A Spoofing Detection Scheme Based on Elevation Masked-Relative Received Power in GPS Receivers using Multi-band Array Antenna

Abstract

Many spoofing detection studies have been conducted to cope with the most difficult types of deception among various disturbances of GPS, such as jamming, spoofing, and meaconing. In this paper, we propose a spoofing detection scheme based on elevation masked-relative received power between GPS L1 and L2 signals in a system using a multi-band array antenna. The proposed scheme focuses on enabling spoofing to be normally detected and minimizes the possibility of false detection in an environment where false alarms may occur due to pattern distortion among elements of an array antenna. The pattern distortion weakens the GPS signal strength at low elevation. It becomes confusing to detect a spoofing signal based on the relative power difference between GPS L1 and L2, especially when GPS L2 has weak signal strength. We propose design parameters for the relative power threshold including beamforming gain, the minimum received power difference between L1 and L2, and the patch antenna gain difference between L1 and L2. In addition, in order to eliminate the weak signal strength of GPS L2 in the spoofing detection process, we propose a rotation matrix that sets the elevation mask based on platform coordinates. Array antennas generally do not have high usefulness in commercial areas where receivers are operated alone, but are considered essential in military areas where GPS receivers are used together with signal processing for beamforming in the direction of GPS satellites. Through laboratory and live sky tests using the device under test, the proposed scheme with an elevation mask detects spoofing signals well and reduces the probability of false detection relative to that without the elevation mask.