Detecting GPS Jamming and Interference

Most if not all critical systems protect their core functions with several layers of security; how protected is the physical layer of your infrastructure system? IT systems, monitoring systems, power distribution and alarm systems all rely on technology that is taken for granted. On the roof of most buildings is a GPS antenna, feeding unprotected GPS data into equipment at the heart of your infrastructure.

GPS is used by time synchronisation equipment within modern systems to ensure that data is distributed properly, monitoring systems function, communications and power systems are reliant on the time and synchronisation signals derived from GPS timing receivers. The UK is taking the lead to develop technology to be able to delivery a measure of quality and/or trust in the GPS RF used, and thus give protection at the physical layer of your critical infrastructure.

The SENTINEL Consortium

SENTINEL is a project to research and develop a service to establish the extent to which global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) – in particular GPS and Galileo and/or eLoran -  can be trusted by users on a 24x7 basis.

The SENTINEL project will deliver technology that will improve the safety and security of critical infrastructure and services, and has a team comprising both technologists and critical system users .

SENTINEL, funded by The Technology Strategy Board, the UK’s Innovation Agency, and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, will address the detection and location of deliberate or accidental signal jamming and also discrimination between interference and natural phenomena.

It will do this by deploying Interference, Detection & Mitigation (IDM) sensors in the vicinity of critical infrastructure. The sensors, communicating to a central data collection and analysis system, will detect and discriminate between accidental, deliberate and natural phenomena including GPS multipath, jamming and space weather to protect safety, mission-critical, security or revenue generating services, enabled by PNT signals

A SENTINEL network of IDM probes will provide real-time alerts to discriminate natural events and enable the location of deliberate jamming, providing timely detection and mitigation by the appropriate agencies.

Chronos Technology, who is leading the Consortium, is partnered by the following UK organisations:

• ACPO-ITS - A working group of the Association of Chief Police Officers with links to other agency partners
• GLA - General Lighthouse Authorities
• OS - Ordnance Survey
• NPL - National Physical Laboratory, Timing Metrology Division
• UoB - University of Bath, Electronic & Electrical Engineering Faculty
• Thatcham - Vehicle security

SENTINEL: GNSS SErvices Needing Trust In Navigation, Electronics, Location & timing

Find out about the core IDM technology, developed by the GAARDIAN partners, which is used in SENTINEL.

For further information on the SENTINEL project please contact This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , telephone 01594 862200.