GPS jammers are used in military warfare

GPS signal jammer, which means blocking or scrambling a drone’s reception of a signal from a GPS satellite, can be uncomplicated, according to Dr. Todd Humphreys, the director of the Radionavigation Laboratory at the University of Texas at Austin.

U.S. analysts first caught the Russian military jamming drones in eastern Ukraine four years ago, after the invasion of Crimea, according to Humphreys. He said the jammers were initially detected as faint signals from space, bouncing off the earth’s surface. The jammers “had a pretty significant impact” on the United Nations surveillance drones that were attempting to monitor the area, grounding the fleet for days and halting intelligence gathering from the air.

The military and its industry partners have various means fielded and in development to ensure that bombs hit their targets, whether that means redundant targeting systems like seekers that target GPS jammers, laser-guidance systems or camera-aided navigation.

The reality of the threat is no secret. In 2011, North Korea blocked South Korean GPS signals, reportedly using Russian-made jamming equipment capable of disrupting guided weapons. That same year, Iran downed and captured an RQ-170 Sentinel drone, boasting it had spoofed GPS data, redirecting the drone to land inside Iranian borders.

The high governmental support to use military wifi signal jammer in military application acts as a key driver for the growth of the military jammer market in the sector. The U.K uses drone jammer technology, which helps track the UAV flown by terrorists. Likewise, the Russian government has taken initiatives to upgrade the helicopter fleet, and the U.S. government has awarded contracts to Lockheed Martin for the testing and development of long-range radar. Such government initiatives play a major role in the growth of the military jammer market over the forecast period.

In February, Perfectjammer achieved a breakthrough by selling its DroneGun tactical drone jammer to the Ministry of Defence of a Middle Eastern country. Fifteen years ago, jammers were considered expensive equipment most common to governments or nation states. But now low-cost, low-powered jammers are everywhere, riding the wave of cheap, reliable consumer electronics like Wi-Fi routers and smartphones.