Tschudi Shipping Company, NAL Research and SGM Technology have jointly introduced PntGuard, a maritime navigation safeguard designed to detect and counter GPS/GNSS spoofing and jamming at sea.
The system uses an alternative, authenticated positioning signal delivered over the Iridium low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellite network to provide a verified vessel position when standard bridge systems have been manipulated or disrupted.
According to the partners, spoofing and jamming incidents affecting commercial shipping are increasing and can lead to falsified vessel positions, incorrect AIS tracks, and potential violations of restricted or sanctioned areas—events that in turn create insurance, chartering and compliance risks for shipowners and operators. PntGuard is intended to give crews and shore offices a “single point of truth” on vessel location in those circumstances.
PntGuard consists of two units: an above-deck receiver that connects to the Iridium PNT service, and a below-deck bridge display that shows both the manipulated GNSS track and the corrected position on a nautical chart in real time. Because the PNT signal is received over LEO and at a higher power than GNSS, it is intended to remain available even when GNSS has been jammed or spoofed. The companies say the system is standalone and does not require integration with other bridge systems to operate.
The technology has been evaluated in multi-month sea trials with international shipowners, in a pilot program with Norwegian marine insurer DNK, and in two years of independent testing at the Jammertest event in Andøya, Norway, where PNT resilience solutions are assessed against interference.
PntGuard is the result of a three-way collaboration: Tschudi Shipping Company (Norway) bringing vessel-operations experience, NAL Research (Manassas, Virginia, USA) providing assured PNT technologies over Iridium, and SGM Technology AS (Oslo, Norway) contributing maritime digital/compliance systems. The system is being made commercially available for fleet-scale deployment.
