An Interesting Tool to Fight GPS Jammers

WARNING: This post is a little geeky, so if it is not your thing, just come back tomorrow :).

First, full disclosure. I worked on the original GPS program sponsored by the Air Force to help fighter pilots, so I know a little bit more about GPS systems than most people.

Recently we have been seeing Russia and China jamming GPS signals. There are a couple of results from this jamming including the GPS receiver not working and the GPS receiver thinking it is someplace other than where it actually is.

While this could cause you to wind up at the post office instead of Starbucks, for soldiers, it can mean the difference between life and death. If an airplane is trying to land and it thinks it is at the airport, but it is not, this might, I think you can see, cause some problems.

Hence the research to figure out ways to deal with this.

In Ukraine, this is a big problem as GNSSs (Global Navigation Satellite Systems, the generic name for the US’s GPS and the EU’s Galileo) and they would like to figure out the solution to two problems.

First, to defeat the jamming of the GPS signal and second to destroy the jammers.

While the US and other well funded military units can afford the technology to detect jammers, other countries cannot. The solution is also not available to every military unit without advance planning.

Ukraine reached out to a US company, Zephr, to help them. Zephr specializes in hardening devices against GPS signal interference. They have delivered a prototype to Ukraine.

Their system uses a small network of commercial phones with special software to detect if one of the phones is experiencing GPS interference. They are using the existing sensors on the phone that are used in the phone’s GPS process, but in a different way.

Then they use AI in the backend to perform very sophisticated signal processing.

One thing that is different about the signals from real GPS satellite transmitters and jammers is that real GPS signals are low power compared to the jamming signals. The signal processing software is able to sort out the difference between the weak and strong signals and use that information to counter the jamming.

Zephyr is now under contract to create software in these phones to help the military to triangulate the exact position of the signal jammer so that their artillery can send a present to the jammer.

GPS systems have been around for more than 40 years, originally funded by the Pentagon. Now they are funding the development of GPS 2.0 (technically, that name is wrong because GPS Block 2 is what is actually flying in space right now, but you get the idea).

The replacement, called ALT PNT or Alternative position, navigation and timing is still a work in progress but they have not come up with a breakthrough solution. At least not yet.

Right now researchers are working on making existing GNSS systems more jamming resistant, detecting and “eliminating” signal jammers and developing the next generation GNSS solutions.

GNSS systems use pretty basic math and physics to figure out where you are and that part still works. The hard part is in defeating an enemy who is trying to stop you from receiving the information needed to do the math.

As was the case when our team developed the prototype of the system that you now use to find a nearby Starbucks, it will take out of the box thinking to solve this problem.

Also, it is important to remember that GPS systems are used for a lot of important things like landing airplanes safely, running bulldozers that grade new roads, running farm equipment to plant and harvest crops and many other low profile but critical purposes. Let’s hope that they have a breakthrough in solving this problem.

Credit: Defense One

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