Vulnerability of UAVs and remotely GPS guided weapons

GPS guidance vulnerable even in peace time, even over the US!

The US FAA is studying the possibility of deploying a nationwide network of GPS interference detectors that would be placed on cellular communications towers to "mitigate interference in order to protect air navigation system".

http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2009/10/30/334260/faa-mulls-gps-interference-detector-corrector.html

Doesn't bode well for JDAMs, UAVs et al in a real fight, but keep the faith eh :)

Cheers, Woody
 
Woody said:
GPS guidance vulnerable even in peace time, even over the US!

The US FAA is studying the possibility of deploying a nationwide network of GPS interference detectors that would be placed on cellular communications towers to "mitigate interference in order to protect air navigation system".

http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2009/10/30/334260/faa-mulls-gps-interference-detector-corrector.html

Doesn't bode well for JDAMs, UAVs et al in a real fight, but keep the faith eh :)

Cheers, Woody

How is that bad for GPS weapons at all? ???
 
A few unsolicited thoughts.

To bet the farm that GPS will always be available in a serious conflict and that a technologically savvy opponent will not attempt to disrupt the signals, especially if said opponent has alternate methodologies available is really wishful thinking. The disruption can just be sheer noise. The FAA's plan is basically geared towards an accidental or localized disruption. A large scale action would have a devastating affect on aviation. Consider the impact in the US, if NextGen is fully fielded, on the loss of GPS signals Yes, there are countermeasures for military use, including authentication and filtering, but it gets very expensive to put those on every UCAV and every weapon.

As far as hacking the UCAV or its communications, it is not necessary to have the sophistication to take over control or to reprogram. It's only necessary to keep it from functioning as we desire. That's why it's simpler on the Internet to perform a DoS attack than to try and take over a server/website. Of course financial institutions have the best security of all, yet they still are attacked successfully.

Keep in mind also that while those in the West for the most part care about collateral damage, an opponent may not. Set aside your feelings for the moment about whether or not the conflicts in Iraq or Afghanistan should have been fought. Is there any sign that the US' opponents care a fig about how many innocents die? This greatly limits what you can do with autonomous weapons.

Our processing technology is growing by leaps and bounds, but it still has a long way to go to approach what can be done with man in the loop or by a manned aircraft. In many cases the tradeoffs are worth it, but some times they are not. UAVs are performing very well, but it most cases that is because we are willing to accept much less capability to perform a particular mission. In many cases that may be all we need.

Let me draw a parallel with the exploration of Mars. The rovers Spirit and Opportunity are fantastic successes, wildly exceeding expectations and lasting far, far longer than was intended. Yet all they've achieved in the last five years could have been done by a human in a few days.

My point being that we are doing a lot of UCAV and GPS work because we can pretend they are magic bullets. We are still a long way from being able to use them exclusively or in a primary role. Yes, eventually we could with a lot of time and treasure develop a fully autonomous system with its own impregnable command and control network. I've even got a suggestion for a name for it---"Skynet"

"Ah'll be bok!"
 

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GPS Guided weapons like JDAM have built in INS systems that are continuously updated from the GPS signal, so that if GPS signal is lost/jammed, the weapon continues on it's previous INS "hack".

Now obviously, this will result in degradation of accuracy, but this is more of an issue for a very long range weapon than a bomb that glides 20 kilometers.
 
The big problem with current UAVs are:

1.) They're hideously vunerable to the enemy, due to the fact that the pilot's situational awareness through a TV screen is much lower than someone sitting in a cockpit. However, this is offset by the fact that most UAVs nowadays fly very high; above the ceilings for most light anti-aircraft weapons and MANPADS; which is one reason for their success in Iraq and Afghanistan -- the enemy can't effectively reach them with the weapons available to them.

2.) The datalinks required for two way communications. Any competent enemy in the future will make it his first priority to shoot down our satellites in the general region with an ASAT weapon (basically if have an IRBM you can work on it a little bit and presto! instant ASAT). This is why a lot of US Military R&D funding is going towards microsatellites that are smaller than the current cold-war era behemoths in orbit; so that they can be easily and cheaply lofted into orbit on very short notice to replace destroyed satellites.

It's certainly not implausible to imagine that by 2020, a U.S. Corps Commander, or even Divisional Commander will have his own space launch assets to launch micro recon satellites or comm sats for his theater/region.
 
RyanCrierie said:
GPS Guided weapons like JDAM have built in INS systems that are continuously updated from the GPS signal, so that if GPS signal is lost/jammed, the weapon continues on it's previous INS "hack".

Now obviously, this will result in degradation of accuracy, but this is more of an issue for a very long range weapon than a bomb that glides 20 kilometers.

True, but the CEP more than doubles on falls of 100 sec or less, much more for longer "flights" If you can routinely accept that (in the face of sustained GPS jamming), the money would have been better spent on improving the INS accuracy.

There's also the issue that GPS weapons take quite some time to set up for a target that wasn't preplanned, but that may be an issue for elsewhere.
 
There's also the issue that GPS weapons take quite some time to set up for a target that wasn't preplanned, but that may be an issue for elsewhere.

I believe the latest software updates for USN/USAF airplanes allow them to set the GPS coordinates of the JDAM etc automagically for certain types of targets by using a GPS receiver in the plane combined with the radar in ground mapping mode to generate an offset coordinate that can be plugged into the bomb.

Additionally, I believe the latest block of JDAM will incoporate a datalink back to the launching platform, so that the aircraft can lock onto say, a moving truck, and continually relay to the JDAM an updated set of coordinates as the truck moves. I believe they have tested this on the firing range. Don't know how far this is from the Fleet/Air Force.
 
RyanCrierie said:
There's also the issue that GPS weapons take quite some time to set up for a target that wasn't preplanned, but that may be an issue for elsewhere.

