Digital twins strengthen UK’s PNT resilience

News from the European Space Agency

Earlier this year, the UK National PNT Digital Twin Environment (UPDATE) project, funded under the European Space Agency’s NAVISP program, reached a key milestone in helping the United Kingdom understand and manage its dependence on positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) across critical national systems.

Across Europe, reliance on satellite navigation continues to grow as power grids, financial transactions, telecommunications, transportation networks and defence operations all depend on stable and accurate position, navigation and timing (PNT) services. At the same time, threat activity is rising, with spoofing and jamming incidents becoming more frequent.

When those services are disrupted, the impact is immediate and widespread, affecting operations, safety and economic activity.

For the UK, even short disruptions can translate into significant financial and operational consequences. A 2023 report estimated that a week-long outage would cost the country up to £7.64 billion, with even a 24-hour one amounting to £1.42 billion, mainly in emergency services and road transportation.

The challenge is not simply technical performance, but understanding where vulnerability exists, how disruption propagates across interconnected systems, and what actions can be taken to maintain continuity.

The UPDATE project addresses this by providing a digital twin capability that allows government and stakeholders to model dependencies, assess risk, and test resilience strategies before disruption occurs. Rather than reacting to incidents, it enables informed decisions on how to prioritise mitigation measures, strengthen system resilience, and support national policy on PNT assurance.

Through its Navigation Innovation Support Programme (NAVISP) Element 3, ESA is supporting this work as part of a broader effort to help Member States move from awareness of PNT risk to practical, deployable resilience measures aligned with national policy frameworks.

This digital twin will provide virtual representations of various systems and services that could form the future British PNT system-of-systems, aggregating data from satellite systems such as GNSS and complementary systems such as eLoran, which offers navigation capabilities based on terrestrial towers, and the UK’s National Timing Centre, which provides accurate, resilient and secure timing, traceable to the global time scale, Coordinated Universal Time (UTC).

Under Phase 1 of the UPDATE project in 2025, GMV defined the requirements, outlined the high-level architecture and established a development roadmap for the digital twin.

The contract for UPDATE Phase 2 was signed in January 2026 with GMV to lead a consortium for the development phase of the digital twin environment. Sub-contractors Skyral, QinetiQ, the University of Bath and the Satellite Applications Catapult will bring their specialised expertise to the project. 

“Assessment of resilience is the primary goal of the digital twin. The system will allow government planners to better understand the immediate risks associated with the country’s reliance on PNT services. It will allow them to assess the consequences of service disruptions and explore mitigation strategies to improve national resilience,” said Rafael Lucas Rodriguez, ESA’s Head of NAVISP.

Beyond immediate risk analysis, the digital twin will support long-term planning and future PNT deployments in the country. It will provide also data, models and simulations to inform decision as the UK evaluates PNT technology, services, applications and regulations.

“The project’s results will directly support the UK Government’s Policy Framework for Greater PNT Resilience, which outlines UK’s current and future priorities to strengthen PNT resilience across the critical national infrastructure and the wider economy, and to foster sustainable growth,” said Harshbir Sangha, Deputy Director for Satcoms & PNT at the UK Space Agency.

“The PNT Digital Twin will help to unlock new resilience and assurance services which can support government and national infrastructure in the UK and overseas. Our vision is to provide operators of complex systems which rely on PNT with the information they need to make informed decisions about how they manage risk, from assessment through to disaster recovery,” said William Roberts, division head PNT in UK, GMV.