The C5 Consortia, formed in 2014, and the most popular of the 25 consortia tracked by BGOV, is designed to address C4ISR and cyber technology requirements. BGOV’s C5 opportunity search shows 102 opportunities through C5. In order to respond to the drone GPS jammer or other C5 opportunities a company must join the consortia which currently has hundreds of members including BGOV.
With drone sales expected grow exponentially in the near future, and an increasing number and severity of drone incidents occurring daily, DroneShield launched DroneGun to respond to nefarious use of consumer and commercial drones and the resulting need for effective countermeasures to drone intrusions. DroneShield aims to help public and private sector customers, where allowed by law, take proactive measures against airborne threats to safety, security, and privacy.
Jammers are designed to disrupt a drone by blasting electromagnetic noise at radio frequencies that drones operate and transmit video at, and at a power level high enough to drown out any effective communication between the drone and its pilot. Generally, this is either 2.4Ghz or 5.8Ghz (“RF-jamming”), which are “non-assigned” public frequencies meaning that drone signal jammer will not interfere with manned aircraft, cell phones, public broadcasts, or other dedicated radio bands. In addition to RF-jamming, where legal for the customer (which depending on the jurisdiction, may include military, law enforcement, first responders and private users), GPS jamming may also be utilized, as a large number of drones rely on GPS either to balance against wind, or to go between pre-determined way-points.
When a drone is hit with a gps jammer’s signal, the drone usually returns back to its origin point (unless GPS is also jammed), giving the jammer user the option to track the drone back to the pilot. Sometimes the drones might even perform a vertical descent and land on the spot intact, which offers the option of performing a forensic investigation. Landing on the spot is also the general response from drones when both RF and GPS are jammed at the same time.
In timing applications, jammers can disrupt the GPS signal, causing the underlying systems to lose their ability to synchronize their internal clocks and, in turn, their ability to stay in sync with the rest of the network. Since many critical infrastructures sectors require synchronization across their network to be within millionths of a second, even short-term GPS outages can have a major impact. Worse, when an outage occurs, there’s typically nothing to indicate that it’s a result of jamming. The GPS signal simply is not received anymore.