Image: Screenshot from Schiebe of S-100 drone
What’s new: A report of a military drone crashing because of GPS jamming.
Why it’s important:
- Drones/ uncrewed / autonomous systems are becoming increasingly important to both military and commercial operations.
- Most un-crewed/ autonomous systems depend upon GPS and sometimes other GNSS signals. Many will land – correction, they will descend to the surface – if signals are lost. In this case the surface was the ocean. So…
- Many, if not most, counter-UAS systems use signal interference/ jamming.
What else to know:
- This is a good example of the importance of not only having alternative PNT sources, but fostering adoption. South Korea has a resilient national PNT architecture using fiber, TV broadcast, eLoran, and GNSS. This drone would almost certainly not have been lost if it had also been accessing terrestrial PNT.
- This report is of an incident that is over a year old. We wonder how many other similar, or perhaps more severe incidents there have been that world militaries and governments don’t want to talk about.
- The article is behind a paywall but you are able to read the first paragraph or so without a subscription.
Newly released report finds unmanned helicopter fell into Yellow Sea amid ongoing signal disruptions from DPRK side
An unmanned South Korean naval helicopter crashed into the Yellow Sea last year due to North Korean GPS jamming near the maritime border, a lawmaker revealed for the first time Monday.
According to the office of Kang Dei-sik of the conservative People Power Party, an ROK S-100 drone took off at 1:17PM on April 7, 2024 but lost control and plunged into the sea near Yeonpyoong Island around 2:26PM.
