There is an analysis that says that North Korea had caused disturbance to radio signals of GPS to confuse navigation system of aircrafts. Because aircrafts can receive the most damage from disturbance in GPS system, actions need to be taken as soon as possible. (5th page of a related article)
“North Korea has been attempting to disturb radio signals of GPS since end of last month to confuse navigation system of aircrafts.” said a South Korean Government official on the 5th. “However no damage was done since aircrafts can operate under inertial navigation equipment even if radio wave that disturbs GPS signals is introduced.”
Unlike GPS that uses satellites, inertial navigation utilizes gyroscope that uses accelerometer and rotational inertia. According to South Korean Government, although disturbed signals were introduced to 962 aircrafts starting from the 31st of last month until 12 P.M. of the 5th, there had had no effects since aircrafts were operating under inertial navigation equipment.
However experts in radio signals pointed out that inertial navigation cannot be a long-term solution since there will be more errors accumulating as time goes by and has lesser accuracy than GPS. Also because it is expected that private fishing boats excluding aircrafts and military will have problems with fishing industry as this disturbance continues, South Korean Government is in deep concern.
“South Korean Government’s organizations along with Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries made inquiries regarding solutions to this disturbance in GPS signals.” said a representative for a business that manufactures GPS parts. “There aren’t any clear solutions for problems that are occurring on coast and technologies that use LBS (Location-based Service) on land require a lot of time and money.”
This disturbance towards GPS signals uses a method that emits high-output radio signal to bandwidth of GPS frequency on purpose and causes confusion between signals and is type of jamming, which is a signal that causes disturbance. Although South Korean Government is developing anti-jamming technologies to prevent jamming signals, most of them aren’t commercialized yet and lack performance.
It is heard that anti-jamming technology that was developed in South Korea after disturbance to GPS signals occurred in 2012 is still having difficulties being commercialized due to its expensive cost. Anti-jamming technology also violates international laws and it is still hard to expect accuracy of LORAN technology, which is usually used on ship, to be almost same as accuracy of GPS.
Method of using LTE network and base stations and providing LBS service on land is being discussed. However this method lacks reality since base stations need to be more densely packed than now if this method is to be commercialized. In the end, South Korean Government currently is trying to just strengthen its monitoring, spread situations more rapidly, support restoration, and protest North Korea.
“Although we haven’t had any effects from this disturbance, we cannot just gloss over this problem since it is actually happening right now.” said Professor Kim Nam of Chungnam University’s Information Communication Engineering Department. “We need to prepare more realistic measures.”
Staff Reporter An, Hochun | hcan@etnews.com
Mobile telecommunication businesses have been carrying out special inspection and providing stable services as North Korea has been trying to disturb GPS signals recently. An employee from KT’s base station is inspecting facilities that are located in Ilsandong-gu, Goyang-si.
Staff Reporter An, Ho-cheon | hchan@etnews.com