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Published on: June 25, 2021
Experimental Evaluation of GNSS Receiver Vulnerability to Spoofing and Jamming Using SDR-Based Testbed
Jan Dułowicz1,2, Paweł Skokowski2, Jan M Kelner2
1Cyber Defense Forces Component Command, 05-119 Legionowo, Poland.
Abstract:
Global navigation satellite systems (GNSSs) are essential for navigation in aviation, transportation, and autonomous systems, yet they remain vulnerable to intentional interference such as jamming and spoofing. Unlike prior studies that primarily focus on positioning error, this work emphasizes acquisition-phase behavior, analyzing the impact of interference on time-to-first-fix (TTFF) and post-attack reacquisition time. A controlled and repeatable laboratory testbed based on software-defined radio (SDR) was developed to emulate Global Positioning System (GPS) L1 and Galileo E1 signals under multiple interference scenarios, including narrowband jamming, static spoofing, and dynamic spoofing. Five commercial GNSS receivers were evaluated under identical conditions. The results show that jamming causes an immediate loss of positioning capability, reducing the empirical navigation-fix probability to near zero and significantly increasing reacquisition time, with recovery-phase empirical fix probabilities ranging from 0.062 to 0.991 depending on receiver class. In contrast, spoofing maintains high attack-phase empirical navigation-fix probabilities ranging from 0.730 to 0.907 while introducing persistent and undetected errors. Static position spoofing was found to produce position offsets that persisted into the recovery phase, delaying the return to the authentic navigation solution. For most receivers, however, correct positioning was restored within the observation window. Multi-constellation spoofing further increases attack effectiveness, raising fix continuity by more than 0.15 compared to single-constellation cases. Multi-band receivers demonstrate increased resilience by delaying spoof acceptance by more than 4 min in extended scenarios, rather than preventing it entirely. The proposed methodology enables reproducible evaluation of GNSS receiver robustness and demonstrates that navigation-fix continuity alone is not a reliable indicator of navigation integrity during spoofing attacks. Overall, the results demonstrate that navigation-fix continuity alone cannot be regarded as a reliable indicator of navigation integrity and highlight the importance of complementary integrity-monitoring mechanisms for GNSS-dependent systems. The reported observations were obtained under controlled laboratory conditions and should be interpreted within the context of the adopted experimental methodology rather than as a direct representation of operational performance in real-world environments.
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