From Spoofing Mitigation to Lunar Navigation: Three PNT Trends
There’s scarcely a part of our lives that isn’t touched by position, navigation and timing (PNT) technologies.
From ordering an Uber to tracking a parcel, from taking a flight to consulting the weather forecast, from making a video call to watching a TV show, GPS and other global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) let us know where we and other things are, and they keep streaming data in sync with ultra-precise timestamps.
3 macro trends driving the global PNT market
As new uses of PNT emerge, the technologies that deliver them must evolve. We’ve captured the current state of PNT evolution in our Keysight PNT Report 2026, examining macro and sector trends, key players, emerging technologies and evolving R&D approaches.
As a flavor of what’s included, here are the three macro trends we’ve identified as driving innovation and evolution in today’s global PNT market.
1. Increased PNT resilience: “protect, toughen, augment”
Worldwide reliance on PNT has its dark side: the risks to PNT technologies posed by natural and man-made threats. These range from deliberate jamming and spoofing to solar flares and storms, and even errors in the satellite constellations themselves.
Dr Brad Parkinson, the founding father of GPS, has often urged developers to “protect, toughen and augment” GPS and the systems that rely on it. In 2026, that’s translating into efforts like new anti-spoofing technologies, more sophisticated GNSS receivers, and tighter integration with cybersecurity programs.
New anti-spoofing technologies
Spoofing involves the over-the-air broadcast of counterfeit GNSS signals to trick receivers into reporting a false position. It’s now a common navigation warfare (NAVWAR) tactic used by nation states in conflict zones. However, the disruption often spills over into the commercial domain. The International Air Transport Association (IATA) saw a ‘deeply concerning’ 193% increase in spoofing incidents in 2025 from 2023, for example.
While spoofing attacks are typically carried out using ground-based transmitters, there’s some evidence that unknown actors have started to transmit spoofing signals from space, covering a wider area. At the same time, the many satellites now being launched into low Earth orbit (LEO) may be vulnerable to attack from powerful spoofers on the ground.
One trend in countering the spoofing threat is efforts to increase the sophistication of Controlled Reception Pattern Antennas (CRPAs). These military-grade anti-jam antennas have traditionally worked by steering antenna gain away from a jamming source, or steering a null towards the jammer. Now, many CRPAs can also steer gain away from signals arriving from suspicious elevations, providing a measure of protection against spoofing.
Multi-frequency, multi-GNSS receivers
The most vulnerable GNSS receivers are those that process signals from only one satellite constellation, such as GPS, on only one frequency, such as L1. Single-constellation, single-frequency receivers can be more easily overwhelmed by a frequency jammer, and can be more easily spoofed as the spoofer only needs to emulate the signals of one satellite system.
As a result, another resilience trend is the replacement of single-frequency, single-constellation receivers with multi-frequency, multi-GNSS models. Receivers that process signals on multiple frequencies and from multiple constellations aren’t just less vulnerable to jamming and spoofing, but also improve key performance measures like position accuracy and time to first fix, giving them widespread appeal.
Closer integration with cybersecurity initiatives
GNSS-derived PNT has traditionally fallen into the domain of RF engineering rather than information and communication technologies (ICT). The unfortunate result is that threats to PNT systems have often been left outside of organizations’ cybersecurity frameworks.
However, growing reliance on PNT by critical downstream applications – like financial trading platforms, energy distribution systems, emergency services dispatch and telecoms network management – is now seeing GNSS being brought into the cybersecurity fold.
The trend is accelerating due to new, government-level initiatives, including US Department of Homeland Security initiatives to increase the PNT resilience of critical national infrastructure, and the UK’s 10-point plan for improved national PNT resilience. The coming years are also likely to see GNSS-derived PNT brought within compliance frameworks for legislation like the EU Digital Operations Resilience Act (DORA). likely to see GNSS-derived PNT brought within compliance frameworks for legislation like the EU Digital Operations Resilience Act (DORA).
2. Complementary PNT delivered from low Earth orbit (LEO)
One of the buzziest new PNT domains is low Earth orbit (LEO), an altitude of c. 2,000 km. Interest in LEO-based PNT has accelerated rapidly since 2023, with around 2,400 LEO PNT satellites now in plan globally, although most constellations are still at the demo stage.
Rather than replacing existing GNSS constellations, LEO PNT is emerging as a complementary PNT (C-PNT) layer that combines with medium Earth orbit (MEO), geostationary (GEO) and terrestrial PNT systems to improve resilience, service availability and performance in environments where conventional GNSS is degraded.
Commercial ventures such as Xona Space Systems, together with government programs including ESA's Celeste mission, demonstrate a growing consensus that the future of PNT lies in a layered, interoperable architecture rather than reliance on a single satellite system. There are many opportunities to develop LEO PNT services and technologies as part of this architecture, and we expect to see considerable growth and innovation over the next few years.
3. Support for lunar navigation and space exploration
Some of the most exciting PNT developments are those supporting plans to build a permanent lunar presence and use the Moon as a launchpad for further space exploration.
In 2025, LuGRE, a GNSS receiver co-developed by NASA and the Italian Space Agency (ASI), successfully achieved GNSS fixes in lunar orbit as well as the first-ever fix on the Moon’s surface. While this showed that existing GNSS constellations can support lunar missions, however, it’s not reliable enough for sustained ‘Moon to Mars’ operations.
To that end, an international, NASA-led collaboration is working on developing a suite of dedicated lunar communications and PNT services. LunaNet will see the creation of an interoperable PNT satellite constellation in orbit around the Moon, including satellites from NASA’s LCRNS, the European Space Agency (ESA)’s Moonlight LCNS system, and JAXA’s Lunar Navigation Satellite System (LNSS). All will broadcast the Augmented Forward Signal (AFS), a new S-band navigation signal for use in cislunar space and on the lunar surface.
We’re already seeing interesting innovations emerge from these developments, including a 3D printer that uses concentrated sunlight and the Moon’s regolith (soil) to produce replacement parts. The need for technologies that support lunar and interplanetary missions will create many opportunities for developers of space-based technologies.
Read the full Keysight PNT Report 2026
For a comprehensive overview of the current state of the global PNT ecosystem, download the full Keysight PNT Report.