I believe the latest software updates for USN/USAF airplanes allow them to set the GPS coordinates of the JDAM etc automagically for certain types of targets by using a GPS receiver in the plane combined with the radar in ground mapping mode to generate an offset coordinate that can be plugged into the bomb.

Additionally, I believe the latest block of JDAM will incoporate a datalink back to the launching platform, so that the aircraft can lock onto say, a moving truck, and continually relay to the JDAM an updated set of coordinates as the truck moves. I believe they have tested this on the firing range. Don't know how far this is from the Fleet/Air Force.

Well, last year it took B-1s, which is about as good as it gets, about 5-7 minutes to reset JDAM for a target. Single seat aircraft have it much worse because they've got to go through all the stuff necessary to program the thing and still fly the plane. You know, this is getting really expensive for what was supposed to be a cheap accuracy upgrade, but such is the way of the world.
 
Protecting GPS signals from jamming, whether intentional or unintentional, will be a critical aspect of the next generation air transportation system (NextGen)...

http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2009/10/30/334260/faa-mulls-gps-interference-detector-corrector.html

The FAA seems a little more realistic than weapons marketers.

Cheers, Woody
 
Weapons manufacturers like I said, don't care; because they have INS backups on every platform, from the aircraft that drops the bomb to the bomb itself.

Additionally, there are points on each airfield the USAF/USN operates from for any length of time that have been pre-surveyed, and all you have to do is park your plane over that position, and punch in the coordinates for that, and let the INS warm up.

The problem is that INS alignment generally takes 15-20 minutes; hence why GPS was such a big help, you could take off from an airfield under attack, and then align the INS from GPS signals in the air.

It's not as accurate as GPS; but with a 500 pound bomb, you only need to get within a couple dozen feet to kill most targets.

Being able to operate independently of jammable signals has not surprisingly been a major USAF objective since the 1950s, you only need to look at the requirements for the B-70's bomb/nav system, making heavy use of nonjammable systems like INS and Star tracking for navigational/positional purposes.
 
Abraham Gubler said:
First of all the weapon system has so severally suffered malfunction that it is just flying off in one direction until it runs out of fuel. This is very unlikely to indicate that its weapon systems and autonomous mission and flight control systems are still operational. Secondly said systems will be [are!] programmed not to engage inhabited friendly units even if said friendly unit is doing its damnest to inflict a blue on blue.
....
Since the autonomous system only has emotions, a sense of self preservation and malice if playing a starring role in the latest Hollywood blockbuster or New York Times Bestsellers List thriller one needed worry about “blind faith” in technology; another attribute that only exists in fictional defence engineers.

So, the weapon system is tied to the waypoint system? I see no reason why the two systems wouldn't be effectively fully autonomous.

Furthermore, how is it's programming going to allow it to identify friendlies? Using IFF? Using visual sensors for identification? Datalinks? What if they're jammed? Or the enemy is copying allied IFF? Fratricide is surprisingly common with human operators - and not just in situations where the weapon system is under threat / duress. If don't see why a drone would be any different.

S!

P.S. If I recall the two UAV movies (Stealth and Eagle-Eye) the computers were ultimately more dedicated and more ethical than those giving the orders. I thought the movies would actually be good "PR" for the UCAV crowd.
 
Insurgents in Iraq have hacked into live video feeds from unmanned American drone aircraft, US media reports say.

Shia fighters are said to have used off-the-shelf software programs such as SkyGrabber to capture the footage.

The hacking was possible because the remotely flown planes have an unprotected communications link.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8419147.stm

I know it's only video so far but Iraqi and Afghan 'insurgents' aren't the most heavily resourced people out there so imagine what somebody really tooled-up could do, eh?

Cheers, Woody
 
Woody said:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8419147.stm

I know it's only video so far but Iraqi and Afghan 'insurgents' aren't the most heavily resourced people out there so imagine what somebody really tooled-up could do, eh?

Cheers, Woody
That shows the vulnerability of the datalink itself, not whether it's unmanned or manned. If it's a manned aircraft using the same kind of datalink, the result would still be the same.
 
donnage99 said:
That shows the vulnerability of the datalink itself, not whether it's unmanned or manned. If it's a manned aircraft using the same kind of datalink, the result would still be the same.

So an enemy with access to a data link could hack a pilot?????

Woody
 
Woody said:
So an enemy with access to a data link could hack a pilot?????
Woody
No, they could hack the camera, which is the issue reported in the article ::)
 
see? this is the B.S. I hate about sensationalist journalism. You read headlines like "Hackers take over UAVs" and the message you send is something like insurgents can actually control the UAVs. All they were doing, AFAIK, is watching the video feed. Not unlike stealing cable. It will probably cost an arm and a leg, but i don't think it's much of a technical challenge making the feed secure.
 
AeroFranz said:
see? this is the B.S. I hate about sensationalist journalism. You read headlines like "Hackers take over UAVs" and the message you send is something like insurgents can actually control the UAVs. All they were doing, AFAIK, is watching the video feed. Not unlike stealing cable. It will probably cost an arm and a leg, but i don't think it's much of a technical challenge making the feed secure.

If the USAF/CIA is smart, what they'll do is encrypt the actual video feed by embedding it within a pre-recorded video feed. This way, anybody hacking in would see what the UAV operators *want* them to see. You would start off by showing them video from *somewhere* *else*, making the hackers think the UAV is not looking right at them.

And once the hackers have figured out *that* trick, you replace the recording with something else. Hardcore gay porn starring bin Laden, Muhammad, and Wilbur the Friendly Pig; something that'll turn them off. Presumably.
 
Orionblamblam said:
AeroFranz said:
see? this is the B.S. I hate about sensationalist journalism. You read headlines like "Hackers take over UAVs" and the message you send is something like insurgents can actually control the UAVs. All they were doing, AFAIK, is watching the video feed. Not unlike stealing cable. It will probably cost an arm and a leg, but i don't think it's much of a technical challenge making the feed secure.

