GPS Jamming, threat to Mulitrotors

iceman

Member
Just gone through a pre flight task feasibility/site survey and come across a NOTAM of great relevance "GPS jamming exercise" it warns pilots to use alt means of navigation as they may suffer intermittent/total failure or give incorrect position info. Although it's not in my intended area for the task I'm looking at today I just wonder how many UA pilots out there who aren't qualified/experienced or know what they are doing could suffer from? It's actually centred around/near Spadadam range in Cumbria.
 


Well..... pull up a sandbag. Back in the day you would not want to fiddle on a Thursday as we used to have the Thursday war in which most of the westcountry was radar denied due jamming. Plainly that would have been a bad idea on a Friday because it had the potential to ruin the weekend. Civilian users are not entitled to the best GPS signals we get good enough for the road. Yes the US have turned off SA but its still not the best. Jamming GPS outside of exercises is as simple as buying something from China I am very impressed Iceman that you have bothered to check NOTAMS and think about the implications of this exercise. There are GLONASS/GPS soultions out there and that's a good idea. Moving forward I think vision based stuff like the cruise missile has had for years http://www.theguardian.com/flash/0,5860,567580,00.html will help placate GPS jamming.
 
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Benjamin Kenobi

Easy? You call that easy?
As far as I can tell official jamming is not that often and in localised regions. That one in the south west and in Wales are the only ones I've seen pop up. They're in military zones usually so unlikely we're going to operate from there anyway.
 

iceman

Member
As far as I can tell official jamming is not that often and in localised regions. That one in the south west and in Wales are the only ones I've seen pop up. They're in military zones usually so unlikely we're going to operate from there anyway.
My thoughts where more for those that don't look out for risks and probably wouldn't even know what type of airspace they were flying in, I bet there a few who fly in their back garden and don't even know they are in danger zones let alone class D!
 

Benjamin Kenobi

Easy? You call that easy?
Of course! That's a jolly good idea! I use the google maps NOTAM feature which shows everything graphically. Much easier to interpret. Cheers!
 

Benjamin Kenobi

Easy? You call that easy?
I see what you mean now. There's a big jamming area over Cumbria for two weeks which partly covers southern Scotland.

Great topic!
 




ZAxis

Member
We had always been aware of GPS jamming exercises but assumed they were mainly associated with big military exercises in more remote areas. I was a bit surprised how wide spread they can be. Definitely something to add to the Op's manual.

Thanks for bringing the subject up Iceman.

andy
 

iceman

Member
We had always been aware of GPS jamming exercises but assumed they were mainly associated with big military exercises in more remote areas. I was a bit surprised how wide spread they can be. Definitely something to add to the Op's manual.

Thanks for bringing the subject up Iceman.

andy

Yes, added to my ops manual now. The other problem is that as its military tech we can't be sure how far reaching the jamming is. It could be that you are In a border region of jamming, OK it's not too big a problem if flying a WKM in attitude mode but what about failsafe?
 


quadcopters

Quadcopters.co.uk Drone Specialists
Car thieves use illegal Gps Jammers to avoid the trackers built into the vehicles, We have also heard but cant confirm that some company employees use these devices to hide there whereabouts as many companies now can track there employees movements and position etc.

We always recommend if possible to fly in stabilised modes and not fully rely on gps .
 



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