Increasing International Civil Aviation Resilience: A Proposal for Nomenclature, Categorization and Treatment of New Interference Threats

Abstract

Electromagnetic interference can degrade civil Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) signals and services, and in some cases result in integrity failures. The aviation community is well-aware of such threats due to the proliferation of interfering-capable equipment including personal electronic devices (PEDs), personal privacy devices (PPDs), GNSS repeaters, mis-operated test equipment, low-cost software-defined radio cards, and the foreseeable proliferation of more sophisticated spoofing devices in the future. Protection against such interference is under consideration for the next-generation of avionics standards. This paper is intended to support the definition of new avionics standards that address these interference threats. First, it provides a current review of the technical literature with a focus on aviation. Then, the paper compiles the existing nomenclature, taking into account definitions from regulatory bodies. Next, the paper identifies categories of threat emissions. Later, the assets to protect and use case under analysis are presented, followed by a discussion of detection and mitigation responses. The paper continues with a list of detection and mitigation actions that can be implemented at different stages of the avionics receiver. Finally, the paper concludes with a discussion on possible treatment of specific threat categories in the next generation of standards. This paper is intended to provide a framework for discussing standards, recommended practices, and test procedures for the treatment of emissions that may be encountered by future equipment. Common nomenclature and threat categorization of jamming and spoofing threats was not available prior to this effort. The framework is the result of several months of iterations including research institutes, GNSS providers, and air navigation service providers. This work provides a common framework that can be used for threat modeling and quantitative risk analysis to enable development of future requirements and associated test procedures in the next generation of aviation standards. Background This section presents a short review on general radio frequency interference, with a focus on the treatment of interference, jamming and spoofing threats in current aviation standards. GPS/Galileo/GNSS radio frequency interference has been a subject of study since the beginning of GPS [1]. In 2001, the Volpe Report [2] provided a wide assessment of the impact of GPS disruptions in critical applications, including aviation, which increased awareness of the

A Survey on Coping With Intentional Interference in Satellite Navigation for Manned and Unmanned Aircraft

“…The future of SatNav on-board of aircraft is expected to follow some evolutionary trends that also will open new research challenges and will shape future research directions [2], [12], [260]- [263]. The main trend in GNSS is certainly the development towards dual/multi-frequency and multi-constellation receivers in order to improve accuracy, availability, continuity, and resilience to atmospheric effects, multipath and interference.…”

On GPS spoofing of aerial platforms: a review of threats, challenges, methodologies, and future research directions

“…Interrupting the GPS signal can lead to DoS, errors in PVT measurements or reporting of falsified location and time information by the receiver. Irrespective of the intention of the emitter, any GPS interference signal can be considered as a variant of either jamming or spoofing, as also categorized by Fernandez-Hernandez et al (2019) . Jamming leads to DoS that may affect continuum and availability of guidance signals; whereas, spoofing may result in violations in data integrity if the malicious signal is considered as valid by the receiver.…”

“…The authors concluded that the military GPS signal shows robustness against the jamming signal, while the civil GPS signal is more susceptible to jamming. Further detailed discussion of jamming and related RF interference affecting the GPS signal have been explored by Fernandez-Hernandez et al (2019) and Gerdan, Coombe & Takac (1995) . In particular, Fernandez-Hernandez et al (2019) categorized the GPS jamming threats into four types based on objectivity of exposure and sophistication of attack; whereas, Gerdan, Coombe & Takac (1995) presented three different case studies of the adverse effects of jamming on GPS signal’s acquisition.…”

Development of Array Receivers with Anti-Jamming and Anti-Spoofing Capabilities with Help of Multi-Antenna GNSS Signal Simulators

“…As next, the second user starts to move northwards with the speed of 5 km/h. This type of spoofing attack can be classified as "S7 -Targeted Sophisticated Spoofer" according to the nomenclature proposed by U.S.-EU Working Group C in [7]. Such spoofers can potentially use multiple phase-synchronized transmit stations in order to overcome the receiver defense strategies based on multiple receiving antennas and exploitation of the spatial properties of incoming signals.…”