Jamming-proof celestial navigation for drones – Spatial Source (devil is in the details)

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January 15, 2025

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Written by Editor

Dozens,Of,Drones,Swarm,In,The,Cloudy,Sky.

Image: Shutterstock

What’s new: An article about a celestial nav system that can be strapped on drones.

Why it’s important:

It is relatively easy to jam or spoof GNSS signals on most drones making them ineffective. And we know of instances when accidental interference has caused drones to crash.
Drones are very sensitive to SWAP-C (Size, Weight, And Power – Cost) The system described seems to have low SWAP-C.

What else to know:

We followed the link in the Spatial Source article and glanced over the academic paper. The researchers were routinely getting LOCATION ACCURACY WITHIN 4 KILOMETERS! Not sure this is a practical alternative to GNSS quite yet.
This is why we don’t get over-excited about quantum and other PNT developments hyped in the press. Even with technologies that are proven to have reasonable accuracies, security, good SWAP-C, and so on, there are still a host of challenges getting things fielded. For example, any tech that might be used in commercial aviation has a multi-year approval and integration process to go through. So having good tech is just the start of the journey/ solution.

Jamming-proof celestial navigation for drones

By jnally on 15 January, 2025

Australian researchers have responded to a surge in jamming attacks to develop a navigation system that uses visual data from stars rather than relying on the GNSS.

Remote sensing engineers from the University of South Australia have combined celestial navigation with vision-based technology to provide an alternative means of night-time navigation in environments where GNSS is unavailable or unreliable.

UniSA researcher Dr Samuel Teague says the lightweight system can be integrated into standard drones.

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