GNSS Interference Environment in Malaysia: A Case Study

Global Navigation Satellite Systems or GNSS is a space technology that has become an essential element nowadays for positioning, navigation & timing (PNT) with wide range of applications in many civilian sectors as well as across military. The reliability, accuracy and availability of GNSS are highly important especially for critical and precise positioning applications. However, the signals from space are weak and it can be easily blocked, disrupted or compromised by several other threats including intentional and unintentional interferences or jamming. GPS jammer is widely available off the shelf with an affordable price and capable of interfering the GPS signal, and many authorities worldwide have raised concerns and a lot of efforts and research have been put in place to reduce and mitigate the threats. In Malaysia, understanding and countering threats to GNSS/GPS based applications will be a new and unfamiliar discipline for public and organizations. This study intended to provide an overview of the GNSS interferences environment in a local study area, in terms of interference type and the number of activity pattern that were detected. A system called Detector V1 has been used in this study. The result showed that significant interference cases happened in the study area and some of the high power interferences may impact GNSS tracking and precision of the positioning output. The role objective of having this done is to create a public awareness regarding the threat of GNSS interferences to the local users. The content also includes the proposed initiative to overcome the issue.