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Aren't the Russian drones using GPS? Why wouldn't Ukraine jam GPS?

by shafoshaf 4y ago

sangnoir 4y ago
I'd assume the Russian drones would default to GLONASS
- soperj 4y ago
  why wouldn't that be just as easy to jam?
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - cozzyd 4y ago
    It's basically the same frequencies too
    - bombcar 4y ago
      It's harder to jam GPS for "just one side" so doing so would harm both side's operations.
      - thfuran 4y ago
        Couldn't the US re-enable Selective Availability?
        dismalpedigree 4y ago
        Theoretically yes, but with massive disruption in the civilian space.
        dmurray 4y ago
        DGPS [0] is a workaround for SA. If you can have a ground station with a known location somewhere in the same area - even 100 miles away should be OK - you can broadcast the correction. DGPS was already "good enough" in 2000 when SA was turned off, so I'd expect it could achieve very close to the same precision as regular GPS by now. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differential_GPS https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differential_GPS
      - dr-detroit 4y ago
      - cozzyd 4y ago
        Although I wouldn't be surprised if one side is more likely to have dual-band GNSS receivers...
mike_d 4y ago
The random Chinese consumer drones, sure. You could also just block wifi to knock out most of them too. Current block military drones being imported from Iran are not vulnerable to GPS manipulation because they have backup inertial navigation systems. After Iran steered an American drone using false GPS signals, the US also implemented inertial and celestial navigation systems. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93U.S._RQ-170_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93U.S._RQ-170_incid...
- nverno 4y ago
  In that article, they claim that the American drone was already using inertial navigation. > American aeronautical engineers dispute this, pointing out that as is the case with the MQ-1 Predator, the MQ-9 Reaper, and the Tomahawk, "GPS is not the primary navigation sensor for the RQ-170... The vehicle gets its flight path orders from an inertial navigation system".
- mlindner 4y ago
  Your last line seems wrong. American aircraft have had inertial navigation since forever. GPS is a more recent addition. GPS is easily jammed and that's always been known to be the case. Nothing would be solely dependent on GPS.
- jandrewrogers 4y ago
  This is false. All US military navigation systems, including the referenced drone, are primarily inertial and always have been. These systems can optionally accept fine-tuning GPS corrections, but only if those corrections are within the tight (classified) error margins of the inertial navigation system. It is a misconception that the US has ever used GPS for primary guidance in weapon systems; even cheap throwaway weapons like JDAM are primarily inertial. The kind of influence possible via manipulation of GPS is measured in meters. State-of-the-art INS technology is now good enough that the US military is considering phasing out GPS corrections for some newer systems. GPS was designed for the purpose of accurately measuring the Earth during peacetime to build a precise model the world that could be used for inertial navigation systems in wartime. It was never intended to be used as a critical navigation system since it could be trivially destroyed by the Soviet Union when it was designed. Civilian systems tend to not concern themselves with this vulnerability and therefore happily use it for navigation.
rsj_hn 4y ago
The drones have inertial guidance and gps is used for corrections only. That means when the drone is guided to blow up the railway junction, maybe you throw it off a bit so it hits the apartment next door. Not necessarily a good plan. There was also the case of a drone being damaged by ground fire, and veering off course to hit an office building next to an energy junction that it was being aimed at. And the problem of all those people shooting small arms into the sky causes damage when the bullets fall. For these reasons, Ukraine has asked people to stop shooting at the drones -- the time to shoot down drones is when they are flying over fields towards the city, not when they are already in the populated areas. You have the same problem with putting AA missiles in populated cities -- sometimes they miss and slam into an apartment/office building -- that has happened 3 times so far at least as publicly reported (most likely it happened more often). You are supposed put the AA missiles in defensive rings around your assets, not in your downtown area. Ukraine's problem is they don't have enough to deploy as effective rings -- e.g. they don't have a real AA system, and so they put the missiles directly in populated areas, in which case it's better to turn them off when the cheap drones fly by and save them for enemy jets. Those missiles are not cheap. Really the drones are exploiting the fact that AA missiles are so expensive and there is a gap between the guy with a rifle standing on the hood of his police car and a $2 million Amraam. Even manpads cost far more than the drone. The production costs of one of these is about $1000 (although they are sold for 10-20x that retail) - using parts sourced from Alibaba. A cheap moped motor, a mirocontroller, it's really simple stuff. Like V1 [corrected] rocket tech. Israel is working on the "iron beam" laser defense, but right now, there doesn't exist a working defense that doesn't involve firing million dollar missiles at $1000 drones. It's something all the major powers should be investing in, and I'm worried the U.S. defense complex just isn't able to do "cheap" any more. Could they even design a system that could take out such a drone cost effectively?
- louky 4y ago
  You meant V1 rockets? The V2 missiles were a bit more complex.
  - rsj_hn 4y ago
    Yes, V1. It's closer to a flying bomb. I'll correct.

