With the rise of drones additionally comes the rise of counterdrone tech. And whereas there are all kinds 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) gadgets, drone nets and lasers, there’s one other resolution that’s been a scorching 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 dangerous actors try to jam these GPS alerts.
InfiniDome, which is an Israel-based GPS safety firm based in 2016 that builds all kinds of merchandise, nevertheless it’s large focus space is on constructing GPS sign safety methods. And this summer time, 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 weak GPS (GNSS) methods might be to jamming assaults.
You may obtain and browse all the 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 towards it.
Why is drone jamming taking place — and why is it an issue?
There are all kinds of explanation why of us need 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 recognized to make use of drone jammers to forestall that. The truth is, Mexico reported the usage of jammers in 85% of all documented cargo truck thefts, in keeping with The Resilient Navigation and Timing Basis, a scientific and academic nonprofit in Virginia with a aim to guard essential infrastructure by way of 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 essential, even if you happen to don’t essentially assume there’s a clear enemy making an attempt to take down your drone. It’s taking place at drone mild reveals, too.
Drone jamming won’t be all dangerous
That’s to not say all drone jamming is essentially dangerous or nefarious. The truth is, generally it might be perceived as the other. 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 anyplace close to airports and posing a security threat 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 be able to watch right here:
How does drone GPS jamming truly work?
So how does drone GPS jamming truly work?
Drone GPS jammers reap the benefits of GNSS receivers, which use GPS alerts (as properly as GLONASS, Galileo and different constellations – therefore the title “GNSS” – International Navigation Satellite tv for pc System), however which are notoriously weak and simply disrupted, whether or not by way of intentional jamming — however typically even unintentional jamming (as you’ve probably expertise when dropping cell service when driving by way of a tunnel by way of mountains and even generally in sure spots in your own home).
Buying jamming gadgets is stunning straightforward and low cost. You don’t want a whole mountain to dam a GPS sign — you could find gadgets 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.
After all, it’s not that easy. There are all kinds 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 slender band, energy is unfold and diluted all through the completely different frequencies making up a band (a variety of round 2MHz). To assault, jammers “barrage” the dangerous 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 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 place to begin.
InfiniDome outlined different kinds 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. Large-time navy jammers would supply about 1 KW of energy and be concerning the measurement of a truck.
Options towards 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 might be costly, heavy and ponderous with the intention to course of all these digital alerts.
Options embrace what’s known as beam steering, with a number of antennas pointed in a particular course 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 know-how 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 mounted antenna arrays, which permits antennas to be virtually freely deployed on a car. From there, they’ll 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 keeping with the answer of the calculations.
Amongst InfiniDome’s most up-to-date merchandise contains the GPSdome2, which protects GNSS methods from jamming — one thing that has changing into a rising concern for unmanned and manned essential functions. And actually, 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 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 functions, together with alongside the Israel-Syria border, the place Russian GPS jamming has turn out to be 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 available in the market 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 mix of {hardware}, software program and companies 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 yr.
Different options have included flying drones with out GPS utterly. InfiniDome and HoneyWell have additionally proposed a system known as a Strong Navigation System that might permit drones to fly even in GPS-challenged environments.
Some drone corporations are taking over 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 bought a security function of a non-GPS return-to-home, so in case your drone will get disconnected it might fly again to its takeoff level — even with out a GPS connection.
