Demonstration of Collins GNSS RFI Mitigation Receiver and Antenna Techniques in the Presence of OTA Spoofer and Jammer Threats

Angelo Joseph, Mark Billsberry, Joseph Griggs, George Cook, Vikram Malhotra, and Zachary Taylor

Abstract:	Nowadays, commercial aeronautical GNSS receivers are more and more exposed to Radio Frequency Interference (RFI) threats from GNSS Jammers and Spoofers. Worldwide reports from air navigation service providers and Collins customers have confirmed that commercial airborne GNSS receiver products have been exposed to both jamming and spoofing. On commercial aircraft, GNSS receiver outputs are usually integrated or cross monitored with other navigation sensors such as IRS, DME etc. The type of integration and cross-monitoring varies based on the aircraft navigation system architecture. However, in many cases the GNSS receiver outputs are used directly by on-board aircraft systems. A case in point is the direct use of GNSS position outputs by aircraft transponders. Even in integrated systems there is still a need to validate that the raw GNSS measurements being provided to these systems are not impacted by Spoofers. Prolonged loss of GPS outputs on the aircraft can result in the loss of key aircraft operations and functions and could also impact of aircraft safety. Previous papers by the same authors [11][14] described two software based GNSS RFI mitigation techniques to be introduced in Collins Commercial Airborne receivers. The first technique, Receiver Autonomous Signal Authentication (RASA), uses the known characteristics of the GNSS receiver oscillator to detect if the received signals are from a Spoofer. A second technique, Staggered Examination of Non-Trusted Receiver Information (SENTRI), uses the inertial sensor data already available from the aircraft’s IRS/INS, to monitor the coherence between fully blended, partially blended and unblended solutions such as pure GNSS, pure inertial (INS) navigation solutions or tightly coupled inertial GNSS hybrid solutions without augmentation. The prior papers demonstrated the performance of the algorithm in lab and flight test environments wherein the spoofer and jammer signals were conducted through the antenna cable. In this paper a new jammer and spoofer resistant GNSS antenna that has been developed by Collins is introduced. This antenna is foot-print compatible with the Arinc743A [15] compliant antennas that are currently installed on commercial aircraft. Further this antenna can be certified to the existing civil aviation antenna MOPS (Minimum operation performance standards) and TSO (Technical standard order) documents. These unique features allow this antenna to be safely installed and certified with existing regulations and standards. The anti-jam performance of this antenna will be demonstrated in the RF chamber and its impact on receiver tracking performance will also be evaluated. This antenna complements the anti-spoof detection and mitigation features of Collins’ SENTRI and RASA techniques. Further the performance of the Collins receiver-based techniques (RASA and SENTRI) and Collins RFI resistant antenna will be demonstrated in a flight test environment in the presence of over-the-air (OTA) spoofer and jammer threats. The overview of the flight test environment, threat scenarios and anti-jam and anti-spoof performance of the Collins RFI receiver and antenna will be described in this paper. The paper will show that the Collins RFI receiver and antenna together provide a robust and certifiable solution that improve GNSS RFI detection and mitigation on commercial aircraft.
Published in:	Proceedings of the 38th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GNSS+ 2025) September 8 - 12, 2025 Hilton Baltimore Inner Harbor Baltimore, Maryland
Pages:	716 - 737
Cite this article:	Joseph, Angelo, Billsberry, Mark, Griggs, Joseph, Cook, George, Malhotra, Vikram, Taylor, Zachary, "Demonstration of Collins GNSS RFI Mitigation Receiver and Antenna Techniques in the Presence of OTA Spoofer and Jammer Threats," Proceedings of the 38th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GNSS+ 2025), Baltimore, Maryland, September 2025, pp. 716-737. https://doi.org/10.33012/2025.20364
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