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Increased efforts by the U.S. military to improve its ability to jam and spoof RF signals outside of conflict zones — to counter EM warfare and unauthorized incursions by unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs, popularly known as drones) — put civilians at risk by interfering with GNSS signals, warns the GPS Innovation Alliance (GPSIA). In a presentation at a meeting of the National Defense Transportation Association (NDTA), last week, Lisa Dyer, GPSIA’s executive director, “urged federal and military insiders to better confront existing and emerging interference risks and pursue safer coordination measures to ensure that this testing expansion does not increasingly endanger people and critical infrastructure,” according to an article on DefenseScoop.
Dyer noted that pilots are not always notified of these military tests and, according to the article, “pointed to a preliminary report issued by the National Transportation Safety Board in August regarding a tragic incident that occurred in May, when a medical evacuation aircraft fatally crashed near Ruidoso, New Mexico, at the same time that the U.S. military was conducting high-powered GPS denial exercises nearby at the White Sands Missile Range.” All four occupants on board the medical plane were killed.
During the same presentation, Dyer also pointed to concerns about a proposal the Federal Communications Commission is considering that would allow officials to conduct jamming and spoofing around 6,000 correctional facilities in the United States in response to a rise in unapproved use by inmates of cell phones illegally delivered to them by UAVs.
“Currently, the Communications Act of 1934, as amended, prohibits jamming and spoofing of any sort of authorized radio frequency capabilities — your cell phones, your GPS [receiver], police radars — all of those things,” Dyer said, according to the article. “It is illegal to do that, and the FCC is considering making a carve out.” In a statement to GPS World, Dyer said: “GPSIA has advocated that the government address jamming and spoofing through regulatory filings, meetings, op-eds, and other fora. NDTA represented another opportunity to do just that. In the presentation to NDTA, I noted what industry is seeing and what it is doing to address jamming and spoofing, to include building and launching complementary satellite PNT systems and integrating anti-jam and anti-spoof technologies. I indicated industry would like to partner with the government to accelerate technological and other solutions as soon as possible.”
