Navigating by interference at Jammertest

World Navigation Satellite tv for pc Techniques (GNSS) such because the European Galileo and the US GPS allow our society and all the things round us. These alerts steer us by cities and allow autonomous automobiles, they synchronise monetary networks, assist farmers harvest with precision and even save lives in search and rescue missions.

“Interference is the consequence of the success of satellite tv for pc navigation,” states Rafael Lucas, ESA’s Head of Navigation Innovation and Help Program (NAVISP). As a result of we depend on this know-how a lot, it has grow to be a goal. As reported within the information, incidents of deliberate interference are on the rise: these attacks are happening daily, all over the world.

 “Given our essential dependence on satellite tv for pc navigation, any interference, notably intentional interference, can produce nice disruption,” continues Lucas. The financial dangers related to GNSS interruptions are immense, the price of an outage could be within the order of billions of euros every day for Europe. 

However the concern goes far past monetary loss: disruptions threaten the secure operations of power grids, banking infrastructure, emergency transportation and civil aviation, making the resilience of GNSS a matter of public security and safety.

What’s intentional satellite tv for pc navigation interference and what can we do about it?

There are a number of methods a malicious actor can disrupt GNSS alerts. One of the vital widespread is jamming, the place receivers are overwhelmed with alerts that ‘clog’ the airwaves, rendering them unable to perform correctly. “Beneath a jamming assault, all our techniques go black,” explains Lars Amdal, Pilot of the Norwegian Air Ambulance.

“Spoofing is worse,” Amdal continues. These assaults encompass sending pretend alerts to mislead a receiver. “We see our place moved to a distinct location and we can not know whether it is actually us shifting or the sign.” Beneath a spoofing assault, your smartwatch would possibly present the incorrect time, or your health app might observe record-breaking runs throughout a lazy morning.

A type of spoofing is meaconing, the place actual alerts are captured, delayed and rebroadcast. They nonetheless mislead the receiver however are tougher to detect as a result of the alerts are genuine.

The several types of interference could be mixed into extra complicated assaults.

“As designer of the EU satellite tv for pc navigation techniques, we’re accountable of together with technical capabilities in EGNOS and Galileo to make sure robustness towards jamming and spoofing, complementing receiver resilience” explains ESA Head of Galileo, Miguel Manteiga Bautista.

“For instance, Galileo First Technology companies just like the Public Regulated Service give attention to these options. As well as, there are progressive enhancements by options like multi-frequency, wider bandwidth and authentication of the navigation message. Galileo Second Technology will characterize a significant evolution when it comes to capabilities and adaptability to deal with challenges of the longer term.”

The subsequent era of EGNOS, designed to reinforce each GPS and Galileo, may even improve resilience to interference and enhance the reliability of satellite tv for pc navigation.

Apart from system growth, ESA collaborates with business to enhance how receivers reply to interference, and to design and develop different techniques that may function when GNSS alerts are unavailable.

And all these new applied sciences want rigorous testing. “For complicated antennas and receivers, laboratory testing is important, however must be accomplished with subject testing,” explains ESA’s EGNOS Head of System Engineering Xavier Derambure. In the true world, interference is unpredictable and vulnerabilities floor while you least anticipate them. “It’s subsequently crucial to confirm the robustness of GNSS receivers beneath actual check situations.”

Enter Jammertest.

The world’s largest open check for GNSS resilience

Every year, engineers from all over the world collect for Jammertest. The 2025 version of the occasion introduced collectively 360 contributors from 120 organisations throughout greater than 20 nations, spanning academia, business and governmental establishments.

In a posh coordination train amongst seven Norwegian public authorities and facilitator Testnor, the organisers broadcast actual satellite tv for pc navigation interference for contributors to watch how their gear (on automobiles, drones, aircrafts, helicopters and vessels) responds.

At practically 70 levels North and 300 km contained in the Arctic Circle, the small village of Bleik on the island of Andøya gives the perfect setting for Jammertest. To the east, towering mountains act as pure obstacles that comprise disruptive alerts, minimising their impression on civil society. To the west, its open shoreline permits alerts to be transmitted over the ocean, supporting maritime contributors along with air and land customers.

The occasion’s check catalogue is in depth. Organisers simulate all the things from easy handheld jamming to complicated multi-source assaults launched from a number of areas concurrently, together with from mountaintops. “The purpose is that each receiver is knocked out sooner or later throughout the marketing campaign,” explains Tomas Levin, Senior Principal Engineer at Norwegian Public Roads Administration and Head of Jammertest.

“At Jammertest, the complete GNSS chain sits alongside a desk, from chip producers to these creating the algorithms that run on them, to the businesses constructing merchandise round these chips and those integrating these merchandise into bigger techniques,” highlights Levin.   

Kristian Svartveit, Senior Advisor in Satellite tv for pc Navigation on the Norwegian Area Company and Norwegian delegate to ESA’s Navigation Programme Board, provides: “For satellite tv for pc navigation to be a trusted software, we have to present its weaknesses and fight them. By bringing this check to the world, producers of GNSS gear can enhance it, for all of us.”

ESA, strengthening European resilience

For the third consecutive yr, ESA took half in Jammertest, reaffirming its dedication to Europe’s resilience in navigation.

ESA engineers arrived with a number of missions. As in earlier years, the staff examined the robustness of EGNOS and Galileo alerts when picked by a variety of antennas, from easy mass-market ones present in smartphones to military-grade antennas, each stationary and mounted on a shifting van.

A key goal was to check the efficiency of novel receiver applied sciences developed beneath varied ESA programmes, evaluating them to present applied sciences. The staff additionally examined gear offered by industrial companions beneath ESA’s Third-Party services.

Over 100 TB of knowledge had been recorded and can assist inside analysis. Furthermore, these knowledge can now be replayed on the ESA Navigation Laboratory, permitting business to analyse how new gear responds to real-world interference situations. (In case you are focused on utilizing ESA’s NavLab testing and consultancy companies, fill out the contact type on the Consultancy and Testing page).

Lastly, ESA additionally oversaw exams of latest EGNOS floor receivers being developed by European business beneath Horizon2020 and Horizon Europe programmes. These receivers intention to enhance the system’s robustness in its subsequent era.

A number of tasks examined at Jammertest by different contributors had been funded by NAVISP, highlighting the company’s position in fostering innovation throughout the GNSS ecosystem. 

 “Jammertest is a singular alternative,” concludes Derambure. “Right here we have now the sting of know-how, the sting of testing situations. There’s nowhere else the place we will check this materials in actual situations. I imagine Jammertest will grow to be a compulsory step for any new satellite tv for pc navigation receiver know-how.”