Scalable, Occlusion-Aware Geolocation of Ground-Based GNSS Jammers with Networked Smartphones

Glenn H. Jones, Daniel J. Broyles, and Timothy I. Machin

Peer Reviewed

Abstract:	The advancement of Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) technology in modern smartphones has made these devices pervasive in both civilian and military applications. Although smartphone GNSS chipsets are more susceptible to jamming and spoofing than military-grade hardware, smartphone networks offer an underutilized opportunity to detect and mitigate threats to position, navigation, and timing (PNT) services essential to the Department of Defense (DoD) and civilian first responders. Traditional methods for geolocating ground-based jamming sources using smartphone GNSS often fail in environments with dense vegetation or significant occlusions, resulting in substantial localization errors. This study addresses these limitations and demonstrates how smartphone networks can successfully locate a jamming source by integrating cloud-based environmental occlusion modeling with scalable, efficient localization algorithms. Simulated results demonstrate that this approach achieves an average localization accuracy within tens of meters for a single ground-based jammer in challenging, occluded settings.
Published in:	2025 IEEE/ION Position, Location and Navigation Symposium (PLANS) April 28 - 1, 2025 Salt Lake Marriott Downtown at City Creek Salt Lake City, UT
Pages:	353 - 361
Cite this article:	Jones, Glenn H., Broyles, Daniel J., Machin, Timothy I., "Scalable, Occlusion-Aware Geolocation of Ground-Based GNSS Jammers with Networked Smartphones," 2025 IEEE/ION Position, Location and Navigation Symposium (PLANS), Salt Lake City, UT, April 2025, pp. 353-361.
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