As technology advances, there are seemingly endless threats to thwart and the race is always against the clock. The development of unmanned aerial vehicles, commonly referred to as “drones”, adds further complexity to military operations in multiple areas on an increasingly complex and unpredictable battlefield.
The latest reports from Syria underline the inclusion of these in an evolving combat area. One of the simplest threats to drones is that they block or encrypt the reception of a signal from a GPS satellite. This “gps jammer” can have serious operational implications for the military mission and is likely to become more common. According to an NBC article, Russians use GPS jamming against the U.S. military’s smaller surveillance aircraft.
This type of attack is not surprising for those familiar with these operations, and teams expect interference with a combination of tools. The operator prepares the use of a multi-domain modeling system by analyzing the GPS reception in an area of application and whether this affects the reception of GPS signals by the aircraft.
The Systems Tool Kit (STK) includes a short tutorial that shows how to find out if a small, portable GPS jammer can interfere with your mission. It is also possible to determine how spectral filters or adaptive zero balancing with phased arrays can counteract this, or to design new systems as other phenomenologies in order to obtain a position such as e.g. B. Sky navigation that work in this denied environment.
Addressing these new dimensions of modern warfare is critical to national security. By validating and applying commercial modeling and simulation, those who help secure our nation are given incredible value and power.