If the USAF/CIA is smart, what they'll do is encrypt the actual video feed by embedding it within a pre-recorded video feed. This way, anybody hacking in would see what the UAV operators *want* them to see. You would start off by showing them video from *somewhere* *else*, making the hackers think the UAV is not looking right at them.

And once the hackers have figured out *that* trick, you replace the recording with something else. Hardcore gay porn starring bin Laden, Muhammad, and Wilbur the Friendly Pig; something that'll turn them off. Presumably.


There are some issues here that the general press overlooked in these reports.

One of them is that in the effort to have lower costs up front, there is a great push from above or Congress to use more "off the shelf" commercial software and code. Sometimes that's a good thing especially, when performing the exact same tasks that would be performed commercially, or when the linkup is 100% secure (essentially hardwired). Using OTS software, though, means that it is vulnerable to the same things the commercial users face. And of course there are a lot of people writing cracking code to break into commercial software, far more than those trying to break intro unique software. As we see, some malware can also be off the shelf, or developed in the same way script kiddies do it.

A second is how long it takes governments to acquire stuff. The kind of equipment and code we are probably using was developed 10 or more years ago, wasn't designed to handle the threats o f today.

Third, there is the question of bandwidth. There is only so much the UAV has available, and that has to be used for controlling the UAV, feedback from the UAV as well as transmission of the intel "product". Sophisticated encryption could substantially reduce the occurrence of this situation, but encryption uses up a lot of bandwidth because everything is now "bigger". this means we lose someting else somewhere.

The processors on the UAV (and the control site) may not be fast enough in the right way to handle the encrypted signals without serious performance degradation in their calculation and execution speed. Predator and Reaper are already difficult to fly (questionably designed interface), and slowing their execution speed down even more is not a desirable thing. Intel and other companies are designing chips that will take care of this, but it will be quite some time for it to find its way into our UAVS, and will cost an arm and a leg.

Although for now they are only watching the video feed, that in itself is a serious problem. That means they know what we know, and that's not a Good Thing. While the insurgents probably won't have the capability to take over the UAVs anytime soon (absent sophisticated help from a large power), from their point they don't have to. All they have to do is deny its usefulness to us. maybe they won't be able to control it's flight, but what if in the foreseeable future they can disrupt it enough that it crashes? Especially if it happens to crash into the, "Holy____________ Widows and Orphans Hospital and Sacred Shrine"?

Incidents like this underscore that UAVs are great things, but they are not a panacea.
 
From the Beeb today:-

Sat-nav systems under increasing threat from 'jammers'

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8533157.stm

While "jamming" sat-nav equipment with noise signals is on the rise, more sophisticated methods allow hackers to program what receivers display.

At risk are not only sat-nav users, but also critical national infrastructure.

A UK meeting outlining the risks was held at the National Physical Laboratory in Teddington on Tuesday.

The immediate solution to the problem is not clear, since the existing US GPS and Russian Glonas systems, and the forthcoming European sat-nav effort Galileo, are equally susceptible.

Blah blah blah...

Cheers, Woody
 
Report to the UN Human Rights Council

Apparently there's a bit more to UCAV operation than simple engineering challenges, though, if the article below prevails it would have an effect on their technical specification.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/us_and_canada/10219962.stm

The use of targeted killings with weapons like drone aircraft poses a growing challenge to the international rule of law, a UN official says.

Mr Alston also suggests that the drone killings carry a significant risk of becoming war crimes because intelligence agencies (that operate them) "do not generally operate within a framework which places appropriate emphasis upon ensuring compliance with international humanitarian law".

Mr Alston, UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings, feared a "Playstation" mentality could develop.

Cheers, Woody
 
Woody said:
Report to the UN Human Rights Council

Apparently there's a bit more to UCAV operation than simple engineering challenges, though, if the article below prevails it would have an effect on their technical specification.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/us_and_canada/10219962.stm

The use of targeted killings with weapons like drone aircraft poses a growing challenge to the international rule of law, a UN official says.

Mr Alston also suggests that the drone killings carry a significant risk of becoming war crimes because intelligence agencies (that operate them) "do not generally operate within a framework which places appropriate emphasis upon ensuring compliance with international humanitarian law".

Mr Alston, UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings, feared a "Playstation" mentality could develop.

Cheers, Woody

That has nothing to do with the U in UCAV. If you actually read the quote you provided you may notice it was entirely about “intelligence agencies” who "do not generally operate within a framework which places appropriate emphasis upon ensuring compliance with international humanitarian law". Nothing to do with the aircraft being manned or unmanned. Of course its total BS and ignorant of the amount of targeting approval that goes into even CIA launched strikes.
 
http://www.myfoxny.com/dpp/news/us-military-plane-forced-down-by-north-korean-electronic-attack-20110909-ncx
 
http://rt.com/usa/news/air-force-drones-surveillance-737/

About the Global Hawk Block 30

In addition to ending the acquisition of Global Hawk Block 30 drones that the military had planned for, the Air Force will take the 18 they’ve already received, leaving them to hang around the hangar for now.
Air Force Gen. Norton Schwartz and Air Force Secretary Michael Donley told a Senate committee this week that between acquiring any more drones and maintaining upgrades and repairs on those and the ones already purchased, the military would practically go bankrupt. Gen. Schwartz says that the new plan will save the Pentagon $2.5 billion, but will also lead the Defense Department to let the $3 billion worth of surveillance drones already under their command to just collect dust from now on.
"This was a choice [where] we had an asset that can do the mission as it's currently specified and could do it overall at much less cost," Schwartz said before the Senate this week. "Sustaining the U-2 was a better bet."

C'mon fan boys - get your teeth into that.

