Increasing International Civil Aviation Resilience: A Proposal for Nomenclature, Categorization and Treatment of New Interference Threats

Abstract

Electromagnetic interference can degrade civil GNSS signals and services, and in some cases result in integrity failures. The aviation community is well-aware of such threats due to the proliferation of interfering-capable equipment including personal electronic devices (PEDs), personal privacy devices (PPDs), GNSS repeaters, mis-operated test equipment, low-cost software-defined radio cards, and the foreseeable proliferation of more sophisticated spoofing devices in the future. Protection against such interference is under consideration for the next-generation of avionics standards. This paper is intended to support the definition of new avionics standards that address these new interference threats. First, it provides a current review of the technical literature with a focus on aviation. Then, the paper compiles the existing nomenclature, taking into account definitions from regulatory bodies. Next, the paper identifies categories of threat emissions. Later, the assets to protect and use case under analysis are presented, followed by a discussion of detection and mitigation responses. The paper continues with a list of detection and mitigation actions that can be implemented at different stages of the avionics receiver. Finally, the paper concludes with a proposal on whether to mandate or recommend treatment of specific threats in the next generation of standards. The framework presented in this paper is the result of several months of iterations including research institutes, GNSS providers, and air navigation service providers. This process was required to converge to a common nomenclature and threat categorization of new jamming and spoofing threats, which did not exist in the available literature and standards. Based on common framework, a quantitative risk analysis including the modelling of the threats is already being performed, enabling requirements and associated test procedures in the next generation of aviation standards.