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GPS signal disturbed at altitudes above 2000-3000 feet over Norway [pdf]

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Re: GPS signal disturbed at altitudes above 2000-3000 feet over Norway [pdf]

#51
post #6
post #2

I don’t see the assumption of the cause in the PDF (difficult to read on this tiny mobile device). Could it be iron ore or something else affecting the magnetic fields? Does this happen elsewhere on earth?

But after a few tens of meters in the air we see a noise signal. [...] The noise signal is on GPS L1 (1575.42 MHz) with 1 MHz bandwidth, see Figure 3-5. So the signal is jammed by something sending a noise signal around the L1 frequency, whether intentionally or not.

The jamming is very highly specific to GPS. Chances of it being unintentional are miniscule.

Re: GPS signal disturbed at altitudes above 2000-3000 feet over Norway [pdf]

#52
post #3

I experienced a very odd GPS failures about a week later (September 24) in south-eastern Sweden. At one point I was driving for about an hour (in quite isolated areas - around https://www.google.com/maps/@58.0381615,16.2094966,13.37z ) without my iphone being able to get a gps fix. It's never happened before, or since. The phone was fixed to the car's front window with plenty of sight towards the sky. I rebooted the…

Cell phones don't use only GPS signals, they use "aGPS" which uses signals from cell towers to make the GPS calculations easier / faster. It's so effective in environments that the overwhelming majority of people spend the overwhelming majority of their time in that I think manufacturers don't include the very best GPS antenna, since they don't need to. You say you were in remote areas, how was your cell signal durin…

aGPS doesn't provide any useful positioning capability, it just speeds up downloading of the Almanac and Ephemeris which means the receiver doesn't have to listen to the GPS satellites as long before computing a position. You still need a good GPS signal for positioning to work.

Re: GPS signal disturbed at altitudes above 2000-3000 feet over Norway [pdf]

#53
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems unlikely to be a natural phenomenon, considering it's never been noticed before. Could be the Russians are up to something? Jamming GPS signals would be a significant strategic advantage in war time.

It's bad if you relly on one and only system. As there is NAVSTAR GPS, Glonass and Galileo you'll have to jam your own system too.

GPS and Galileo use the same frequency for their public service. Jamming one gets them both.

Glonass is a couple hundred megaherz away from GPS L1.

Re: GPS signal disturbed at altitudes above 2000-3000 feet over Norway [pdf]

#54
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They arn't very easy to avoid, say you capture the signal from a satellite that is not visible to the receiver, or being jammed out, unless you have an extremely high precision clock, you can just delay the signal rebroadcast and spoof away.

Everything involved in GPS requires all the nodes (both the senders and the receivers) to have "extremely high precision clocks." That's the whole idea, really: you, the receiver, have a clock, and a map of where the various GPS satellites will be around the earth at given times. You "hear" the current time announced from three satellites (along with their station IDs), and compare those times to your clock to figure…

GPS receivers do not have clocks. Atomic clocks are expensive and large; there is no way you get one every device.

Only the satellites have atomic clocks. The receiver get the time from the satellites. It basically compares the time delay between the satellites to determine position and time.

Re: GPS signal disturbed at altitudes above 2000-3000 feet over Norway [pdf]

#55
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything involved in GPS requires all the nodes (both the senders and the receivers) to have "extremely high precision clocks." That's the whole idea, really: you, the receiver, have a clock, and a map of where the various GPS satellites will be around the earth at given times. You "hear" the current time announced from three satellites (along with their station IDs), and compare those times to your clock to figure…

GPS receivers do not have clocks. Atomic clocks are expensive and large; there is no way you get one every device. Only the satellites have atomic clocks. The receiver get the time from the satellites. It basically compares the time delay between the satellites to determine position and time.

I didn't say they have atomic clocks. They do have clocks, though. Like most computers do. And they are high-precision, and are low-drift enough to predict the locations of satellites as long as they have been re-synchronized within the last few days or so.

Which, as you say, also happens by just observing the time signatures from the satellites. You need four visible satellites to determine your own time, though, whereas you only need three for position, so time isn't re-synched as often as position is calculated. The internal clock in the receiver allows the receiver to carry on tracking with only three time sources for a while.

