The 24 satellites that keep GPS (Global Positioning System) running have a higher reputation than helping you find the nearest gas station. From ground missions to missile systems and more, the military relies on GPS. The military is so addicted to GPS that military personnel and agencies warn that GPS may become a single point of failure risk, and if the system fails, the armed forces will regularly perform exercises without GPS. Civilian life around the world depends more on GPS than we realize.
Although these 24 satellites may fail due to multiple technical reasons, there are concerns that enemy technology may prevent adversaries from accessing GPS. This attack will affect critical applications in civil infrastructure (power and ATM networks rely on GPS) and will severely disrupt military operations.
In recent years, a team from the Aerospace Communications Systems Implementation Division has developed BLISS technology to intercept jamming signals that may interfere with GPS reception. Because the power of the GPS signal on the earth is very low, the GPS signal received by the user on the ground is very susceptible to interference. On the battlefield, the enemy can intentionally interfere with GPS to prevent combatants from knowing their location. In China, there are several documented cases in which gps jammer purchased through the Internet are used to reject location information. In particular, personal protection jammers, although illegal, are still easily available and have been used to bypass GPS tracking technology.
“BLISS uses a set of proprietary algorithms to estimate certain properties of high-performance jammers, which can mitigate the effects of various strong jammers,” Dr. Dr. Philip Dafesh (Philip Dafesh), one of the Bliss architects. BLISS can be implemented with existing receivers as an independent device between the GPS receiver and its antenna, or it can be integrated into future receiver chipsets.
Known techniques for interference suppression focus on eliminating narrow-band interference in a small frequency range. When the interference frequency changes rapidly, these techniques will fail. Compared with these conventional technologies, BLISS can also resist interference signals that are suitable for signals of interest and are not sensitive to interference signals that rapidly change their frequency or phase characteristics.
The technology is promising and has been licensed to Talen-X, a subsidiary of Orolia, a company specializing in the manufacture of precision time and frequency products, aimed at solving the global problems of satellite navigation systems. The research and development of BLISS was initially funded by the Aerospace Innovation Laboratory (iLab), the purpose is to encourage engineers to study innovative solutions to space-related problems. BLISS is an example of how to convert ideas generated in iLab into practical solutions. Dr. Esteban Valles, head of the digital communications implementation department, said: “We have a very talented and diverse workforce that uses the latest technology in various fields to develop and deploy functional proof-of-concept devices, such as BLISS.”