GNSS spoofing detection in handheld receivers based on signal spatial correlation

Abstract

Spoofing and jamming in the form of transmitting counterfeit location information and denying services are an emerging threat to GNSS receivers. In general, spoofing is a deliberate attack that aims to coerce GNSS receivers into generating false navigation solutions. The spoofing attack is potentially more hazardous than jamming since the target receiver is not aware of this threat and it is still providing position/navigation solutions which seem to be reliable. One major limitation of spoofers is that they are required to transmit several highly correlated GNSS signals simultaneously often from a single source in order to present a truthful navigation solution to the receiver. Different GNSS signals sourced from a single transmitter have essentially the same spatial signature, which as shown in this paper, can be utilized to discriminate the spoofing signals. In this paper a moving antenna is investigated to discriminate between the spatial signatures of the authentic and the spoofing signals based on monitoring the amplitude and Doppler correlation of the visible satellite signals. The effectiveness of this detection method is studied and verified based on a set of experiments.