Can you imagine life now in a day without any GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System), such as GPS, Galileo, or BeiDou?  

What is the importance of GNSS in civilian lives?

In our daily life, GNSS is used more than to simply help us find the closest grocery store or Eiffel Tower on a trip to Paris. It is also used in the plane that took you to Paris, as well as, to calculate your Uber ride to your hotel, also in the bank transaction to pay the driver, even if you used cash to pay, you probably got it from an ATM. The GNSS is also used to track that package you’ve been waiting for weeks. Even more, it is present in your table, used by agriculture for monitoring crop and soil, as well as surveying the fertility of agricultural fields.  

What is the importance of GNSS in the military?

Not only our daily lives rely on the usage of GNSS, but the military is also very dependent on the system. The use of GPS by the military goes beyond navigation and ground missions. It is used for target acquisition, tracking, in bomb and missile system, rescue missions, for sending packages, in facility management, and map updates.  

What are GNSS Jammers?

Therefore, signal jamming is a major threat to military operations. Devices that can broadcast noise signal in the same frequency used by satellite navigation, can disrupt satellite transmissions and impact civilian and military life. Due to shallow signal power on Earth, those signals are easy to jam, drawing the attention of cyber-criminals (e.g., hackers). 

The monitor stations track and collect information from all GPS (U.S. GNSS) satellites and then forward it to the master control station, where precise satellite orbits are computed. Then, data is written as updated navigation messages, and transmitted to each satellite through the ground antennas, using an S-band signal. The ground antennas also send and receive satellite control and monitoring signals.  

What are the solution for GNSS jammers? 

There are some techniques to suppress jammers that are focused on removing narrowband jamming over a small frequency range. However, there is a flaw in those techniques when the jammer varies rapidly in frequency.   

The Aerospace Organization developed a Communication system called Blind Interference Signal Suppression (BLISS), designed to counter the jamming signals that would interfere with GPS signals. The technology uses a proprietary set of algorithms that estimate specific characteristics of a high-power jammers, enabling mitigation of stronger and vast range jammers. Bliss can be integrated into existence receivers or a new receiver chipset. The device stands alone between a GPS receiver and its antenna. 

The cyber threats evolve at a fast pace, and it is necessary to draw more attention to cybersecurity for space tech, the creation of the American Space Air Force is a sign of the importance of securing the equipment in orbit. 

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Article written by Juliane Verissímo - Marketing Department of VisionSpace