GNSS jamming is a significant problem in Europe and is getting worse, according to Pieter De-Smet, Policy Officer at the European Commission.

In a presentation to the US national PNT Advisory Board meeting in Boulder, Colorado yesterday, De-Smet said that the EU’s DETECTOR interference detection system has logged over 60,000 disruption incidents. He also said that the Commission has “Evidence that jammers are becoming more sophisticated (with) faster sweep rates, wider bandwidths and more complex signals.”

Projects similar to DETECTOR, such as the GAUL and SENTINEL projects in the UK and SIGNAL SENTRY in the US are producing similar results. Chronos Technology in the UK has developed the ability to photograph vehicles associated with jamming signals as a way of aiding enforcement authorities.

De-Smet said that Europe was going to further develop and deploy DETECTOR by increasing the number of monitoring sites, and doing further analysis including comparing results in different geographic locations. They are also looking to include more nations in the program and have contracted with Spirent to analyse the impact on receivers through simulations.

When asked about a proposal to convert Europe’s Loran network to a “Galileo-Earth” system that would synchronize with Galileo satellites, deter jamming and provide Galileo services indoors, De-Smet said that he was unable to comment.