Challenges and Opportunities with Assured, Trusted, and Resilient Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT)
ABSTRACT
The challenges with positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) begin with our dependence on GPS and other Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) for everyday functions such as personal navigation (walking or driving), communication through cellular networks, banking functions, etc. The increasing threats to GPS through environmental or other means also create new opportunities for complementary solutions to create assurance, trust, and resilience for our dependence on satellite-based navigation services. These new opportunities open the possibilities to take advantage of new materials, algorithms, creating opportunities for AI/ML techniques and leveraging advances in quantum-based sensing to create long term solutions for trusted and assured PNT solutions.
BIOGRAPHY
Ronald G. Polcawich is a Program Manager detailed as the Army Service Representative to the Rapid Defense Experimentation Reserve (RDER) program within OUSD(R&E). Additionally, Dr. Polcawich is the Chief Engineer within the DEVCOM-ARL Quantum Information Science and Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (QIS-PNT) Essential Research Program (ERP). He received a B.S. in Materials Science and Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University (1997), and M.S. degree in Materials from Penn State University (1999), and a Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from Penn State University (2007). Previously, Dr. Polcawich served as a Program Manager at DARPA within the Microsystems Technology Office from 2017-2021. In his current role within RDER, Dr. Polcawich coordinates joint service proposal submissions for RDER funding and works across DEVCOM centers to support advances in Science and Technology to meet the needs of the Department of Defense and the Combatant Commands.
Dr. Polcawich is a senior member of IEEE, a member of the IEEE Ferroelectrics Committee and Technical Program Committee IV Applications of Ferroelectrics, serves on the advisory board for IEEE Inertial Sensors Conference, and services on the advisory board for the International Workshop on Piezoelectric MEMS.