Standards Development

Scope

(Please see the ISO/IEC Directives, Part1, AnnexC, Clause C.4.3)

StandardizationinthefieldofPositioning,NavigationandTiming(PNT)servicesattheserviceandapplication level, including architectures, terminology, service frameworks, data structures, interfaces and service-level performance criteria and assurance requirements enabling interoperable, reliable, secure and resilient PNT services across multiple sectors.

The work addresses service-level concepts such as interoperability, integrity, resilience, and service frameworks for the provision and management of PNT services and PNT-related information.

Sector-specific technologies and standards already covered by existing ISO, IEC or other international committees are excluded.

Exclude: Standardization covered by

  ·        ISO/TC 8/SC 6: Navigation and ship operations

  ·        ISO/TC 20/SC 14: Space systems and operations

  ·        ISO/TC 22: Road vehicles

  ·        ISO/TC 23/SC 19: Agricultural electronics

  ·        ISO/TC 113/SC 5: Instruments, equipment and data management

  ·        ISO/TC 172/SC 6: Geodetic and surveying instruments

  ·        ISO/TC 204: Intelligent transport systems

  ·        ISO/TC 211: Geographic information/Geomatics

  ·        ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 6: Telecommunications and information exchange between systems                       

  ·        ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 27: IT Security techniques

  ·        ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 32: Data management and interchange

  ·        ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 38: Cloud Computing and Distributed Platforms

  ·        ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 41: Internet of Things and Digital Twin

  ·        ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 42: Artificial Intelligence

  ·        IEC/TC 80: Maritime navigation and radiocommunication equipment and systems                 

  ·        IEC/TC 100: Audio, video and multimedia systems and equipment

Purpose

(Please see the ISO/IEC Directives, Part 1, Annex C, Clause C.4.13)

Positioning, Navigation and Timing (PNT) services are emerging as a foundational digital infrastructure supporting modern economies, comparable in importance to telecommunications and geospatial information infrastructures. Rapid technological advances and the growing reliance on location and timing information are expanding the role of PNT services in ensuring safety, efficiency, sustainability and economic growth across many sectors.

Despite the increasing dependence on PNT technologies, there is currently no cross-sector international standardization framework addressing PNT services as a global service ecosystem. Existing standards typically address sector-specific technologies or applications, such as maritime navigation, aviation navigation, road transport or geospatial information systems. A dedicated ISO technical committee focusing on PNT services would therefore provide a neutral international platform to harmonize service-level standardization across industries.

PNT services enable a wide range of applications that support modern society. These include transportation and logistics, aviation, maritime navigation, rail and road transport, telecommunications network synchronization, financial transaction timing, energy grid management, environmental monitoring, disaster response, surveying, construction, agriculture, smart cities and infrastructure management. In manufacturing environments, PNT services also provide essential data enabling robots to learn and replicate human operational behaviors, supporting advanced manufacturing environments such as AI-enabled and highly automated production systems (“dark factories”).

Standardization for PNT services is crucial to ensure interoperability between different GNSS systems, enhancing global navigation accuracy, reliability, and safety. It also promotes consistent performance across various applications and industries, fostering international collaboration and widespread adoption of PNT technologies by supporting the responsible and widespread utilization of GNSS (including RNSS) as the primary foundation for PNT services. Examples of major GNSS programmes and related developments include:

• The United States operates GPS, continuously upgrading it for improved accuracy and reliability with the latest GPS III satellites.

• Russia's GLONASS is undergoing modernization with GLONASS satellites to enhance performance.

• The European Union's Galileo: OSNMA (Open Service Navigation Message Authentication), managed by the European Union Agency for the Space Program, aims to provide highly accurate positioning and timing information, with a focus on interoperability with other systems.

• China's BeiDou system has expanded globally, enhancing its precision and reliability.

• Japan's QZSS and India's NavIC focus on regional services with plans for broader applications.

• Republic of Korea's KPS (Korean Positioning System) is being developed to provide high-precision positioning services over the Korean Peninsula.

