GNSS-Independent timing for Australian Defence operations at sea, in the air and on the ground

Jamming and spoofing are no longer exceptional events. GNSS signals are low-power and unencrypted by design, and adversaries understand that.

For naval frigates and submarines, a disrupted timing reference means inertial navigation drift, degraded sonar and radar sensor fusion, and loss of synchronisation across encrypted fleet communications.

For air and ground operations, the same disruption compromises UAV coordination, electronic warfare systems, ISR capabilities, and blue force tracking. When the timing reference is unreliable, every dependent system is affected.

Defence organisations around the world are reassessing how much operational risk they are prepared to carry from GNSS reliance. The question is no longer whether it is a vulnerability. It is what replaces it.

CoverTel is the authorised Australian partner for Oscilloquartz, whose aPNT+ platform delivers assured positioning, navigation and timing across maritime, air, and ground domains.

Built on a zero-trust architecture, aPNT+ draws from multiple independent inputs including GNSS, fibre, Low Earth Orbit satellites, atomic clocks, and Iridium Satellite Time and Location services.

AI-driven threat detection identifies jamming and spoofing in real time, with automatic failover to uncompromised sources. The platform integrates directly with naval combat management systems, secure data links, and electronic warfare networks.

aPNT+ was independently validated at Jammertest 2024 in Norway, a public testing environment specifically designed to evaluate PNT resilience against live jamming and spoofing conditions. Key products including the OSA 5422 and OSA 5430 grandmaster clocks, along with the OSA 5401 and OSA 5405 small form factor solutions purpose-built for combat aircraft and UAVs, were evaluated against adversarial conditions. The results are publicly documented and available for independent review.

Australian Defence has already made its own assessment of Oscilloquartz hardware. As utilised by Australian Defence's Science and Technology Group at its Adelaide facility, the OSA 3300 HP optical cesium clock serves as the time and frequency reference for advanced PNT research. It is the first deployment of optical cesium technology within Australian defence research infrastructure.

As an Australian-owned company with an established record of supplying NATO-certified products to the Australian Defence Force, CoverTel brings local expertise in PNT integrity consulting, compliance, and synchronisation audit services. This includes the test and measurement tools needed to verify and monitor timing infrastructure performance both before and after deployment. 

The solution lays the groundwork for defence systems that rely on precise, dependable timing, from secure communications to advanced sensing and navigation. It supports both operational readiness and the longer-term research needed to build greater timing autonomy into Australia's defence capabilities.

To explore CoverTel's full Oscilloquartz aPNT+ capability for Australian Defence, visit: www.covertel.com.au/products/assured-pnt-solution