With the rise of drones additionally comes the rise of counterdrone tech. And whereas there are all types of potential counterdrone options together with monitoring tools like radar, radio frequency analyzers, or acoustic and optical sensors, in addition to Excessive Energy Microwave (HPM) units, drone nets and lasers, there’s one other answer that’s been a scorching matter within the drone business as of late: drone GPS jamming.
Many drones depend on GPS (as do different applied sciences like ship and cargo fleets, and even your smartphone) for navigation and monitoring. However some dangerous actors try to jam these GPS alerts.
InfiniDome, which is an Israel-based GPS safety firm based in 2016 that builds all types of merchandise, however it’s large focus space is on constructing GPS sign safety programs. And this summer season, Infinidome put out a white paper shedding some mild on how drone GPS jamming works — and is fairly thought-provoking by way of exhibiting how susceptible GPS (GNSS) programs may be to jamming assaults.
You possibly can obtain and skim the complete GPS jamming white paper from infiDome right here, which I’ve used to assist clarify this ‘in-a-nutshell’ overview of crucial issues to find out about drone GPS jamming. Right here you’ll be taught why individuals attempt to jam drone GPS alerts, how they do it, and options to forestall towards it.
Why is drone jamming occurring — and why is it an issue?
There are all types of the explanation why of us need to jam GPS alerts for drones, together with protection purposes in order that an enemy drone will get misplaced or crashes. Whereas drones are used for programs like aerial surveillance to catch drug traffickers, these drug cartel criminals have been recognized to make use of drone jammers to forestall that. Actually, Mexico reported the usage of jammers in 85% of all documented cargo truck thefts, based on The Resilient Navigation and Timing Basis, a scientific and academic nonprofit in Virginia with a objective to guard important infrastructure via tech resembling InfiniDome’s.
And it’s not simply large navy or critical authorized use instances. A drone mild present over a mall in Zhengzhou, China, went awry, with drones falling from the sky and endangering the 5,000 onlookers, as a result of somebody used a drone jammer.
In brief, being ready for an assault in your drone from GPS jammers is important, even should you don’t essentially suppose there’s a clear enemy attempting to take down your drone. It’s occurring at drone mild reveals, too.
Drone jamming may not be all dangerous
That’s to not say all drone jamming is essentially dangerous or nefarious. Actually, generally it might be perceived as the alternative. For instance, the Federal Aviation Administration turned to counterdrone firm Dedrone to assist with analysis on drone jammers to make sure undesirable drones aren’t flying wherever close to airports and posing a security threat to flights full of individuals. The Division of Protection can also be utilizing drones to guard categorised areas or different spots that demand safety, amongst different examples.
InfiniDome put collectively a video about drone jamming (which additionally serves as an advert for its merchandise), which you’ll be able to watch right here:
How does drone GPS jamming really work?
So how does drone GPS jamming really work?
Drone GPS jammers benefit from GNSS receivers, which use GPS alerts (as nicely as GLONASS, Galileo and different constellations – therefore the identify “GNSS” – International Navigation Satellite tv for pc System), however which can be notoriously susceptible and simply disrupted, whether or not via intentional jamming — however usually even unintentional jamming (as you’ve possible expertise when shedding cell service when driving via a tunnel via mountains and even generally in sure spots in your home).
Buying jamming units is shocking straightforward and low cost. You don’t want a whole mountain to dam a GPS sign — you’ll find units that jam GPS for lower than $100 on-line. So long as that jammer is ready to emit a sign on the similar frequency as your sign, however with a extra highly effective sign, they’ll win out and jam your drone.
In fact, it’s not that easy. There are all types of jamming assaults and alerts, together with Steady Wavelength, the place a single frequency is jammed and something transmitted in that very same frequency shall be blocked. And with one other technique known as slim band, energy is unfold and diluted all through the totally different frequencies making up a band (a variety of round 2MHz). To assault, jammers “barrage” the dangerous by making a collection of narrow-band alerts that transmit shortly one after one another.
Dedrone, which is the corporate partnering with the FAA, makes its personal precision jammer known as DedroneDefender that makes use of narrow-band jamming. One other firm, DroneShield sells a Dronegun, which is a jammer that may disrupt a drone’s distant management, forcing it to land or return to its start line.
InfiniDome outlined different sorts of jamming assault strategies in their whitepaper.
Small, much less highly effective jammers are often nearly 1W however are the scale of a pack of cigarettes. Large-time navy jammers would offer about 1 KW of energy and be in regards to the dimension of a truck.
Options towards drone jamming
So whereas there are numerous methods to jam a drone GPS sign, there are additionally numerous methods to guard your GPS system. The problem? These options may be costly, heavy and hulking with the intention to course of all these digital alerts.
Options embody what’s known as beam steering, with a number of antennas pointed in a particular route to govern the beam. There’s additionally one thing known as null-steering, together with different mechanical approaches.
InfiniDome, the writer of this whitepaper, makes use of null-steering expertise to create basically “nulls” within the instructions or vectors of the jamming alerts’ precise angles of assault. However once more, it’s removed from so simple as it sounds proper there. InfiniDome makes use of its personal, patented algorithms in lieu of working with fastened antenna arrays, which permits antennas to be virtually freely deployed on a car. From there, they will autonomously analyze the route of assault.
If a jamming sign is acknowledged, infiniDome’s merchandise will pattern the Intermediate Frequency (IF), calculate the adjustments wanted and ship that data to a proprietary RFIC that may modify the RF alerts based on the answer of the calculations.
Amongst InfiniDome’s most up-to-date merchandise consists of the GPSdome2, which protects GNSS programs from jamming — one thing that has turning into a rising concern for unmanned and manned important purposes. And in reality, the GPSdome2 was a nominee within the 2023 AUVSI XCELLENCE Awards given its significance.
infiniDome’s GPSdome (the older mannequin of the GPSdome2) is able to attenuating a jammer at a 20dB null depth in a single route, whereas its GPSdome2 answer employs 35dB safety towards as much as three simultaneous instructions of assault in every of the two protected frequencies.
And the corporate’s merchandise have been used for critical, real-world purposes, together with alongside the Israel-Syria border, the place Russian GPS jamming has turn into a standard incidence. In that particular state of affairs, a GPS receiver protected by GPSdome was capable of distinguish between the actual GNSS alerts and the extra highly effective jamming alerts, with GPSdome attenuating the jamming alerts sufficiently to allow steady monitoring of the actual GNSS alerts whereas reporting the assault.
Different gamers available in the market of defending drones from GPS jamming assaults embody Honeywell, which is constructing a GPS sign safety system for drones (maybe not coincidendally with assist from InfiniDome). The Honeywell-InfiniDome answer is a mixture of {hardware}, software program and providers that collectively creates a single navigation platform for dealing with loss or lack of GPS alerts. The Honeywell product is ready to be delivered someday this yr.
Different options have included flying drones with out GPS utterly. InfiniDome and HoneyWell have additionally proposed a system known as a Sturdy Navigation System that may enable drones to fly even in GPS-challenged environments.
Some drone corporations are taking up the duty of defending their autos from drone jamming themselves. For instance, the Autel EVO Max 4T makes use of superior flight management modules and algorithms specifically designed to counter RFI, EMI, and GPS spoofing. And it’s received a security function of a non-GPS return-to-home, so in case your drone will get disconnected it may possibly fly again to its takeoff level — even and not using a GPS connection.