Defending the Skies: Anti-Jamming and GPS Spoofing in UAVs

Source: Dev.to

In the modern era of electronic warfare, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) face two major invisible threats: jamming and spoofing.

• Jamming is the act of drowning out GPS signals with high‑powered noise, causing the drone to lose its position and often trigger a “failsafe” mode.
• Spoofing is more dangerous; it involves sending fake GPS coordinates to the drone, tricking it into thinking it is somewhere else, which can lead to the aircraft being hijacked or crashed.

Countermeasures

To counter these threats, systems such as NavGuard are developed. By integrating multi‑constellation GNSS receivers, inertial navigation systems (INS), and advanced filtering algorithms like Extended Kalman Filters (EKF), mission continuity can be maintained even in contested environments. Protecting the data link is no longer optional—it is a necessity for the future of avionics.