Research Focus
Current and Continuing GPS/PNT Research
Stanford GPS Lab research advances accurate, trustworthy, and resilient position, navigation, and timing. Current and continuing work spans satellite- and ground-based augmentation, transportation safety, alternative PNT, precise timing, inertial sensing, and multi-constellation GNSS. Additional projects apply these technologies to rail systems, marine-animal tracking, and flexible software-defined receivers.
WAAS / SBAS
Satellite-based augmentation systems that monitor GNSS ranging errors and support high-integrity precision approaches and landings.
LAAS / GBAS
Ground-based differential GNSS corrections and integrity monitoring for all-weather aircraft navigation and precision landing.
Cyber Safety & Alternative PNT
Resilient navigation for automated transportation, including anti-spoofing, jamming resistance, geosecurity, and alternative PNT.
Time & Time Transfer
Methods for transferring precise time between ground and space to support advanced clocks and demanding scientific missions.
IMU Development & Testing
Inertial sensing and GNSS integration for continued navigation in buildings, tunnels, interference, and other signal-limited environments.
Multi-Constellation GNSS
Interoperable use of GPS, Galileo, BeiDou, GLONASS, QZSS, NavIC, and emerging satellite navigation signals.
Early GPS/PNT Research
The Lab’s foundational research in the 1990s and early 2000s helped demonstrate new uses of GPS across spacecraft, autonomous aircraft, precision landing, agriculture, integrity monitoring, and terrestrial navigation. This work established many of the ideas that now underpin modern safety-critical PNT systems.
Spacecraft Attitude & Translation Control
Pioneering use of GPS aboard Gravity Probe B for precision spacecraft orientation, translation, and orbit control.
Autonomous Aircraft
Early demonstrations of non-military GPS-guided autonomous aircraft and the foundations of modern UAV navigation.
Airplane Navigation & Landing
Flight tests using GPS, multiple antennas, and pseudolites for aircraft attitude, precision approaches, and automatic landing.
Precision Farming & Agriculture
GPS-enabled mapping and field management for crop yield, terrain, moisture, nutrients, and other spatially varying conditions.
Receiver Autonomous Integrity Monitoring
Fault detection using redundant GNSS measurements to protect safety-critical aviation and marine navigation applications.
eLORAN
Low-frequency terrestrial navigation and timing as a long-range, resilient complement or backup to satellite-based PNT.