The ACCSEAS, a European Union part-funded project involving 11 partners from the North Sea Region, announced this month that technology designed to automatically counter the threat of GPS jamming in maritime shipping and transport vessels has been successfully demonstrated for the first time. The new counter-jamming technology employs eLoran, an extension of the LORAN technology developed by U.S. scientists that enables ships and aircraft to determine their speed and location from low frequency radio signals transmitted by fixed land-based radio beacons.
According to ACCSEAS, during a series of tests aboard the THV Galatea sailing out of Harwich, UK, a “prototype resilient PNT (positioning, navigation and timing) system” demonstrated the capability to automatically switch over from GPS to eLoran without interruption when presented with interference, enabling the ship to continue as normal. This latest trial was built upon results collected by two previous trials conducted by the General Lighthouse Authorities (GLA) in 2008 and 2010, which examined the impact of GPS service denial.
The success of the European Union’s trial comes at a point in time where the unauthorized use of inexpensive jamming devices continues to grow, while maritime navigation systems continue to rely increasingly on GPS satellites for accurate and safe navigation.
A separate, 24-month study recently launched by the UK government identified more than 60 instances of GPS jamming equipment in passing vehicles over a period of six months using roadside monitoring systems. Other research also identified the potential of interference from developing windfarms along the coastlines with maritime navigation systems. While interference poses a minor problem for average users who may temporarily lose the ability to access turn-by-turn driving directions or satellite map applications, the potential impact is much more serious and potentially life-threatening to the aerospace and maritime industries.
However, despite the increase in identified jamming cases, no one really knows how much GPS jamming is happening, David Last of the General Lighthouse Authorities, one of the partners in the ACCSEAS project, told TechWeekEurope.
“As far as we can see, in the UK at the moment it’s mostly individuals using the so-called ‘personal privacy devices.’ If you’re a white van driver and want to do a bit of moonlighting,’ but your company installs tracking systems in its fleet, you buy one of these things, plug it in the cigarette lighter socket, and it jams GPS in the vehicle and a certain distance around it,” he said.
Martyn Thomas, vice president of the Royal Academy of Engineering, believes it is important to continue to strengthen GPS anti-jamming capabilities for the future in general, regardless of where issues with jamming equipment are appearing now.
“GPS and other satellite navigation systems are deeply embedded in several critical sectors such as telecommunications, power distribution and high frequency financial trading, in addition to transport,” he said. “The dangerous over reliance on GPS makes it a potential common point of failure for very many systems, so any technology that can provide resilience to these systems should be welcomed across the board.”
For more information, visit ACCSEAS and Tech Week Europe.
