TRIALS INVOLVING THE jamming of global-positioning-system (GPS) satellite-navigation signals in the UK are to be carried out from January to April 1996 by the Defence Research Agency (DRA).
The UK military tests involve a Royal Air Force electronic counter-countermeasures device, designed to ensure that RAF strike aircraft can continue to use GPS despite jamming signals.
If the equipment does not work, says the DRA, the other task is to determine the RAF's alternative navigation mode whenever GPS jamming takes place.
The agency says that its tests will be carried out "in the vicinity of Aberporth [Wales]", and that the interference will be propagated using a beamed antenna to minimise the area of GPS signal disruption. It will take place for only about five days during the four-month period for 2h a day.
The US Department of Defense (DoD) carried out GPS signal-jamming tests in April, but for the opposite reason (Flight International, 5-11 April). The DoD's purpose was to check that GPS wide-area augmentation systems could be disabled locally, to deny a potential enemy access to augmented civil-GPS accuracy "within the theatre of operations", whenever GPS jamming takes place.
Source: Flight International