WASHINGTON – The manufacturers of precision-guided ammunition no longer require simple GPS guidance systems to always work for themselves. signal jammer and spoofing equipment threaten future battlefields; Manufacturers have taken note of the threat and responded.
The military and its industrial partners have various means and are under development to ensure that bombs reach their targets. This means that redundant target systems such as viewfinders for GPS jammers, laser guidance systems or camera-based navigation are required.
The reality of the threat is no secret. In 2011, North Korea blocked South Korean GPS signals and used interference devices that are allegedly made in Russia and can interfere with guided weapons. In the same year, Iran struck and captured an RQ-170 Sentinel drone. It boasted that it had falsified GPS data and steered the drone to the Iranian borders.
Simply put, a jammer emits noise, so nearby GPS receivers – based on weak signals from distant satellites – are overwhelmed and lose the actual GPS signal. If a precisely guided bomb that is only a minute away from its target loses the lock, this can have catastrophic consequences.
“I have to block the entire operational framework – this includes” get-me-there “, it also includes the end game,” said Al Simon, Marketing Manager for Navigation Systems at Rockwell Collins, who has deployed more than 225,000 integrated teams. Anti-jam systems found on the U.S. Military’s intelligent weapon, the Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM).
“All the classic men of threat are out there: Iran, North Korea, China, Russia,” said Simon about the threat of GPS noise. “Everyone is desperately looking for an upgrade to their primary [navigation system] or GPS, or they’re looking for something that isn’t GPS. There is no magic ball that can replace GPS.”
Fifteen years ago, jammers were considered an expensive device that is most common in governments or nation states. But now, inexpensive, energy-saving jammers are everywhere on the wave of cheaper, more reliable consumer electronics such as WiFi routers and smartphones. Although military GPS systems are more resilient than their commercial cousins, there is no 100 percent guarantee, especially against a powerful jammer.
A $ 25 jammer from China found online can block the GPS signal around a car, while a two- or three-watt jar the size of a cigarette box, available for a few hundred dollars, has several Blocks, ”said Joe Rolli, who heads Exelis’ GPS jammer detection program, Signal Sentry.