HAIC Talk with Heidi Kuusniemi

Resilient Positioning, Navigation and Timing: the Cybersecurity Frontier of Satellite Navigation — with Heidi Kuusniemi

Lecture description: Satellite navigation systems such as GPS and Galileo and the soon emerging Low Earth Orbit (LEO) based satellite navigation constellations form the invisible geospatial backbone of our digital society. The precise positioning and timing they provide underpin transportation and logistics, communications networks, energy grids, and countless other applications and services. Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) are, however, inherently vulnerable, since their open signals can be jammed or spoofed, turning trusted time and location data into potential attack vectors. The growing prevalence of threats has made resilient Positioning, Navigation and Timing (PNT) a critical cybersecurity frontier. This talk explores how cybersecurity principles intersect with satellite navigation across the signal, system and measurement layers. Real-world examples of jamming and spoofing incidents are presented alongside emerging countermeasures such as signal authentication, interference detection and mitigation, fault detection and exclusion (FDE), and multi-source multi-layer PNT architectures combining space-based, terrestrial and sensor inputs. The talk concludes with an outlook on Europe’s evolving geospatial initiatives including ESA’s Celeste LEO-PNT mission and Galileo’s authentication services and how they contribute to a more secure, trusted and resilient PNT ecosystem vital for e.g. critical infrastructures and autonomous systems.

About the speaker: Heidi Kuusniemi is a Professor of Wireless Systems at Tampere University, holding a joint professorship with the Finnish Geospatial Research Institute of the National Land Survey of Finland. Her research focuses on resilient positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) systems, including satellite navigation interference detection and mitigation and reliable multi-system and multi-sensor navigation. Her work bridges the domains of geospatial technology, wireless systems and cybersecurity, with the goal of ensuring trustworthy positioning and situational awareness from space to Earth. Prof. Kuusniemi has led numerous national and international research and development projects on localization resilience, sensor fusion, and the space economy. She is President of the Nordic Institute of Navigation and a member of the Finnish Academy of Science and Letters, and was named Professor of the Year 2025 by the Professors’ Union of Finland.

Time: 10.11.2025 at 16:00 – 17:30 (coffee and buns served from 15:30). The lecture will be approximately 60 minutes, after which there will be time for questions.

Venue: Lumituuli auditorium, Dipoli, Aalto University (Otakaari 24, Espoo).

Registration: The event is open to all and free of charge but we ask you to register for the event as it will help us to estimate the number of coffee ordered, thank you!