PISCATAWAY, N.J., June 02, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Today ISTO, Inc. (“ISTO”) announces the formation of the PNT Standards Consortium, a collaborative, not-for-profit membership organization focused on advancing open, interoperable standards for Positioning, Navigation and Timing (PNT) systems. Operating as a member program of ISTO, PNT Standards Consortium was founded by Leidos, IS4S, and TRX Systems and has the mission to provide long-term governance, sustainability, and community-driven development for PNT standards, including pntOS and ASPN, while ensuring the integrity of their evolution through an open consensus-based process. It envisions propagating these PNT standards for navigation system research, development, and deployment across government and commercial activities. Organizations from industry, government, and academia are invited and encouraged to join the Consortium to ensure PNT standards continue to evolve to meet all users’ needs in the PNT community.
“For almost two decades, both at my time leading the Autonomy and Navigation Technology (ANT) Center at AFIT and now at IS4S, my teammates and I have been seeking ways to enable effective cooperation within the PNT community. Through our open-source work with ASPN and pntOS, we’ve started to demonstrate what’s possible when the community aligns around common standards,” said John Raquet, Chair of PNT Standards Consortium and Sr. VP and Dayton Site Director, IS4S. “The PNT Standards Consortium was formed to solidify that alignment by giving these standards a permanent, neutral structure with a shared governance model. We are looking forward to working together with our government, industry, and academic partners in the Consortium to further develop these standards in a way that will support the entire PNT community.”
“The establishment of the PNT Standards Consortium reflects the growing importance of open, community-driven standards that enable innovation and interoperability across critical technology systems,” said Daniel Burnett, ISTO President and CEO. “ISTO looks forward to supporting the Consortium as it builds an open governance framework designed to serve the long-term needs of the PNT community.”
Intended to address an important adoption challenge within the ecosystem today, PNT Standards Consortium will focus on ensuring foundational standards such as pntOS and ASPN are governed and maintained as community assets rather than being associated with any single company.
“As part of the founding team of TRX, I have spent more than 20 years working in PNT, and one thing has been consistent — open interfaces make everything simpler,” said Carole Teolis, Co-Founder and CTO of TRX Systems. “TRX’s products have always been built with open interfaces, but the real force multiplier comes when those interfaces are governed by standards with input from experts throughout the industry. The intent of the PNT Standards Consortium is to ensure standards like pntOS and ASPN are equally accessible to every vendor, shaped by every vendor, and owned by no single one — and that’s what drives genuine interoperability across diverse operational environments at scale.”
Consortium members will have the opportunity to engage in a variety of standards-related activities including developing future changes to standards, working on compliance and certification initiatives, improving standards documentation, and promoting standards adoption into applicable modular open system architectures which are not strictly PNT-focused.
“Our experience at Leidos is that open standards are the key enabler that allow new PNT technologies to quickly transition to the warfighter.” said Kevin Betts, Precision, Navigation and Timing Director, Leidos. “Threats to PNT systems are constantly evolving; having established community-defined standards like ASPN and pntOS are critical for ensuring that new innovations have a path to meeting urgent needs. The PNT Standards Consortium will ensure that diverse perspectives from industry, government, and academia are reflected in future enhancements to these standards.”
For more information about the PNT Standards Consortium, visit PNTstandards.org.
About PNT Standards Consortium
The PNT Standards Consortium is a 501c6, nonprofit membership organization formed in 2026 with the mission to maintain and advance open standards that benefit the navigation community. Founded by Leidos, IS4S and TRX Systems, the Consortium supports a collaborative infrastructure wherein industry and government members effectively work together to improve the standardization of PNT data and architectures to improve interoperability of Positioning, Navigation and Timing (PNT) systems and support the adoption across the growing PNT ecosystem. For more information on the Consortium, visit PNTstandards.org.
About ISTO
ISTO provides today’s industry alliances and trade associations with turnkey legal and operational support to advance technology solutions that expand ecosystems to grow industry. Supported by an award-winning staff, ISTO provides a legal infrastructure for incepting organizations and offers best practice operations management, enabling organizational stakeholders to focus on the work at hand. Incepted in 1999, ISTO has the mission to mentor communities developing, certifying, and promoting technology standards, best practices, guidelines, open source, and implementation activities. A premier trusted partner of the global technology community, ISTO has become an international federation of member programs supporting missions and technologies for over 70 industry collectives spanning the spectrum of electrotechnology. For more information, visit isto.org.
Media Contact
Brianna Rich
Program Manager | PNT Standards Consortium
Press@PNTstandards.org