Aren't the Russian drones using GPS? Why wouldn't Ukraine jam GPS?

sangnoir 4y ago

I'd assume the Russian drones would default to GLONASS

soperj 4y ago
why wouldn't that be just as easy to jam?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- cozzyd 4y ago
  It's basically the same frequencies too
  - bombcar 4y ago
    It's harder to jam GPS for "just one side" so doing so would harm both side's operations.
    - thfuran 4y ago
      Couldn't the US re-enable Selective Availability?
      - dismalpedigree 4y ago
        Theoretically yes, but with massive disruption in the civilian space.
        dmurray 4y ago
        DGPS [0] is a workaround for SA. If you can have a ground station with a known location somewhere in the same area - even 100 miles away should be OK - you can broadcast the correction. DGPS was already "good enough" in 2000 when SA was turned off, so I'd expect it could achieve very close to the same precision as regular GPS by now. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differential_GPS https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differential_GPS
    - dr-detroit 4y ago
    - cozzyd 4y ago
      Although I wouldn't be surprised if one side is more likely to have dual-band GNSS receivers...

mike_d 4y ago

The random Chinese consumer drones, sure. You could also just block wifi to knock out most of them too. Current block military drones being imported from Iran are not vulnerable to GPS manipulation because they have backup inertial navigation systems. After Iran steered an American drone using false GPS signals, the US also implemented inertial and celestial navigation systems. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93U.S._RQ-170_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93U.S._RQ-170_incid...

nverno 4y ago
In that article, they claim that the American drone was already using inertial navigation. > American aeronautical engineers dispute this, pointing out that as is the case with the MQ-1 Predator, the MQ-9 Reaper, and the Tomahawk, "GPS is not the primary navigation sensor for the RQ-170... The vehicle gets its flight path orders from an inertial navigation system".
mlindner 4y ago
Your last line seems wrong. American aircraft have had inertial navigation since forever. GPS is a more recent addition. GPS is easily jammed and that's always been known to be the case. Nothing would be solely dependent on GPS.
jandrewrogers 4y ago
This is false. All US military navigation systems, including the referenced drone, are primarily inertial and always have been. These systems can optionally accept fine-tuning GPS corrections, but only if those corrections are within the tight (classified) error margins of the inertial navigation system. It is a misconception that the US has ever used GPS for primary guidance in weapon systems; even cheap throwaway weapons like JDAM are primarily inertial. The kind of influence possible via manipulation of GPS is measured in meters. State-of-the-art INS technology is now good enough that the US military is considering phasing out GPS corrections for some newer systems. GPS was designed for the purpose of accurately measuring the Earth during peacetime to build a precise model the world that could be used for inertial navigation systems in wartime. It was never intended to be used as a critical navigation system since it could be trivially destroyed by the Soviet Union when it was designed. Civilian systems tend to not concern themselves with this vulnerability and therefore happily use it for navigation.

rsj_hn 4y ago

The drones have inertial guidance and gps is used for corrections only. That means when the drone is guided to blow up the railway junction, maybe you throw it off a bit so it hits the apartment next door. Not necessarily a good plan. There was also the case of a drone being damaged by ground fire, and veering off course to hit an office building next to an energy junction that it was being aimed at. And the problem of all those people shooting small arms into the sky causes damage when the bullets fall. For these reasons, Ukraine has asked people to stop shooting at the drones -- the time to shoot down drones is when they are flying over fields towards the city, not when they are already in the populated areas. You have the same problem with putting AA missiles in populated cities -- sometimes they miss and slam into an apartment/office building -- that has happened 3 times so far at least as publicly reported (most likely it happened more often). You are supposed put the AA missiles in defensive rings around your assets, not in your downtown area. Ukraine's problem is they don't have enough to deploy as effective rings -- e.g. they don't have a real AA system, and so they put the missiles directly in populated areas, in which case it's better to turn them off when the cheap drones fly by and save them for enemy jets. Those missiles are not cheap. Really the drones are exploiting the fact that AA missiles are so expensive and there is a gap between the guy with a rifle standing on the hood of his police car and a $2 million Amraam. Even manpads cost far more than the drone. The production costs of one of these is about $1000 (although they are sold for 10-20x that retail) - using parts sourced from Alibaba. A cheap moped motor, a mirocontroller, it's really simple stuff. Like V1 [corrected] rocket tech. Israel is working on the "iron beam" laser defense, but right now, there doesn't exist a working defense that doesn't involve firing million dollar missiles at $1000 drones. It's something all the major powers should be investing in, and I'm worried the U.S. defense complex just isn't able to do "cheap" any more. Could they even design a system that could take out such a drone cost effectively?

louky 4y ago
You meant V1 rockets? The V2 missiles were a bit more complex.
- rsj_hn 4y ago
  Yes, V1. It's closer to a flying bomb. I'll correct.