Researchers Find Way to Use Starlink Signals As Alternative to GPS
The research, which was sponsored by the Army Research Office, shows Starlink could be used as a backup to the US's Global Positioning System.
Despite the rejection, Humphrey’s team went ahead with their research and managed to analyze the signal structure for Starlink downlink beams in the 10.7 to 12.7GHz band. “We further identified four synchronization sequences that can be used to passively exploit Starlink signals for pseudorange-based positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT), and explicitly evaluated two of these,” his team wrote in their non-peer reviewed
paper.
Starlink can be used as a GPS-like system since the satellites are routinely beaming signals to Earth’s surface. Hence, a receiver on the ground can analyze these signals, and calculate the distance from a Starlink satellite, to pinpoint its location on the planet.
According to
MIT Technology Review, Humphrey's team used the Starlink satellites to locate a receiver within about 30 meters. That still isn’t as accurate as GPS, which can locate a device, such as a smartphone, within 5 meters or less. But if SpaceX were to cooperate with Humphrey, the accuracy of the Starlink-powered positions system could improve to less than a meter.
On Friday, Musk himself weighed in on the research. "Starlink can obviously offer far more robust positioning than GPS, as it will have ~1000X more satellites over time," he wrote in a
tweet. "Not all will have line of sight to users, but still >10X GPS & far stronger signal. Just not today’s problem."
