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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

by 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.

by mike_d 4y ago

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.