed policy.02AdmitAdmitted for a stated scope, nothing wider.03描述What, where, how and by whom, with calibration.04TimeOne clock across the grid, with its error bound.05ObserveEvery value with quality and provenance.06QualifyTested against the specification, state on record.07FederateSigned exchange across grids and trust domains.08OrchestrateSoftware and configuration by signed plan.09CorrectA correction marks what depends on it and publishes a new version.10ExchangeProducts reach people and applications through versioned interfaces.11ProveSigned proof receipts that an independent verifier can check.12Exit and decommissionAn open exit path, and a record that closes.

The protocol functions this platform relies on most.

02Trust and evidence

Every observation carries its proof.

What a buyer, a regulator or a partner grid can check, on every site we build.

证据

Identity and attestation

Hardware-rooted identity, with a quote checked at every join.

证据

Segmentation

Least privilege between nodes, tenants and sites.

证据

Time integrity

Every clock monitored, every holdover logged.

证据

Evidence bundles

What was done, by whom, with what result.

证据

Qualification state

Each device and release, with the tests behind it.

证据

Signed plans

Software and configuration change only by a signed plan.

03Read further

The open specification behind it.

Observatory Protocol

Specification

Functions, state machines, objects and flows. Read →
Observatory Protocol

Reference designs

Nodes and sites drawn to the protocol. Read →
Observatory Protocol

符合性

Run the suite against an implementation. Read →

04本站内容

Where to go next.

Positioning, navigation and timing

领域

Every area, with its systems and standards. Open →
Positioning, navigation and timing

Technologies

The layered map of what we build with. Open →
Positioning, navigation and timing

Industries

The industry sites built on this platform. Open →
Positioning, navigation and timing

资源

Explainer, stories, specification and forms. Open →

Bring us the site.

We bring the survey, the design and the crew. The form names who receives your details.

Plan a deployment联系

How positioning, navigation and timing is built.

Bring us the site.

We bring the survey, the design and the crew. The form names who receives your details.