GPS Receiver Impact from the UTC Offset (UTCO) Anomaly of 25-26 January 2016

Karl Kovach, Philip J. Mendicki, Edward Powers, Brent Renfro

Abstract:	On 25-26 January 2016, Global Positioning System (GPS) users experienced a rare anomaly in GPS operations. For several hours, multiple satellites broadcast information regarding the offset between GPS time and coordinated time universal (UTC) in a manner that did not conform to the GPS signal interface specification (IS-GPS-200). This paper describes what data was broadcast at what times and the manner in which the contents of the signal did not conform to the specification. We discuss the scope of problems reported and the classes of users that were possibly subject to problems. We describe the impact of the anomaly with respect to public assertions made by the U.S. government in the GPS Standard Positioning Service Performance Specification. We describe how the existing interface specification provides sufficient information to detect the non-conforming data such that receivers can protect against such faults in the broadcast data.
Published in:	Proceedings of the 29th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GNSS+ 2016) September 12 - 16, 2016 Oregon Convention Center Portland, Oregon
Pages:	2887 - 2895
Cite this article:	Kovach, Karl, Mendicki, Philip J., Powers, Edward, Renfro, Brent, "GPS Receiver Impact from the UTC Offset (UTCO) Anomaly of 25-26 January 2016," Proceedings of the 29th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GNSS+ 2016), Portland, Oregon, September 2016, pp. 2887-2895. https://doi.org/10.33012/2016.14767
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