SoftGNSStrusted - Signal Authentication Utilizing a Dual-frequency Software-based GNSS Receiver for Trusted Positioning

Modern Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) play a major role in various services, including critical applications in transportation, information technology, health and emergency services, defence, law enforcement, time synchronization of communication networks and many more.

However, the more valuable a resource becomes to our civil infrastructure, the more criminal or malicious agents seek to discover and exploit weaknesses in order to disrupt legitimate users or to perpetrate fraud. GNSS signals are vulnerable to intentional interference such as jamming, spoofing and meaconing.

A jamming interference is easy to detect because the position is incalculable. The detection of spoofing or meaconing intentions, however, is more difficult: the receiver does not detect the false signal because the signal appears legitimate and thus everything looks correct. Wireless connectivity, powerful laptop computers and multipurpose phones increasingly rely on their processors to handle complex radio frequency signal processing and protocol functions will make access to spoofing much easier.

The need for a secure and trustworthy GNSS position will become more and more vital for many applications in our daily life. Nevertheless, no commercial GNSS receiver is currently equipped with rudimentary spoofing countermeasures. One of the basic problems is the lack of signal authentication provided via the GNSS signal.

SoftGNSStrusted involved a variety of tasks such as a thorough analysis of current and upcoming threats regarding intentional interference and their impact on the position solution. Signal specific algorithms were designed to validate the signals from space.

Furthermore, algorithms for authenticating the navigation data and the data transferred between a reference station and the user receiver were developed. First tests of the authentication module showed promising results so that the module is expected to prove its worth for many safety and security relevant applications in the future.

Coordinator

TeleConsult Austria GmbH - Philipp Berglez

Partners

• Graz University of Technology, Signal Processing and Speech Communication Laboratory - Klaus Witrisal
• Graz University of Technology, Institute of Navigation - Manfred Wieser

TeleConsult Austria GmbH
Philipp Berglez
Rettenbacher Straße 22
A-8044 Graz
Tel.: +43 (316) 890971 - 14
E-mail: pberglez@tca.at
Web: www.tca.at