GPS jammingStudy finds use of GPS jammers across U.K.

A new study by Chronos Technology reveals that GPS jamming devices are relatively common in the United Kingdom.

As part of the Sentinel research project, investigators developed sensors to detect GPS jammers in vehicles and recorded more than sixty incidents in six months.

“We believe there’s between fifty and 450 occurrences in the U.K. every day,” said Charles Curry, the founder of Chronos Technology, to the BBC.

The company began the study following concerns that jammers were interfering with critical systems like smartphones and navigation devices that depend on GPS signals. Mobile phone, financial networks, and electrical grids use GPS signals for accurate timing information, while jammers can interfere with ships and light aircraft that depend on satellite navigation.

Curry said the company was still analyzing the data from its research, but preliminary findings suggest that most jammers are small portable devices with an effective range of 200 to 300 meters.

Many companies place GPS tracking devices on their vehicles and Curry believes most jammers are deployed by individuals who do not want to be tracked.

Professor David Last, the previous president of the Royal Institute of Navigation, explained that jammers function by overpowering the relatively weak signal that satellites emit.

“A GPS satellite emits no more power than a car headlight, and with that it has to illuminate half the Earth’s surface,” Professor Last told the BBC. “A very, very low power jammer that broadcasts on the same radio frequency as the GPS will drown it out.”

GPS jammers are widely available for purchase online, which is why BobCockshott of the ICT Knowledge Transfer Network, which helped fund the £1.5 million pound study, believes laws governing jammers should be made stricter.

Cockshott added that since the Sentinel project’s sensor system may be the only system “of its kind in the world,” the company’s “next step is to develop the system further so that it can be used for enforcement, so that you can detect a jammer in use and then relate it to the driver that’s using it.”