Cheers, Woody
 
Grey Havoc said:

US Military Plane Forced Down By North Korean Electronic AttackUpdated: Friday, 09 Sep 2011, 2:29 PM EDT
Published : Friday, 09 Sep 2011, 8:36 AM EDT
By AFP
SEOUL - A US military reconnaissance plane came under electronic attack from North Korea and had to make an emergency landing during a major military exercise in March, a political aide said Friday.
The aide said the plane suffered disturbance to its GPS system due to jamming signals from the North's southwestern cities of Haeju and Kaesong as it was taking part in the annual US-South Korea drill, Key Resolve.
The incident was disclosed in a report that Seoul's defense ministry submitted to Ahn Kyu-baek of parliament's defense committee, the aide to Ahn said.
Spokesmen for the defense ministry and US Forces Korea declined to comment.
Jamming signals -- sent at intervals of five to 10 minutes on the afternoon of March 4 -- forced the plane to make an emergency landing 45 minutes after it took off, the aide quoted the report as saying.
The signals also affected South Korean naval patrol boats and speedboats, as well as several civilian flights near Seoul's Gimpo area, according to the report.
Seoul mobile users also complained of bad connections, and the military reported GPS device malfunctions as the South and the US were staging the drill, which was harshly criticized by the North.
The Communist state has about 20 types of jamming devices, mostly imported from Russia, and has been developing a new device with a range of more than 62 miles (100 kilometers) near the heavily-fortified border, the Yonhap news agency has said.
Copyright 2011 AFP. All rights reserved.
Read more: http://www.myfoxny.com/dpp/news/us-military-plane-forced-down-by-north-korean-electronic-attack-20110909-ncx#ixzz1oFQu7300

Thanks Grey Havoc. I think your contribution deserves quoting in full. Perhaps reports like this will allow us to see beyond the P.R.

Cheers, Woody
 
Woody;
If I might point out you keep making "assumptions" based on some non-technical news stories and what seems to be a mis-understanding of HOW weapons work and HOW they are designed to interface with manned operations.

From you initial post:
Woody said:
Since great success has been achieved in jamming and spoofing radars and communications, why have western (and now Russian it seams) armed forces put so much store in UAVs and remotely GPS guided weapons? These system are promoted endlessly as the way forward for weapons technology with barely a mention of how they would avoid jamming and even less on how UAVs would avoid subversion.
Your base "assumption" here seems to be that nothing can be done to prevent and overcome this type of jamming and spoofing which is, while not easy, at least "manageable" for military operations.

Let me point to your most recent post:
Woody said:
Grey Havoc said:
Thanks Grey Havoc. I think your contribution deserves quoting in full. Perhaps reports like this will allow us to see beyond the P.R.

Cheers, Woody
Please note that the article stated that the US and SK military were QUITE aware of where the jamming was coming from and it was QUITE obviously similiarly a capability to "take-care-of" this issue had this exercise been the "real" thing.

Note also that the MANNED plane did exactly what an UNMANNED plane would have done in the same circumstances, so you HAVE actually lent support to the previous responses on this thread. I'd also point out that while "a" single military reconnaissance plane had to make an "emergency" landing, meanwhile dozens if not hundreds of other aircraft both civil and military (as well as military drones) continued to operate though with some degraded capability during that time. Again you have pointed out support of previous posters on this thread.

Continuing from your orginal post:
Pilot-less guided weapons have been with us for decades in the form of bombs, torpedoes and missiles but their designs have used inertial reference, narrow beam or wire guidance or direct line of sight sensors that are difficult to defeat. UAVs and remotely GPS guided weapons have none of these features.
Here you "assume" that only one type of "guidance" is allowed on a weapon. ALL weapons have an abilty to "default" to a simpler guidance system even wire/beam, or laser guided weapons. INS has been mentioned but, lets get it right up front that the ONLY "jam-proof" guidance system is fully "dumb" weapons that have NO internal guidance capability. Within their (admittedly limited) effective range they will always be the most effective and lethal weapons available. It is usefullness beyond this limited scope that spurred the development of guided weapons. Counter-measures have been racing to try and keep up with sensor effectivness and will continue to do so but they are NOT capable of fooling every sensor, every time.

UAVs and GPS weapons have back up guidance systems installed and multiple redundancy methods of "counter-checking" incoming instructions and data built in. You "assume" they don't but have nothing other than your opinion to back this up, yet it is an assumption you continue to maintain in the face of facts presented that show this to be false.

Continuing again:
There is anecdotal evidence that even Iraq was able to jam GPS bombs in Desert Storm with a French made system and the internet is filled with information on the problems of intentional and unintentional GPS jamming, yet more and more military system have become dependent on it.
Quoting "anecdotal" evidence of "supposed" capability is not only a weak argument it happens to be far out of context. Non-anecdotal (personal) experiance during Desert Storm shows (as would any effort in researching such "claims") that the "jamming" had no real effect on the effectiveness of the guided munitions used in Desert Storm. Iraqi "jamming" was actually the LEAST likely reason for guided munitons "failures" during Desert Storm. (Even more so since the "standard" practice of the Iraqi military for using the majority of "jamming" equipment they had was simply to turn in on and leave it on until they were hit by an Anti-Radiation Guided weapon)

In fact even with a higher and more sophisticated jamming environment (and a military actually trained, experianced, and more importantly capable of using the equipment effectivly) as encountered in Serbia during the campaign there there was little actual effect on weapons accuracy and guidance. Almost NONE effective enough to avoid effective strikes with guided weapons. (Increasing a 2000lb bombs CEP from 1-5 feet to 5-25 feet does no good. Even a miss of 100ft still has a good chance of "killing" a units combat capabilty. Worse of course is that managing to get ONE bomb to miss by that far in no way means that any of the OTHER bombs coming down at the same time will be so effected. And it only takes "one" good hit.)

