Monitor, detect and support the location of threats that may jeopardize critical satellite navigation activities
Last Updated: 31/08/2026 19:50 Created at: 22/12/2022 07:12
Final Presentation of NAVISP Project EL2 034 now available:
On Tuesday, December 20, 2022, Indra, together with its consortium partners The Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and ENAIRE presented the results of the NAVISP project “GNSS Interference Monitoring and Detection System (GIMAD).” Over 70 people from industry and research followed the interesting presentation and the subsequent interactive Q&A session.
A growing number of professional, safety, and liability products and services depend on GNSS and PNT information more broadly. These sensitive applications usually require high accuracy and reliability performances and in some cases also demanding service continuity levels. Despite GNSS bands are protected against interference and states are requested to ensure that no harmful transmissions are present or radiated from their territories, there is a long record of incidents during the last years that will for sure increase in the future. Thus, a growing interest has arisen to maximize the robustness of the GNSS based applications, by monitoring the GNSS threats and providing the means to minimize their impact on the satellite-based applications.
To this end, an interference detection station has been designed to efficiently detect and support the location of threats that can endanger satellite-navigation based critical activities. Following this design, the GNSS Interference Monitoring and Detection (GIMAD) System has been developed focussing on the algorithms part and the concept validation. In this context, the main technical specifications that algorithms have to full fill are the following:
- Monitor the presence of Radio Frequency Interferences (RFI)
- Pulsed Interferences5 (e.g. a Chirp) and Band-Noise Like interferences
- Detect RFI in the GNSS band and outside it
- Characterize the detected RFI
- Locate the RFI
The GIMAD system is able to detect and locate radio-frequency interferences in not only GNSS bands, but also covering the spectrum from 800MHz to 1900MHz in near-real -time. Moreover, technical requirements are particularized for EGNOS and GBAS RFI masks derived from International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), focusing on airports’ safety critical environment. The GIMAD product has been developed taking into account the RFI masks of EGNOS and GBAS and therefore offers a competitive advantage to cover this market gap.
Thanks to the support from NAVISP, a Signal Processing Module containing many suitable algorithms to detect, characterize and locate different types of RFI has been developed as well as a Control Alert and Monitoring Module to display the events. In addition, a specific HW has been selected for accurate detection of RFI. The product is characterized by offering multiple detection techniques to detect more than one type of RFI. At the same time, it covers multiple characterization techniques to find a trade-off between resolution and time, and also includes multiple location techniques that can be adapted to natural conditions.
At the end of the project, the prototype of GIMAD has reached TRL 6 and is ready to be integrated into various user scenarios covering space solutions, air traffic management, but also critical infrastructure protection. The GIMAD system offers great opportunities for commercialization of the results in the form of development of new RFI detection, characterization and location products targeted at a specific market niche.
The project was part of NAVISP Element 2, which aims to maintain and improve the capabilities and competitiveness of the participating States' industry in the global market for satellite navigation and, more broadly, PNT technologies and services.
More detailed information can be found in the slides of the Final Presentation.