Satellite-Based Augmentation Systems (SBAS) are designed to augment GNSS providing corrections and integrity by broadcasting additional signals from SBAS satellites. They are deployed worldwide: Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS) in North America, European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service (EGNOS) in Europe, MSAS in Japan, GAGAN in India, SDCM in Russia, KASS in South Korea, BDSBAS in China, ASECNA/AFI SBAS in Africa, and Southern Positioning Augmentation Network (SouthPAN) in Australia and New Zealand.

In addition, inertial navigation system (INS), cellular and terrestrial network-based positioning, optical and visual navigation, GNSS augmentation including precise point positioning (PPP), PPP-RTK (Real-Time Kinematic), SBAS, etc. are to be utilized as the means of generating PNT data.

However, despite the existence of these technologies, existing standards are largely limited to system-level or sector-specific approaches, and there is currently no international standardization framework addressing PNT services from a cross-system and cross-sector service perspective. This gap highlights the need for a dedicated ISO Technical Committee to develop harmonized standards for interoperable, reliable and trusted PNT services.

PNT services also support the monitoring and management of moving objects and infrastructures across their lifecycle, enabling improved safety, operational efficiency and environmental sustainability. By supporting efficient transportation systems, smart infrastructure management and real-time environmental monitoring, PNT services contribute to global efforts to reduce emissions and improve resource efficiency.

The proposed ISO Technical Committee focuses on service-level standardization of PNT services rather than technology-specific systems, thereby complementing existing standardization activities in sectors such as space, transport, geospatial information and telecommunications. Through these activities, international standardization of PNT services can contribute to improving safety, sustainability and quality of life while supporting innovation and economic development across multiple industries.

PNT services apply to a wide range of moving objects and infrastructures across multiple sectors worldwide throughout their lifecycle (or lifetime) from origin to destination, providing powerful tools for improving efficiency, safety and environmental sustainability. In particular, the monitoring and validation of PNT data is becoming increasingly critical for ensuring service integrity, reliability and resilience across safety-critical and large-scale applications.

- Monitoring and recording the moving objects: for ensuring they are safe, efficient and environmentally sustainable during the process of staying and moving from the origin to destination

- Certification and management of movement-related records: including life records (living things), aging records (non-living things), mobile (moving) records (by walking, driving, flying, delivering, etc.), traceability records, movement history, operational logs, and environmental performance data (e.g. mileage, emissions)

- Early and real-time warning mechanisms: signal interference detections (i.e. jamming and spoofing), solar activities and space weather warnings, geographical event detections, disaster detections at different levels such as national, regional as well as global

Based on the ISO Open Consultation, the need for new standards has been identified across emerging cross- sector PNT service domains, including: 

• Digital PNT records by location with respect to timing for;

- Living things (human being, animal, livestock, pet, etc.): Throughout their lifetime from origin to destination while moving in a certain amount of time

- Non-living things (transport means, goods, infrastructure and facilities, etc.): Throughout their lifecycle (from the time of being manufactured/constructed to time of being disused/junked/ demolished).

• PNT Service Levels for;

- Location accuracy: milli/centimetre (or feet), meter, decameter, hectormeter, kilometer (or mile)

- Timing accuracy: nano/micro/millisecond, second, minute, hour, day, week, month, year

- Navigation interval: real-time or non-real-time.

• PNT Service Requirements for;

- Accuracy: Measure of PNT output deviation from truth

- Integrity: Ability of a service to provide timely warnings when the system should not be used for service

- Continuity: Likelihood that the PNT service supports accuracy and integrity requirements for duration of intended operation

- Availability: Fraction of time PNT service is usable (as determined by compliance with accuracy, integrity, and continuity requirements)

- Resistance to interference: privacy and cybersecurity

- Independence: user equipment and ground infrastructure

- Interoperability among PNT-capable systems: Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and UWB communications

- Information on reliability and safety.

The proposed technical committee will provide a global platform for coordinated cross-sector standardization of PNT services. International coordination through ISO will enable harmonized development of PNT service standards and support global interoperability of PNT-enabled systems. The need for this work has been demonstrated through the ISO Open Consultation process, which involved 46 national standards bodies and approximately 260 experts worldwide.

PNT services can help improve people's lives globally by enabling safer, greener and more efficient management of moving objects, infrastructure and logistics, contributing to several UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Table1SpecificManifestationsoftheContributionofPNTServicestotheAchievementoftheUNSDGs