Dual-use personal NavCom service. Policy considerations for a combined military and civil service

The Global Positioning System (GPS) and Personal Communication Services (PCS) satellites are both information system technologies applicable to the mobile user. GPS, which was developed by the United States military, is one of the most successful dual-use systems. The size of the military GPS user equipment market currently is only a small fraction of the civilian market. GPS enables accurate timing, positioning, and navigation capabilities on a worldwide basis, whereas PCS satellites also enable worldwide communications. Military battlefield planners and participants have similar types of requirements for situational awareness involving both navigation and wireless data communication. Current world political situations require an effective military network centric global grid, which maximizes information superiority for the US and our allies. Shared communication links and the PVT (position, velocity and time) strengths of GPS create many opportunities (many yet to be conceived) for improved mission effectiveness. Agreed upon overlapping elements of constituent civil and military navigation and communication systems can be integrated into a common infrastructure. Open system PNS standards illustrate some of these shared architecture concepts (1999). With a dual-use system, there are several issues, which need to be resolved and these are discussed