Again, "jamming" has been taken into account and a far MORE possible reason for "missing" with a guided weapon is a malfunction within the guidance unit. Which bring us to the second half of your statement...
Reconnaissance UAVs and UCAV will be dependent on radio communications of some sort once over the horizon so why is it not feasible for a sophisticated adversary (with their own satellites?) to subvert them and perhaps send them back to attack their owners?
While not "impossible" it is highly unlikley simply because these systems are DESIGNED to not be interfered with. Even more so with multiple back up systems and sophisticated programing UAVs and UCAVs would NOT be dependent on single source instruction sets.

Of course you don't understand how UAV systems are set up so you pointed to the Iraqi Insurgent "hacking" of a Recon-UAVs video feed. But then ignored people pointing out that it was an unsecured video feed in the first place DESIGNED so that people with rather low-tech and in-field set ups could access the data stream. (After all part of the reason it was on-board the UAV was to provide LOCAL feed to be used by "freindlies" in the field) You of course ignored or never seemed to understand that this system was NOT a route to "hacking" the flight controls or the "main" video-and-data links and that the Insurgents would be unable to actually get into those systems with any "off-the-shelf" commercial equipment.

Continuing again:
To save a bit of time please make your answers considered but not just techno-gibberish. I know US military GPS is more powerful than civilian and uses it's own frequencies but so do their enemies. Also obviously UAV communication would be encrypted but encryption can be broken and if not it can still jammed.
If you'd wanted to "save-time" I'm pretty sure you wouldn't have just "blurted" out the above with no support as you did. I rather suspect you WANT to "waste-time" arguing your point because you believe your "right" and everyone else is wrong, but that's neither here-nor-there as you ASKED :)

Communications technology, jamming, anti-jamming, encryption, code-breaking, false-communications, etc... etc...

It's been "on-going" since "people" have been comminicating and fighting each other, break-throughs happen and it is a military MAXIUM that NO communcations system or encryption lasts forever. So you simply do NOT count on it being "secure" forever and you build in systems and methods to authenticate your communications and you CHANGE them regularly. (Twice as much and twice as fast if there is actually shooting going on)

Your "assumption" again here is that nothing changes and that when the military says it's using "GPS" it is similar to and vulnerable as a civilian system. (You go on to CONFIRM this being your assumption when you point to the FAA article on GPS jamming and interference.)

Probably the MOST telling "assumption" in your argument is that somehow an "enemy" could simply "take-over" a UAV or UCAV and turn it back against us. Using a powerful jammer, an enemy satellite, hacking into the computer system all of which is DIFFICULT to do with encrypted CIVILIAN systems, and magnitudes harder for a MILITARY system, yet you pass off these efforts as though they would be easy....

Your responses seem to fall into 3 areas.
1) a jammer would be vulnerable.
2) a GPS signal has to come from orbit.
3) no system relies solely on GPS.
All good points but...

Firstly, with answer 1), could the same not be said of any battlefield jammer, be it for radar or communication? Also the world's military don't seem to have a problem with powerful early warning and control radars in the theater so why would GPS jammers be any worse? And unlike these other transmitters the ground based GPS jammer jams most of the weapons fired at it.
Battlefield "jammers" have a "life" measured in minutes at best, which is why they are used sparingly, intermitently or when you have overwhelming air superiority. They radiate "noise" at high power in a localized area normally and they "die" very, very quickly unless they are highly mobile AND very, very good. (Wild Weasels are a good example) Ground based units are probably the worst survivable units becasue they are incapable of being tactically "mobile" enough to use movement to counter anti-radiation weapons. They survive by being used ONLY intermitiantly AND being very, very good. (See my above example of how the Iraqi military was NONE of the above)

Now you NEXT "confuse" Early Warning and Control systems with "jammers" which are two VERY different systems. The worlds militaries have powerfeul EW&C systems that are normally place BEHIND the battle lines at a distance to allow them to be protected by multiple layers of defenses in order to NEVER allow a single Anti-Radiation Homing Weapon to be allowed within striking range of the system! SHOULD such a sacrilege happen, one of two things result: If the EW&C system is mobile it goes silent and EVADES in order to lose the weapons lock, scattering counter-measures to try an block any secondary guidance systems on the weapon. Or if the EW&C system is non-mobile it goes silent and then deploys counter-measures to try and destroy, spoof, or break the lock on of the weapon. If the evasion/spoof/CM works the station comes back on-line once the threat goes away. If not; In the case of the mobile system you normally have to switch to a back up platform as they most often carry only a single system and you just LOST that one. (It's why you buy mulitples) Usually though a mobile system is a much more difficult target to hit. If it is the "non-mobile" kind you erect a back-up, or secondary antenna system since your main "vulnerable" parts are the antennas doing the radiating. Usually your main processing, control, and power systems are located in distant and seperated locations so you don't HAVE a single target to get hit.

Lastly you "assume" again an effectivness for "jamming" that is simply not seen on the modern battlefield. Please note that the majority of "jammers" are simply NOT capable of effecting the type of weapon used against them because they guide the weapons in on themselves! A GPS "jammer" would not adversly effect an anti-radiation weapon and in fact it would HELP the weapon find and kill it! As for being effective enough to "stop" a GPS guided weapon aimed at it, I'd point out that jammers need a LOT of power and they are not something "small-and-cheap" being a large mass of electronic gear. If they cause the "bomb" to miss by 100ft (assuming a totally ballistic "glide" from 1000ft, which is NOT a given as they jammer ONLY gets better the close the weapons gets and is LESS effective the further away the weapon starts) 2000lbs of High Explosive is still more than likely to combat "kill" by blast and fragmentation the jammer. And lest we forget you can only use a jammer effectivly at or near the spot where the GPS weapon is headed for since the limited range of the jammer means once the weapons passes out of effective range it reaquires guidance. (If it lost it at all in the fist place)

