Can GPS jammers affect military drones?

Maritime safety experts have warned for years that simple GPS jamming methods may pose risks to commercial navigation. According to U.S. Department of Defense officials, the Russian military is deploying GPS jamming technology in the form of a weapon, which can effectively prevent certain U.S. drones from operating in Syria-even hitting unmanned people equipped with anti-jamming technology machine. As more and more operators plan to deploy autonomous ships and aircraft at sea, high-standard military equipment is vulnerable to the threat of GPS jammers.

Four officials told NBC News that the attack so far has only attacked small surveillance drones, not the armed predator and reaper models of the US Air Force. They refused to discuss the possibility of a small plane falling due to obstruction. In addition to GPS receivers, high-end drones like Global Hawk, Predator and Reaper are also equipped with an inertial navigation system, which does not rely on external signals for positioning.

According to the US Army Asymmetric War Organization, in recent years, the Russian military has invested heavily in electronic warfare equipment, and its forces “overlap these systems to block FM, SATCOM, cellular, GPS, and other signals.” The Russian army used it. During the 2014 Ukrainian crisis, the Russian army fixed a batch of United Nations reconnaissance drones in the operation of gps jammer in eastern Ukraine, and the Ukrainian army ’s communication capabilities generally deteriorated. In the Novorossiysk port of the Black Sea in Russia, due to the incorrect position of the GPS screens of several merchant ships, the incident did not have clear contact with the Russian army, but the incident reportedly affected at least 20 people.

The jammer occurred at the same time as the suspected poisonous gas attack. According to NBC News, the man-made interference in Syria has been happening for several weeks. The time and location of the interference are related to the latest round of chemical weapons attacks on civilians in the suburbs of Guta, controlled by the rebels, US officials told NBC, “ They believe that after the incident, Russian forces have used the interference to prevent surveillance aircraft . The United States is currently considering retaliation for the use of chemical weapons against civilians; Russia, which supports the Syrian government ’s Bashar al-Assad regime, denied these attacks.

Five years ago, Ghouta was the scene of another large-scale chemical weapons attack: on August 21, the Syrian army killed 280 to 1,700 people in the area using rockets containing sarin gas, including understanding civilian. To prevent Western military intervention, the Syrian government has reached a diplomatic agreement with the United States to phase out all its chemical weapons, and Russia is the guarantor of the plan. The United States claims that Russia has not performed its duties. “It is ridiculous to claim that the Assad regime has eliminated its chemical stocks. The US Disarmament Ambassador Robert Wood said in February that it is unbelievable that the Assad regime continues to refuse to use chemical weapons Feel inside.