GPS systems, capabilities and vulnerabilities

[W.G.Ewald]

C4I.org - 10 GPS Vulnerabilities by Lieutenant Colonel Thomas K. Adams, US Army, Ret.

Dual Use and Vulnerabilities

Before entering the 21st century dependent on space-based systems and commercially developed information-technology based systems, the US military must understand its capabilities, limitations and vulnerabilities. Dual-use and off-the-shelf technologies offer real advantages and are especially cost effective. However, they have serious disadvantages:

Dual use means that both civilian and military users employ the same technology. Technology training, documentation and product improvements are also available to potential adversaries.

Off-the-shelf merchandise provides civilian and military users with nearly identical systems. Systems designed to operate in a much less stringent peacetime environment could be chosen rather than those designed for combat.

States, political movements and individuals can obtain current military technology without costly research, development, manufacture, training capacity or espionage.

Dual-use and off-the-shelf policies can give various entities much of the military capacity formerly reserved to the great powers.

I take GPS for granted now for land travel and marine navigation. (Well, my Garmin nüvi needs to go back to the factory, but that's another story.)

Obviously the military uses GPS, but what are the vulnerabilities especially if the the system is attacked by a hostile entity?

I don't even know how many GPS systems there are and who controls them.

 

[W.G.Ewald]

Global Positioning System"¨ Is a Single Point of Failure | SIGNAL Magazine

GPS vulnerabilities could be addressed with upgraded long-range navigation.

In an instant, one million people in Tel Aviv are vaporized. Hamas, the terrorist extremist group backed by Iran, has detonated a dirty bomb—a conventional explosive with radioactive material—and is attacking Israel with long-range rockets. Concurrently, the U.S. Air Force loses all communication with its Navigation System Timing and Ranging Global Positioning System satellites. Intelligence reports indicate that Iran has launched multiple antisatellite missiles that have destroyed several navigation satellites, effectively disabling the Global Positioning System.

This is a fictional scenario, but it may not be that far-fetched. The U.S. military must take into account the vulnerabilities of its Navigation System Timing and Ranging (NAVSTAR) Global Positioning System (GPS) and invest in a land-based system that provides the same capabilities.

 

[W.G.Ewald]

Navigation and Timekeeping - Office of Naval Research

GPS vulnerability mitigation:

Initial efforts focused on electronically steered GPS antenna systems, featuring antenna that preferentially select the intended satellite source and reject spatially inhomogeneous noise and jammer sources. Present interest involves developing controlled radiation pattern antennas for specific naval platforms, such as ships, airborne platforms, guided munitions, unmanned air vehicles and unmanned underwater vehicles. This thrust also addresses the coupling of GPS with inertial systems.

 

[W.G.Ewald]

Supervised Team Of College Hackers Expose GPS Vulnerability « CBS Dallas / Fort Worth

Hackers at the University of Texas at Austin are shedding some light on the vulnerability of technology many people depend on in today's world – the Global Positioning System (GPS).

The space-based satellite navigation system informs us where we are, how fast we're going and where to go next. GPS provides location and time information in all weather conditions, anywhere on or near the planet where there is an unobstructed line of sight to four or more GPS satellites.

 

[W.G.Ewald]

Military PNT — The Way Ahead | Inside GNSS

GPS-based positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) have profoundly changed how the U.S. Defense Department carries out command and control in the electronic battlespace — from a reactive to a real-time mode of continuous situational awareness. Now military leaders are looking for the technologies that can fill the gaps in PNT that occur in GPS signal–challenged conditions.

 

[rojesh]

There are only two positioning systems are operational now GPS & Glonass, Few in developing stage. Although both the system work in the same principle, except each Glonass satellite transmit it's own frequency. This arrangement is known as FDMA Frequency division multiple access. while GPS use CDMA code division multiple access where each satellite is identified from it's C/A code in common frequency. The control segment includes satellite tracking station and master control station. satellite tracking stations located in different parts of the world tracks the satellite in view and relay the phase and range data to the master control stations. The master control station computes the orbital parameters of the satellite this data is uploaded back in the satellite. The data is included in the satellite navigational transmission in L1 & L2 frequencies. There are multiple tracking station and master control station in different locations redundancy is always maintained. Attacking Global Positioning System can not be done by one missile, unless if he destroys all the 24 satellite.

 

[Armand2REP]

The greatest vulnerability of relying on GPS is that the US can turn it off anytime they want. The problem is there is no system to replace it. GLONASS is so horribly inaccurate Russian Marines land miles away from their LZ.

 

[W.G.Ewald]

^^
Comments which follow the video claim that the beach is in fact a military training area and civilians there ignore restrictions on access.

So the comment on GLONASS is Armand2REP just pulling our leg.

 

[Armand2REP]

^^
Comments which follow the video claim that the beach is in fact a military training area and civilians there ignore restrictions on access.

So the comment on GLONASS is Armand2REP just pulling our leg.

Komosomolskaya Pravda said the base the ministry was referring to was several miles away in Khmelevka, not Mechnikovo.

Под Калининградом десантный корабль распугал отдыхающих // KP.RU

 

[W.G.Ewald]

Russian Navy hovercraft rams into crowded beach | Russia & India Report

A Russian Zubr ("Bison") hovercraft, the largest type of military hovercraft in the world, on Sunday ploughed into a Kaliningrad Region beach filled with dozens of sunbathers, the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper reported.

The daily quoted the Russian Defense Ministry's press service as saying the landing was part of a routine exercise on ministry property and "what people were doing at the beach on the territory of a military base is unclear."

 

[W.G.Ewald]

On July 4th, 2012 I personally observed a USN LCAC come ashore on Niantic Beach in Connecticut, which was crowded with civilians at the time. Nobody thought it was a big deal, or thought a navigational system ad gone awry.

 

[rojesh]

We are using both GPS and Glonass system both systems have same accuracy ie 1.5 mtrs with differential corrections applied. Except Glonass has less satellite, but they are polar orbiting they have some advantage also. In any case If uncle SAM decides to turn off the GPS (which he can not) because there are more civil users now and he is also depending on GPS. He can increase the clock error but now there are more differential corrections available in different modes. So the chances are less. There are more regional networks available like India is still developing IRNS... which can be used in case if the GPS or Glonass fails.