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 gear 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 resolution that’s been a sizzling matter within the drone trade 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 unhealthy 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 huge focus space is on constructing GPS sign safety methods. And this summer time, Infinidome put out a white paper shedding some gentle on how drone GPS jamming works — and is fairly thought-provoking by way of displaying how susceptible GPS (GNSS) methods may be to jamming assaults.
You may obtain and skim your entire GPS jamming white paper from infiDome right here, which I’ve used to assist clarify this ‘in-a-nutshell’ overview of a very powerful issues to find out about drone GPS jamming. Right here you’ll be taught why folks attempt to jam drone GPS alerts, how they do it, and options to forestall in opposition to it.
Why is drone jamming occurring — and why is it an issue?
There are all types of the explanation why people wish to jam GPS alerts for drones, together with protection functions in order that an enemy drone will get misplaced or crashes. Whereas drones are used for methods like aerial surveillance to catch drug traffickers, these drug cartel criminals have been identified to make use of drone jammers to forestall that. In actual fact, Mexico reported using jammers in 85% of all documented cargo truck thefts, in accordance with The Resilient Navigation and Timing Basis, a scientific and academic nonprofit in Virginia with a objective to guard vital infrastructure by way of tech similar to InfiniDome’s.
And it’s not simply huge navy or severe authorized use instances. A drone gentle 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.
Briefly, being ready for an assault in your drone from GPS jammers is vital, even should you don’t essentially assume there’s a clear enemy attempting to take down your drone. It’s occurring at drone gentle reveals, too.
Drone jamming may not be all unhealthy
That’s to not say all drone jamming is essentially unhealthy or nefarious. In actual fact, typically it may very well 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 danger to flights full of individuals. The Division of Protection can be utilizing drones to guard categorized 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 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 properly as GLONASS, Galileo and different constellations – therefore the title “GNSS” – World Navigation Satellite tv for pc System), however which might be notoriously susceptible and simply disrupted, whether or not by way of intentional jamming — however usually even unintentional jamming (as you’ve probably expertise when shedding cell service when driving by way of a tunnel by way of mountains and even typically in sure spots in your home).
Buying jamming units is shocking simple and low cost. You don’t want a whole mountain to dam a GPS sign — yow will discover 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 might be blocked. And with one other methodology referred to as slender band, energy is unfold and diluted all through the totally different frequencies making up a band (a spread of round 2MHz). To assault, jammers “barrage” the unhealthy by making a sequence 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 referred to 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 normally nearly 1W however are the scale of a pack of cigarettes. Massive-time navy jammers would supply about 1 KW of energy and be concerning the measurement of a truck.
Options in opposition to drone jamming
So whereas there are numerous methods to jam a drone GPS sign, there are additionally varied methods to guard your GPS system. The problem? These options may be costly, heavy and ponderous so as to course of all these digital alerts.
Options embrace what’s referred to as beam steering, with a number of antennas pointed in a particular course to control the beam. There’s additionally one thing referred to as null-steering, together with different mechanical approaches.
InfiniDome, the creator of this whitepaper, makes use of null-steering know-how to create primarily “nulls” within the instructions or vectors of the jamming alerts’ actual 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 mounted antenna arrays, which permits antennas to be virtually freely deployed on a automobile. From there, they will autonomously analyze the course of assault.
If a jamming sign is acknowledged, infiniDome’s merchandise will pattern the Intermediate Frequency (IF), calculate the modifications wanted and ship that info to a proprietary RFIC that may modify the RF alerts in accordance with the answer of the calculations.
Amongst InfiniDome’s most up-to-date merchandise consists of the GPSdome2, which protects GNSS methods from jamming — one thing that has turning into a rising concern for unmanned and manned vital functions. 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 course, whereas its GPSdome2 resolution employs 35dB safety in opposition to as much as three simultaneous instructions of assault in every of the two protected frequencies.
And the corporate’s merchandise have been used for severe, real-world functions, together with alongside the Israel-Syria border, the place Russian GPS jamming has change into a typical incidence. In that particular state of affairs, a GPS receiver protected by GPSdome was capable of distinguish between the true GNSS alerts and the extra highly effective jamming alerts, with GPSdome attenuating the jamming alerts sufficiently to allow steady monitoring of the true GNSS alerts whereas reporting the assault.
Different gamers out there of defending drones from GPS jamming assaults embrace Honeywell, which is constructing a GPS sign safety system for drones (maybe not coincidendally with help from InfiniDome). The Honeywell-InfiniDome resolution 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 about to be delivered someday this 12 months.
Different options have included flying drones with out GPS fully. InfiniDome and HoneyWell have additionally proposed a system referred to as a Sturdy Navigation System that might enable drones to fly even in GPS-challenged environments.
Some drone firms 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 characteristic of a non-GPS return-to-home, so in case your drone will get disconnected it may fly again to its takeoff level — even with out a GPS connection.