GAIMS

Applications of Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) like GPS/Galileo, and Satellite Based Augmentation Systems (SBAS) like EGNOS, are increasingly threatened by interferences like spoofing and jamming. Particularly in the field of safety critical applications GNSS has gained an important position in recent years.

One safety critical application, requiring highest standards of the system is aviation. By using GNSS as well as satellite-based or ground-based augmentation systems (SBAS, GBAS) the positioning accuracy is increased to a level which allows for landing approaches with GNSS. GNSS landing systems (GLS) are in the implementation phase. SBAS approaches and GNSS based SMGCS (Surface Movement Guidance and Control System) are already widely used by airports.

In the past years, reports have repeatedly been published in which interference of SBAS/SMGCS was detected. At Newark airport, for example, the SMGCS is disturbed by jammers which are installed on trucks and cars passing by on near highways, which surround the airport. Although the use of jammers and spoofers is illegal in most countries, many truck and car drivers utilize such devices to put the built-in GNSS-based tracking systems out of action. The problem is that they unknowingly affect the SBAS/SMGCS of the nearby airport significantly, thus bringing people in danger.

This example shows the absolute necessity to monitor the affected radio-frequency spectrum to detect interferers and thus increase reliability and availability of GNSS and SBAS/SMGCS at airfields.

The GNSS airport interference monitoring system (GAIMS) project plans to develop a demonstrator which reliably detects interfering signals, whether it is a spoofer or a jammer. To accomplish this goal, state of the art detection algorithms will be analysed, improved if necessary and implemented.

Moreover, the GAIMS project will try to classify the different interfering signals not only into spoofer and jammer, but make further separations of the parameters of these signals, like power, bandwidth and repetition rate. Since the trend in the receiver development community throughout the last decade is going toward software defined radio (SDR) the GAIMS project consortium will develop the detection and classification algorithms in an SDR framework. This leads to increased flexibility and adaptation of the solutions and reduced hardware costs.

In parallel to the technological development, a market and business analysis will be performed to explore opportunities and possibilities for an interference monitoring system. Flughafen Graz, which is in a similar situation with respect to being surrounded by highways, as Newark, is very interested in the project topic and has thus agreed to be a technical consultant during the project. The letter of interest is attached to this proposal.

Coordinator

OHB Digital Solutions GmbH

Project partner

• BRIMATECH Services GmbH
• University of Technology Graz

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