Joanna Prusinska
LONDON (Reuters) – Global regulators, aviation security experts and manufacturers failed to reach agreement on a quick technical solution to the problem of GPS spoofing near war zones at a meeting on Thursday, instead He called for improved pilot training to address the issue. This was revealed by two sources who were briefed on the meeting.
Airlines are calling for swift action after a series of incidents in which navigation systems were disrupted, displaying incorrect locations and times even though aircraft flight controls were normal.
Spoofing involves one country's military sending false Global Positioning System (GPS) signals to an enemy plane or drone to disrupt its functionality, with collateral impact on nearby passenger aircraft. effect.
According to industry group OpsGroup, GPS jamming and spoofing are worsening in Eastern Europe, the Black Sea and the Middle East.
GPS continues to grow as a part of aviation infrastructure, replacing traditional radio beams used to guide aircraft to landing.
The first international conference to bring the sector together was held in Cologne, Germany, on Thursday, hosted by the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) and the international industry association International Air Transport Association (IATA).
Neither EASA nor IATA were immediately available for comment on the meeting.
Increased pilot training could help find a comprehensive solution to this problem. Experts say the situation will only get worse as global conflicts escalate, but any technology will take longer to be approved and standardized.
Officials said at the meeting that the sector needs to maintain some of its older technology as an alternative to combat worsening GPS problems, officials said.
Technical solutions are an option, but depending on the type of spoofing used, they can be expensive, complex, and not always effective.
As GPS interference attacks become more sophisticated, technical solutions will need to be constantly updated and there will be a game of cat and mouse, one of the people said.
It was also discussed that a long-term solution would be to develop a second layer of authentication to help ensure that GPS locations are not spoofed.
Officials said the technology was developed under Europe's Galileo program, but has not yet been widely used.
One of the sources said regulators have indicated that there is unlikely to be a change in the pace of certification of certain technologies in civil aviation, which can take up to 10 years to be approved.
The next conference to focus on this issue will be the Conference on Navigation Systems, sponsored by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and to be held in Antalya, Turkey, in early February, they said.
(Reporting by Joanna Prusinska in London; Editing by Matthew Lewis)