> The problem is that once we're talking tens of millions of dollars and up -- no, you can't.
Sure. If you're willing to build a new GPS system, because that's decently jammable for cheap.
Also are you proposing that all the drones will be individually piloted on missions as they are now? If so, I don't strictly have to jam the drones on the battlefield, I can just jam your satellite uplink or physically attack your operations centers. Add the cost of a plane ticket.
So far, we haven't used these weapons against any military that could be considered our peers. I wouldn't be so confident in our operational deployments without anything to base it on.
You've done an exceptional job of proving you have no idea what you're talking about. (Hint: I write software for a govt. contractor that builds drones and their control stations)
Can you point us to any public information about military systems' jamming resilience? E.g. here's a simple comm system, here's how you jam it, and here's a better comm system that can't be jammed that way?
I can't really get into the details, I apologize. I can tell you that the specific topic of jamming isn't a concern. Try and think about UAVs in the same way you might think about commercial planes. It would tend to make sense that the UAV model was most likely forked from there, at least initially.
Even with respect to radio interference in commercial planes, the public is subjected to more misinformation than information. How many planes have crashed due to cellphone use? Have there ever been any? Speaking specifically of commercial GPS use, was all the uproar about LightSquared just bullshit? They weren't on the GPS band, they were only near it. I recall lots of authorities confidently ordering us to just trust them, that LS was a dire threat to civil aviation. If LightSquared is a threat to UAVs too, our "enemies" might want to buy their old equipment off eBay. For that matter, if USA military radios are so robust, why do they have to reserve half the usable spectrum for their private pristine use? Wouldn't they be just as comfortable on the Wifi band?
There are reasons why civilians might be reluctant to simply trust the confident assurances of random anonymous defense contractors.
> There are reasons why civilians might be reluctant to simply trust the confident assurances of random anonymous defense contractors.
Which is absolutely your prerogative, and I don't blame you. You make some very good points. I would hope you might also be able to see my perspective: reading "facts" that are incorrect and not being able to add real value to the conversation. Sure, I chose my job, and the frustration comes with the territory.
> You've done an exceptional job of proving you have no idea what you're talking about. (Hint: I write software for a govt. contractor that builds drones and their control stations)
That's great, but you did not actually address the parent's point that GPS is jammable. Perhaps you are thinking of other methods of navigation that are accurate enough for long-term flying?
Enlighten us, please, rather than responding to people with your job description. Otherwise, you're not really adding anything to the conversation.
Celestial navigation can get you to within optical range of a target, so can inertial. Neither celestial nor inertial nav systems are jammable for cheap, if at all. Celestial navigation is well understood mature missile guidance tech.
Drones don't need GPS they can look at the ground in the day or the stars at night. (ED: Both of these are 20+ year old approaches.) Note, I don't work with this stuff so I can make that comment. Unfortunately, anyone who has specific knowledge is likely unable to respond legally.
Also, jamming is far harder than you might think; anything you use becomes a really easy target.
Edit: After some thought, as long as your internal clock is accurate and you can keep an accurate orientation as to what's 'up', the stars should be able to give you arbitrary lat/long position. Weather + barometer + location + temperate gives you fairly accurate altitude.
I don't think it's even a question of jamming the GPS network.
Once you start doing the math on "I'm going to keep 1,000+ nodes in a mesh network from operating a phased array capable of keeping a lock on the signal from a constellation of satellites", things like jamming become extremely non-trivial, and only operate over relatively short timeframes or with hugely vulnerable base stations.
Most people are thinking about the capabilities of a single drone -- that's really not the way to think about drone swarms. In much the way that it doesn't make sense to talk about the capabilities of cloud services like AWS in terms of the limitations of single computers or switches of hardware, but in terms of the ability of the system as a whole to emulate high(er) performance equipment.
Similarly, once we talk about real drone swarms acting as a locally networked, single functional unit, presenting itself as single emulated devices or functions that the drones carry out, the whole game changes from what's effective techniques against single, standalone drones.
So to recap, drone swarm's GPS downlink is probably a phased array or something like that distributed over the mesh network of drones (using the local radio gear as localized timing and positioning information between mesh nodes), and nowhere near as easy to jam as it is for a standalone drone (at least, for approximate location; then using cameras and local sensors for say, fine bomb placement).
tl;dr: The power of friendship works for drones too, not just comic book heroes.
As was said by irishcoffee upthread, jamming GPS is not a concern. If you think carefully about that statement for a minute or two, you'll probably figure out why: the incredibly weak, trivially-noise-jammed-into-oblivion GPS signal isn't used as a primary source of position data in battlefield conditions.
I expect that military GPS signals do have some crypto to help prevent spoofing, but that doesn't do any good when you can't hear the signal over the enemy's noise.
Sure. If you're willing to build a new GPS system, because that's decently jammable for cheap.
Also are you proposing that all the drones will be individually piloted on missions as they are now? If so, I don't strictly have to jam the drones on the battlefield, I can just jam your satellite uplink or physically attack your operations centers. Add the cost of a plane ticket.
So far, we haven't used these weapons against any military that could be considered our peers. I wouldn't be so confident in our operational deployments without anything to base it on.
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