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) 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 are attempting to jam these GPS alerts.

InfiniDome, which is an Israel-based GPS safety firm based in 2016 that builds all kinds of merchandise, but it surely’s large 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 when it comes to displaying how weak GPS (GNSS) methods may be to jamming assaults.

You’ll be able to obtain and skim all the 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 study 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 the reason why of us 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 truth, 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 purpose to guard important infrastructure via tech corresponding to InfiniDome’s.

And it’s not simply large army or critical authorized use circumstances. 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 important, even when you don’t essentially assume there’s a clear enemy making an attempt to take down your drone. It’s taking place at drone gentle exhibits, too.

Drone jamming may not be all dangerous

That’s to not say all drone jamming is essentially dangerous or nefarious. In truth, generally it could possibly 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 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 truly work?

So how does drone GPS jamming truly work?

Drone GPS jammers make the most of GNSS receivers, which use GPS alerts (as effectively  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 via intentional jamming — however usually even unintentional jamming (as you’ve probably 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 complete 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 identical 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 referred to as slender 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 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 forms of jamming assault strategies in their whitepaper.

Small, much less highly effective jammers are often nearly 1W however are the dimensions of a pack of cigarettes. Huge-time army jammers would supply 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 varied methods to guard your GPS system. The problem? These options may be costly, heavy and ponderous with the intention 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 route 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 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 nearly freely deployed on a automobile. From there, they’ll autonomously analyze the route 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 consists of the GPSdome2, which protects GNSS methods from jamming — one thing that has turning into a rising concern for unmanned and manned important 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  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 functions, together with  alongside the Israel-Syria border, the place Russian GPS jamming has grow to be a typical prevalence. In that particular state of affairs, a GPS receiver protected by GPSdome was in a position to 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 embrace Honeywell, which is constructing a GPS sign safety system for drones (maybe not coincidendally with help from InfiniDome). The Honeywell-InfiniDome answer 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 referred to as a Sturdy Navigation System that may permit drones to fly even in GPS-challenged environments.

Some drone firms are taking over the duty of defending their automobiles 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 acquired a security characteristic of a non-GPS return-to-home, so in case your drone will get disconnected it could fly again to its takeoff level — even and not using a GPS connection.

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