In 2021, a team led by Zak Kassas, director of the Autonomous Systems Perception, Intelligence, and Navigation (ASPIN) Laboratory at The Ohio State University, demonstrated how eavesdropping on six Starlink satellites could pinpoint locations on Earth to within 8 meters of accuracy after 13 minutes of tracking.
Starlink is now working to shut down that capability, optimizing its satellite internet service by turning beams on and off. That creates unpredictable jumps in signal timing that researchers rely on for positioning.
To counter this, Kassas and his colleagues use Doppler measurements of signal frequency changes and deploy phased-array antennas with omnidirectional antennas that can capture signals from nearly ten satellites at once. By 2025, they showed how to harness signals from an average of three Starlink satellites to deliver positioning results to within 2 meters of accuracy in just 20 seconds.
The team has also exploited signals from Orbcomm, Iridium, OneWeb, NOAA, and Xona. One experiment off the coast of Greenland demonstrated that combining Starlink and OneWeb signals could improve ship navigation in the Arctic, suggesting the technique can work nearly anywhere. Kassas and his team have already licensed their technology to some organizations, aiming to provide alternative navigation solutions as demand grows.