Increased GPS jamming due to Russian-Ukrainian war
This example provided by Hakweye 360 shows what the system looks like when it detects GPS jamming. (Hawkeye 360)
Since the war between Russia and Ukraine, the electronic station has been used as part of the war, and the Russian army has often used GPS jamming to interfere with the navigation and positioning of UAVs and targeting missiles. But it also caused increased GPS interference in other areas of the Russian-Ukrainian border.
According to a new report by French aviation officials, the Russian military is interfering with aviation satellite navigation in the Black Sea, eastern Finland and near Kaliningrad, a small Russian province on the Baltic Sea coast between Lithuania and Poland.
Benoit Roturier, head of satellite navigation at the French civil aviation agency DGAC, told Bloomberg that the satellite navigation outage was caused by Russian trucks equipped with GPS jammer designed to protect Russian troops from GPS-guided munitions.
And according to an earlier CSIS threat assessment report, the trucks were so large that they could easily be seen in some satellite imagery(Opens in a new tab). The equipment is "military grade", meaning it took Russia years to The system was developed, and it was not purchased commercially.
These high-powered, persistent GPS jammers are easy targets. Any strong and consistent RF transmission can be easily located and attacked. Many militaries have missiles specifically designed to track down and destroy jammers. Even without such weapons, direction-finding technology can pinpoint the launcher for artillery or air or ground attack.
As a result, Ukraine was less affected. Experts have analyzed that this may be related to the fact that Ukraine also has a large stockpile of Soviet-era weapons. These do not rely on GPS or have a relationship with Russia using the same navigation frequencies
The report also added that GPS jamming occurred long before the February 24 invasion of Ukraine began, as the Russian military "has routinely jammed GPS signals in Ukraine since 2014."
Navstar broadcasts on a typical set of radio frequencies that can be received by GPS receivers such as car navigation devices or cell phones. One way to get around interference, Johnson said, is to change or expand the transmission frequency to make it harder for jamming devices to block the signal.
And GPS jammer usually work by using a large number of radio antennas that emit radio "noise" to block certain signals. Russia has also been trying to jam broadband signals from SpaceX's Starlink internet satellites to Ukraine via GPS jammers, according to company founder and CEO Elon Musk.
In addition, pilots flying within the Arctic Circle in northern Finland were also warned that Russian electronic warfare disrupted civil aviation to airports such as Ivalo and Rovaniemi.
This spring, GPS jamming events also affected flights around Finland, the Baltic Sea and Russia's Kaliningrad region, Euronews.next reported. However, these events are most likely not intentional.
Norwegian military officials have also repeatedly pointed to the Pechinga area as the birthplace of electronic warfare forces sending jamming signals westward to interfere with the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS).
Now, GPS jamming from Russia is more frequent than ever, Norwegian aviation authorities told the newspaper Dagbladet on Saturday.
The agency stressed that the safety of the airliner was not at risk because the pilot in the cockpit had a backup backup system to navigate landings and takeoffs.
According to Nikolai Gerrard of the Norwegian Communications Authority (Nkom), such interference should be viewed in the context of Russia's war against Ukraine.
"This interference is coming from east of the border in East Finnmark and we are not talking about legal activity," Nicola Gerrard told Dagbladet.
Russia is to blame for GPS jamming affecting civil aviation in neighboring border areas. From the Kaliningrad region in the south to the Kola Peninsula in the north.