But, to be clear on the topic of the parent discussion: I believe JDAM missiles (the ones that actually do use GPS) do have either an atomic clock source [more recently], or [formerly] have at least a high-precision monotonic clock source with low drift that is synchronized at point-of-launch by the clock on the bomber, which also has an HPC that was calibrated at its launch by a real atomic clock. They don't need to rely on external time-sync.

And modern ICBMs? Well, unless your jammer/spoofer can keep up with them, or is itself a satellite, you're only going to be able to affect them when they're on their descent course and making final adjustments. And, like this article says (https://www.technologyreview.com/s/423363/how-cruise-missile...), ICBMs have redundant aiming systems based on computer vision applied to either visual-spectrum or radar-based sensors.

Re: GPS signal disturbed at altitudes above 2000-3000 feet over Norway [pdf]

#56
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's bad if you relly on one and only system. As there is NAVSTAR GPS, Glonass and Galileo you'll have to jam your own system too.

GPS and Galileo use the same frequency for their public service. Jamming one gets them both. Glonass is a couple hundred megaherz away from GPS L1.

So there is no reason NOT to support Glonass.

Re: GPS signal disturbed at altitudes above 2000-3000 feet over Norway [pdf]

#57
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They arn't very easy to avoid, say you capture the signal from a satellite that is not visible to the receiver, or being jammed out, unless you have an extremely high precision clock, you can just delay the signal rebroadcast and spoof away.

Everything involved in GPS requires all the nodes (both the senders and the receivers) to have "extremely high precision clocks." That's the whole idea, really: you, the receiver, have a clock, and a map of where the various GPS satellites will be around the earth at given times. You "hear" the current time announced from three satellites (along with their station IDs), and compare those times to your clock to figure…

The vast majority of consumer GPS receivers take their clock from a quartz crystal. The accuracy will be somewhere between 10 parts per million (ppm) and 30 ppm. 5-15 minutes per year of drift - sounds pretty precise, right?

Except when you're measuring the time of flight of signals going close to the speed of light, 10ppm of clock slew gives you 3,000 m/s of clock slew.

That's why GPS receivers actually need to see 4 satellites to get an accurate fix; receivers actually calculate position in four dimensions - x, y, z and time.

Anyway, consequences:

1. The GPS receiver in your phone doesn't have an 'extremely high precision clock' by the standards of high precision clocks.

2. You could mount a replay attack against a receiver introducing error at up to 3km per second in such a way that it won't be readily detectable over other errors in the system.

3. Due to practical issues involved with such a replay attack, it'd probably be possible to crash a drone or misdirect it by a few hundred meters; but incredibly difficult to misdirect it to a distant country or anything like that.

Re: GPS signal disturbed at altitudes above 2000-3000 feet over Norway [pdf]

#58
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why don't planes just carry a good INS? In today's world, it shouldn't be that bad.

Money. INS is still very expensive relative to GPS, and GPS is pretty frickin' reliable 99.99% of the time.

Would commodity six axis sensors have enough precision to do a reasonable job at INS?. Buy a pack of iPhones and use some kind of quorum protocol to reduce the risks associated with one going bad?

Re: GPS signal disturbed at altitudes above 2000-3000 feet over Norway [pdf]

#59
post #58
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Money. INS is still very expensive relative to GPS, and GPS is pretty frickin' reliable 99.99% of the time.

Would commodity six axis sensors have enough precision to do a reasonable job at INS?. Buy a pack of iPhones and use some kind of quorum protocol to reduce the risks associated with one going bad?

> Would commodity six axis sensors have enough precision to do a reasonable job at INS?

I don't know, but my guess would be no. If it were that easy someone would have done it already.

But who knows? Maybe there's an untapped opportunity here. Why don't you buy one of these:

https://vetco.net/products/9-axis-inertial-navigation-module...

and take it with you the next time you fly (or drive) and see how accurate it is?

Re: GPS signal disturbed at altitudes above 2000-3000 feet over Norway [pdf]

#60
post #5
post #2

I don’t see the assumption of the cause in the PDF (difficult to read on this tiny mobile device). Could it be iron ore or something else affecting the magnetic fields? Does this happen elsewhere on earth?

The two-sentence "Result of the Check" section ends with "and the strength increased the closer to the Russian helicopter wing". As professionals, they state the observations and facts and don't cross into the realm of speculation.

So not iron ore. Iron curtain.
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