Secondly, answer 2) discounts the possibility that the enemy may also have satellites. I believe a lot of modern systems are only appropriate against unsophisticated enemies and this will be a huge problem should a real threat emerge (re-emerge?). Also I don't believe this to be true (that GPS must come from orbit). The USAF has done a lot of work increasing the accuracy of its ALCMs by using ground based differential GPS beacons.
I'm glad you state that it is your "belief" rather than trying to support it as fact. Point of fact you're quite wrong about most of the suppositions you make here. 1) GPS DOES come from orbit there is not such thing as a "ground-based" GPS system, nor "differential GPS beacons" as you seem to imply. (Note here, but the ALCM does NOT use GPS at all it relies on a totally different system for guidance and in fact is used to TARGET and DESTROY GPS/Communications/Radar-jamming and EW&C sites)

The various "Jamming" of GPS that you point to is based on huge signal noise sources and a great deal of power and do not "confuse" the system as you seem to think (ie:false readings) but simply overwhelm the GPS signal itself. Such jammers are easily located and destroyed IF you're actually shooting already. Unfortunatly it is not so cut and dried when there isn't an actual "shooting-war" going on. (Your example of North Korea) Point of fact most "GPS" guidance systems can NOT recieve GPS signals in any direction EXCEPT from "above" them so the ONLY way to "interfer" with a GPS signal is either to push out enough noise and power to overwhelm the signal (which paints a huge target on yourself and gets one killed rapidly) or to have a weaker, more directed "source" with the SAME frequency and input protocals as the original signal source somewhere "in-between" the GPS satillite and the reciever.

To which you provide the answer of the "enemy" putting up satellite(s) to do just that...

Which shows you don't understand how GPS works, or the difficulty of doing such a thing. GPS satellites are in Low Earth Orbit and there are hundreds of them. Now, while I don't have the exact numbers a simple check tells me that CIVILAN GPS systems, for example a hand held or car unit uses at least THREE GPS satellite signals in coordination to find it's location. A MILITARY system would use many more than that. Now in order to "spoof" a UAV or UCAV, (let alone a GPS guided bomb) you would have to intercept and over-ride each and EVERY one of those signals (satellites) with one of your own. So you now have to launch a complete GPS satellite network simply to try and interfere with "my" GPS network, but worse yet I don't need to have anything BUT a signal and a known orbit if I have ANY type of INS system and/or I "know" where I started, and where I'm going to guide me to the general area of the target!

And you have to have enough satellites in orbit for me to have multiple signals (all with the proper protocol, wave-length, and pulse train, etc) over my entire flight time. And they HAVE to come in at the proper "angle" to the reciever so you can't simply put a big satellite into GEO because it won't "move" the proper way a LEO satellite will!

In other words while it's not "impossible" by any means it is very, very unlikely to work the way you assume it does or would.
And answer 3) wile I appreciate that it's good to have multiple sensors, if GPS can't be relied upon all the time requiring another system then what's the point. The machine doesn't know when it's getting good data unless it has another fool-proof system to check against, in which case use that! No navigational device works without a degree of inertial reference, not even a compass. But what other system does JDAM have apart from GPS?
The "point" is that the military doesn't RELY on a "single" system for the majority of it's work BECAUSE we fully understand that such reliance is a huge vulnerabilty. JDAM has a simple, well tested and very reliable INS system in addition to its GPS. The GPS simply makes the weapons MORE accurate with its inclusion but it is not the SOLE guidance system the weapon has. (In fact ALL of it can be "disabled" and the weapon dropped as a simple "dumb" bomb if needed. Why? Because beneath all the "kits" stapped onto it that's what it IS based on. Expensive yes, but much better than having to solely depend on a system that "could" be jammed)

For the most part GPS is only used to "compare" to inertial guidance in any system it is used in. Civilian GPS systems are even "supposed" to NOT be relied upon as the "only" navigational aid, but in practice people generally get complacent. (Hence you have people driving into rivers, trees and houses following the directions of their "Tom-Tom" rather than paying attention to where they are going. The military LEARNS from these lessons :) )

Generally I'm seeing that your basing your whole argument on the various assumptions you've made regarding how you THINK systems work rather than how they actually work or how they are or would be used.

In the main you seem to think that UAV/UCAV and/or guided weapons are simply pointed in a general direction and let go to find their own way and that's simply NOT the way things work.

Randy
 
The Italians have now proven simultaneous radio wave reception works, except this wont help current GPS jamming problems, but it shows what is theoretically possible. I think development of a non inductive RF antenna would solve the jamming problem and should be on DARPA's priority list.
http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/120803-vortex-radio-waves-could-boost-wireless-capacity-infinitely
 
Not sure that would "help" with the "jamming" being discussed since what is basically happening is smothering any GPS signal with simple noise.

A good "primer" on GPS can be found here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Positioning_System

Note something I was talking about earlier; the LOWEST number of satellites in the sat/earth animation that can be "seen" if 5, the number of available signals and sats is usually much higher.

Randy
 
RanulfC said:
Not sure that would "help" with the "jamming" being discussed since what is basically happening is smothering any GPS signal with simple noise.

A good "primer" on GPS can be found here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Positioning_System

Note something I was talking about earlier; the LOWEST number of satellites in the sat/earth animation that can be "seen" if 5, the number of available signals and sats is usually much higher.

Randy
Its only the antenna that is smothered in noise. The antenna's we have now convert all the radio waves (including the jamming) into current, thereby permitting destruction of the GPS signal at the receiver. There are metamaterial DSP controlled antenna's in development that can differentiate the noise from the original signal. Try and visualize it like this, your plane is flying along getting lit up by a spotlight below (jamming) and a spotlight from above (GPS). A conventional antenna cant distinguish which light is which, only that both of them combined make your plane much brighter. A new antenna can also distinguish directional information, which helps it pick out the right waves for reception.
 
sublight said:
Its only the antenna that is smothered in noise. The antenna's we have now convert all the radio waves (including the jamming) into current, thereby permitting destruction of the GPS signal at the receiver. There are metamaterial DSP controlled antenna's in development that can differentiate the noise from the original signal. Try and visualize it like this, your plane is flying along getting lit up by a spotlight below (jamming) and a spotlight from above (GPS). A conventional antenna cant distinguish which light is which, only that both of them combined make your plane much brighter. A new antenna can also distinguish directional information, which helps it pick out the right waves for reception.

