Chinese military scientists say they have developed an algorithm capable of estimating the locations of electronic warfare units by analysing civil aviation flight data, identifying two suspected sources of GPS spoofing in the Mediterranean during the conflict involving Iran, the United States and Israel.
The researchers estimated that the two sources were operating in separate areas near northern Israel and the Gaza Strip, with positioning errors ranging from 10.9km to 18.9km (6.7 to 11.7 miles). The South China Morning Post could not independently verify the findings. The researchers did not explain why they had focused on the Israeli military.
The study, conducted by Du Lan and a team at the People’s Liberation Army’s Information Engineering University in Zhengzhou, was published online on October 7 in the peer-reviewed Journal of Geomatics Science and Technology. It analysed 43 days of aircraft-tracking data, covering the period from February 27, the day before the United States and Israel launched their attack on Iran, to April 10.
The researchers used publicly available aircraft position and speed information from the Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) system. Electronic interference can cause aircraft-tracking data to display sudden jumps to distant locations or movements that do not correspond to normal flight paths. The team used these anomalies to estimate the possible origins of the interference.
“The method requires no additional monitoring equipment and is low-cost and timely,” the researchers wrote. They added that it “provides key technical support for civil aviation safety and situational awareness of spoofing interference in overseas conflict zones”.
The algorithm identified two suspected interference areas in the Mediterranean Sea. According to the study, “Target area 1 was about 80km northwest of Haifa, a major city in northern Israel, while target area 2 was about 30km northwest of the Gaza Strip. Both target areas were in the Mediterranean Sea.”
The researchers proposed that the two locations could be associated with different electronic countermeasures against unmanned aerial threats. However, they said the intended targets could not be directly verified.
“The spoofing source corresponding to target area 1 is inferred to have mainly countered long-range suicide drones with some resistance to spoofing, such as Iran’s Shahed-136, requiring a more complex dynamic spoofing strategy,” Du and her team wrote.
They assessed that the second area was more likely to involve interference intended to counter shorter-range, lower-cost drones. “Target area 2 is inferred to have mainly countered low-cost, short-range drones used by groups in Gaza and the Houthi movement [from Yemen], whose resistance to navigation spoofing is weaker and which can be countered with a static, single-point spoofing strategy,” the researchers wrote.
The team developed its estimates through several stages of analysis. It initially screened aircraft tracks using speed thresholds that could indicate manipulated positioning data. It then applied additional constraints relating to time, location, altitude and operating periods to eliminate potential sources of error, including data anomalies, aircraft manoeuvres, low-altitude flights and interference sources that were switched on and off.
The researchers said future work would incorporate navigation data from ships, potentially extending the method beyond civil aviation and providing another source of information for estimating the locations of electronic interference.
