Helix Geospace to participate in Jammertest 2024, Norway
Helix Geospace is participating in this year’s Jammertest, taking place in Andøya, Norway, from September 9-13th. Participants from 90 organisations and 20 countries will gather to test their technology’s resilience against interference, jamming and spoofing threats. This event offers a unique opportunity to evaluate our innovative resilient PNT antenna solutions for GNSS in real-world conditions.
As the largest jamming and spoofing test globally, Jammertest 2024 is supported by key Norwegian authorities, including the Public Roads Administration, Communications Authority, Defence Research Establishment, Metrology Service, and Space Agency. It provides a controlled environment where GNSS antennas and receivers are rigorously tested for their ability to resist intentional signal interference. The event provides wide range of tests, including high-power jamming, low-power jamming, time spoofing, position spoofing, and meaconing, all in real environments.
The low-power jammers used in the tests include a mix of L1-only, L1&L2, and L1&L2&L5/E6 jammers, all operating across wide frequency bands. Most employ sweep modulation, with one utilising frequency hopping. These jammers range from inexpensive “eBay jammers” to military-grade handheld devices.
For the high-power jammer, three types of modulation will be used: an unmodulated carrier wave (CW) for GPS L1, a sweep signal (“chirp”), and a PRN signal (modulated carrier wave with the C/A code from GPS satellite #1, but without the navigation message). Jamming will occur using various modulation and frequency band combinations. The jamming will be directed from an elevated mountain location towards Bleik.
For Helix Geospace, this is a crucial step in validating the robustness of our technology, ensuring our antennas maintain resilient Position, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) even in challenging conditions. This aligns with our commitment to providing secure and reliable solutions for industries that depend on uninterrupted GNSS services.
By participating, we aim to strengthen the integrity of global PNT systems and contribute to the development of solutions that can withstand growing interference threats.
Helix focuses on high performance antenna technology for satellite communications and resilient PNT (Position, Navigation and Timing). With variants for GPS, Galileo GNSS constellations and the Iridium LEO satcomms constellation, Helix antennas are multifrequency resonant devices with tightly targeted frequency discrimination. They utilise multiple helical conductor filaments on a high dielectric constant ceramic core. The selective nature of the design assures integrity of data delivered to the receiver enabling positional accuracy to 10cm to be computed, and high levels of resilience against environmental and deliberate disruption. The helical antenna resonance means that troublesome reflected signals, typical of modern cities’ ‘urban canyons’ are ignored, while the on-frequency accuracy makes the system resilient to ‘noisy neighbour’ spectrum interference and deliberate jamming. All this comes in a compact and robust form factor light enough for drones and small enough for vehicle aesthetics. Using this best-in-class antenna technology enables the CRPx anti-jamming/spoofing systems deliver the optimum defence against malicious attempts to undermine satellite navigation and communications with the best SWaP-C.