Civillian GPS receivers are now commonly used in very RF noisy environments, often very close in distance to the source of the interference. Somehow they work without "smart" metamaterial antennas or active frequency selective materials.

Obviously, some other kind of advanced technology at work....
 

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"Filters," "bandpass," and "Discriminators" along with antenna design, but I get the general gist of what Sublight is saying :)

Randy
 
Abraham Gubler said:
Matej said:
I agree that it can be the general direction of the future development, but to say "he wont be sitting... ...anymore", it reminds me one of the "why do we need fighters anymore, when we have rockets" or "why do we need cannon on board anymore, when we have rockets" statements a few decades ago. We all know, how it ended. I simply don't believe at all that we will not see two seat fighters in the future. For me it is too absolute, too ultimate and too imprudent.

There is a big difference in the relationship between manned fighters and guided missile technology in the 1950s and the relationship between manned fighters and UAV technology in the 21st century. One might as well refer to the debates over the merits of bronze swords and iron swords circa 600 BC.

Considering that an uninhabited aircraft can provide about 10-20 times more combat presence than a manned aircraft (comparing F-35 and X-47B in a theatre mission based on CBAS data) you suffer a huge force disadvantage in persisting in keeping fighter pilots their employment. That's not to mention the many advantages a computer controlled aircraft will have in high intensit ATA and targetting compared to a manned aircraft. All it will take is one war between the robots and the 'Knucks before the fighter pilot goes the way of the horsed cavalry...

Matej said:
Probably this is the theme for some another thread but I ask: was there ever at least one conflict in modern history, where the remotely piloted advanced planes (such as RQ-1 and higher) were used in a strongly jammed environment against healthy enemy with the good technological base? Because the painful thing is, that someone is able and can simply cut you from the network. And then what?

Sure intuitive, but realistic? Communications technology has come a long, long way since the 1960s when brute force RF emissions would take out radios. Serbia and Iraq certainly didn’t ignore jamming during their battles with US lead collation. Western forces training doesn’t ignore jamming against UAVs and tries to simulate a very high level red force threat.

But how do you jam a satellite link? How do you jam an advanced directional HF link? You need to get the jammer in between the transmitter and the receiver... So unless you have a jamming aircraft flown by Maverick and Goose with a keen desire to ‘maintain international relations’ you are not going to disrupt that UAV’s SATCOM link. Even with a targeted electronic attack like an AESA generated waveform you need a line of sight to the SATCOM antenna, which is usually pointed up so you need to be above the UAV.

Jamming VHF radio isn’t so easy either and even if you have an effective system its tactical usage is limited. Higher end theatre UAVs typically fly with an ELINT system and would be able to detect and hence stay outside the VHF jamming ‘bubble’ to maintain their line of sight data links. They only have to wait a few minutes outside the bubble for the RF homing missile to show up and take out the enemy jamming system...
Abraham, the only way to 100% take the pilot out of the equation is to develp advanced AI that is jam proof. Any signal can be jammed/interfered with. How do you think the Iranians brought the Sentinel drone down? By huge fly swatters and flytape nets? No, the pilot might be less efficient, but will be there esp. as drone countermeasures are further developed.
 
kcran567 said:
Abraham Gubler said:
Matej said:
I agree that it can be the general direction of the future development, but to say "he wont be sitting... ...anymore", it reminds me one of the "why do we need fighters anymore, when we have rockets" or "why do we need cannon on board anymore, when we have rockets" statements a few decades ago. We all know, how it ended. I simply don't believe at all that we will not see two seat fighters in the future. For me it is too absolute, too ultimate and too imprudent.

There is a big difference in the relationship between manned fighters and guided missile technology in the 1950s and the relationship between manned fighters and UAV technology in the 21st century. One might as well refer to the debates over the merits of bronze swords and iron swords circa 600 BC.

Considering that an uninhabited aircraft can provide about 10-20 times more combat presence than a manned aircraft (comparing F-35 and X-47B in a theatre mission based on CBAS data) you suffer a huge force disadvantage in persisting in keeping fighter pilots their employment. That's not to mention the many advantages a computer controlled aircraft will have in high intensit ATA and targetting compared to a manned aircraft. All it will take is one war between the robots and the 'Knucks before the fighter pilot goes the way of the horsed cavalry...

Matej said:
Probably this is the theme for some another thread but I ask: was there ever at least one conflict in modern history, where the remotely piloted advanced planes (such as RQ-1 and higher) were used in a strongly jammed environment against healthy enemy with the good technological base? Because the painful thing is, that someone is able and can simply cut you from the network. And then what?

Sure intuitive, but realistic? Communications technology has come a long, long way since the 1960s when brute force RF emissions would take out radios. Serbia and Iraq certainly didn’t ignore jamming during their battles with US lead collation. Western forces training doesn’t ignore jamming against UAVs and tries to simulate a very high level red force threat.

But how do you jam a satellite link? How do you jam an advanced directional HF link? You need to get the jammer in between the transmitter and the receiver... So unless you have a jamming aircraft flown by Maverick and Goose with a keen desire to ‘maintain international relations’ you are not going to disrupt that UAV’s SATCOM link. Even with a targeted electronic attack like an AESA generated waveform you need a line of sight to the SATCOM antenna, which is usually pointed up so you need to be above the UAV.

