A 63-hour-long marathon of GPS jamming attacks disrupted global satellite navigation systems for hundreds of aircraft flying through the Baltic region – and Russia is thought to be responsible
Russia is suspected of launching a record-breaking 63-hour-long attack on GPS signals in the Baltic region. The incident, which affected hundreds of passenger jets earlier this month, occurred amid rising tensions between Russia and the NATO military alliance more than two years since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
“We have seen an increase in GPS jamming since the start of Russia’s war against Ukraine, and allies have publicly warned that Russia has been behind GPS jamming affecting aviation and shipping,” a NATO official told New Scientist. “Russia has a track record of jamming GPS signals and has a range of capabilities for electronic warfare.”
How do you stop a jammer like this, short of turning off the transmitters responsible for it?
As others have said, you can’t passively bypass GNSS jamming. The signal more or less has the same amount of power as a 60 watt light bulb, transmitted from a satellite out in Medium Earth Orbit. You throw enough energy at the same frequency as the signal and it’s over. There are ways to improve the receivers resilience by giving it more signals to connect to (GPS, Galileo, GLONASS, BeiDou) or several signals being transmitted by the same constellation (L1, L2, L5).
Also, many different systems occupy pretty much the same frequencies, just with different characteristics which makes all the signals more susceptible.
You can’t. Think of it like two radio stations that are too close. It doesn’t matter how good of a receiver you have it will only ever pick up the signals being transmitted. And when there is noise on the frequency then that is what it will pick up.
Well there’s always the option of outcompeting each other in signal intensity, but I guess that that’s not really possible in this case.
Best way to mitigate is have an inertial system. It’s a calculator that, based on where you are and where you’re heading, keeps track of your updated position.
The math is not that crazy, but with enough time the sensors errors crop up and you’ll be slightly off course, then a bit, then a lot.
I would suggest HARM Missiles launched from F/A 18 Aircraft. That will teach the effing russians to mess with GPS
Destroy our otherwise turn off the source of interference.