GPS Jammers Affect Consumer GNSS Receivers

Gleason Arliss 2022/08/12

　　Popular media recently highlighted reports of car thieves using GPS jammers, solar flares emitting L-band radiation, and faulty TVs wreaking havoc on GPS receivers throughout the port.

　　The problem of GPS interference has seriously affected the flight safety of civil aviation and the orderly operation of air traffic control. Moreover, this kind of interference has a great influence, and the interference components are complex. The increasing reliance on GNSS for positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) has also raised concerns about the potential risk of signal interference. Speculation shows dire scenarios such as telecommunications, electricity and banking networks crashing, ships colliding and planes falling from the sky.

　　Responses to these stories can be equally extreme, with some arguing that "GPS is unreliable" or "We need an alternative to PNT systems."

　　When computers were first threatened by viruses and hackers, we didn't throw them aside complaining "computers are too fragile - we need a replacement". All of our work is done without pen and paper as we develop and install firewalls and virus checkers.

　　So is GNSS, or should be.

　　Rather than simply criticizing the weaknesses of the technology, we need to explore solutions to jammers and distractions. By "solution" I'm talking about protecting what we have, rather than simply abandoning GNSS and resorting to less mature alternatives.

　　As GPS jammers become ubiquitous, the threat from spoofing grows.

　　Despite our increasing reliance on GNSS, little work has actually been done to address this issue, which will be answered in the future.