Jamming VHF radio isn’t so easy either and even if you have an effective system its tactical usage is limited. Higher end theatre UAVs typically fly with an ELINT system and would be able to detect and hence stay outside the VHF jamming ‘bubble’ to maintain their line of sight data links. They only have to wait a few minutes outside the bubble for the RF homing missile to show up and take out the enemy jamming system...
Abraham, the only way to 100% take the pilot out of the equation is to develp advanced AI that is jam proof. Any signal can be jammed/interfered with. How do you think the Iranians brought the Sentinel drone down? By huge fly swatters and flytape nets? No, the pilot might be less efficient, but will be there esp. as drone countermeasures are further developed.

The RQ-170 was only brought down because it was apparently completely reliant on GPS - if it had redundant navigation tools, such as a mix of heavenly body trackers, multiple INS, landmark detectors or datalink guidance, it could have easily detected that it's GPS guidance was either being tampered with, or was in error.

'So why wasn't the RQ-170 equipped to deal with this issue?' - that would simply refer back to the current understanding that the RQ-170 was a stealthy, yet 'expendable' drone - why increase the cost of the drone by another ~10% if you haven't had this issue in the past, and the drone is 'designed' to be captured anyway?
 
kcran567 said:
Abraham, the only way to 100% take the pilot out of the equation is to develp advanced AI that is jam proof. Any signal can be jammed/interfered with. How do you think the Iranians brought the Sentinel drone down? By huge fly swatters and flytape nets? No, the pilot might be less efficient, but will be there esp. as drone countermeasures are further developed.

UAVs have already proven, years ago, adequate AI to prosecute moving, complex targets.

Theoretically any signal can be jammed but theoretically we can travel from one side of space to the other via wormholes. The reality of jamming a satellite link of a node that is between you and the satellite is no easy feat. It might be easier to look for those wormholes.

The Iranians didn’t bring down the RQ-170. It is basically impossible for them to do so, especially via the means they claimed.
 
Kadija_Man said:
History over the last what, 90 years is littered with examples that prove you wrong. Most recently, we have Iraqi insurgents "hacking" into and jamming the "unjammable" drones. One should never assume that any electronic signal cannot be jammed or interfered with by those who are interested in doing so.

That's a fairly poor example - all they were doing was receiving a video feed.

"The potential drone vulnerability lies in an unencrypted downlink between the unmanned craft and ground control."

You might as well say that I'm able to "hack" into airline 'communication feeds', via my car's radio.

Add some basic encryption to the feed and the problem is solved.
 
Kadija_Man said:
History over the last what, 90 years is littered with examples that prove you wrong.

Who was jamming satellite links to aircraft in 1920?

Kadija_Man said:
Most recently, we have Iraqi insurgents "hacking" into and jamming the "unjammable" drones.

As Dragon pointed out the use of the words “hack” and “unjammable” in this case are hugely wrong. Picking up a transmission from an aircraft to the ground that wasn’t even encrypted is no great claim to fame and has no impact in the control or operation of the UAV.

Kadija_Man said:
One should never assume that any electronic signal cannot be jammed or interfered with by those who are interested in doing so.

What appears to happen in these repetitive arguments against UAVs is the assumption that the spoofer, like the bomber, will always get through. Even though with all the thousands of UAV hours in operations to date no one has actually managed to do it…
 
Dragon029 said:
Kadija_Man said:
History over the last what, 90 years is littered with examples that prove you wrong. Most recently, we have Iraqi insurgents "hacking" into and jamming the "unjammable" drones. One should never assume that any electronic signal cannot be jammed or interfered with by those who are interested in doing so.

That's a fairly poor example - all they were doing was receiving a video feed.

"The potential drone vulnerability lies in an unencrypted downlink between the unmanned craft and ground control."

You might as well say that I'm able to "hack" into airline 'communication feeds', via my car's radio.

Add some basic encryption to the feed and the problem is solved.

Yes it is. However, hubris meant that it wasn't. Instead it was a case of "Oh, no, they're just savages, they couldn't do things like that."

The problem with so much of this sort of stuff is that people get enamoured of the "gee-whiz" element and lose sight of the basic elements of security. Having worked in IT for over 20 years I've seen it time and again and that is just in the civvie sector. If IT security has taught us anything, if the means and the method exist, an attack will be made. Doesn't mean it is always successful but it is sure to happen. As the Drone video feed being "hacked" showed, unless you design in security, your systems will be vulnerable and the problem was, it wasn't designed in, was it?

Those that believe in "unjammable" or "unspoofable" or "uninterceptable" or "undecryptable" signals are very foolish indeed. As I suggested, history is littered with examples where those beliefs were shown to be wrong. Be it the British using SIGINT to indicate when a sortie by the Zeppelins was being prepared or the Germans listening into the unencrypted Russian signals at Tannenberg through to now drones in Iraq, it was all because someone thought it was impossible but were shown to be wrong.
 
Kadija_Man said:
Be it the British using SIGINT to indicate when a sortie by the Zeppelins was being prepared or the Germans listening into the unencrypted Russian signals at Tannenberg through to now drones in Iraq,

These examples are not supported by any evidence that:

Kadija_Man said:
it was all because someone thought it was impossible but were shown to be wrong.

Rather they are examples of the first time someone does something not having covered all fault lines. The Russians didn’t encode their radio comms in WWI because no one had ever intercepted such before. Same with the Zeppelin SIGINT warnings and Iraq UAV broadcast data feed. These are all examples of first time failures rather than hubris.

Now thousands if not hundreds of thousands of UAV combat sorties have been flown in the past 45 years and no one has managed to spoof a UAV via jamming its control data feed. Because of inherent security in the comms system (line of sight narrow cast links), redundant controls and so on. And it hasn’t been for want of trying.

If someone can bring down the UAV comms system then they all can also do likewise to manned systems in which case the entire combat ability of a force is compromised. It’s the sort of thing beloved by Hollywood scriptwriters but about as likely as all their other trope scenarios (alien invasion, end of world natural disaster, grand conspiracy in government, whacko individual changes the world, nerd gets girl, detective work is exciting etc).
 

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