Development of Gps Spoofing and Anti-Spoofing Algorithms With Data Association and Target Tracking Frameworks
Date
2022
Authors
Pardhasaradhi, Bethi
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
National Institute of Technology Karnataka, Surathkal
Abstract
This thesis deals with the spoofing and anti-spoofing techniques in global positioning
system (GPS) receivers by using data association and target tracking algorithms.
Novel and efficient algorithms have been proposed in this research investigation by
using estimation theory and optimization techniques.
Global navigation satellite system (GNSS) is generally used for providing the po-
sition, velocity, and time (PVT) for many civilian and military applications. GNSS,
such as GPS, Galileo, GLONASS, BeiDou, NavIC, uses a receiver to receive the sig-
nals transmitted by the satellites. These received signals are processed to provide
the receiver’s position with an accuracy of a few meters. However, the recent ad-
vancements in radio frequency (RF) generation result in the simulation of various RF
signals with inexpensive devices and leads to threats like jamming and spoofing.
The primary objective of this research work is to develop a stealthy GPS spoofer,
spoofing techniques, and strategies. The available spoofers in the literature are de-
tected with the simple anti-spoofing algorithms like constellation check (e.g., number
of satellites available and software-defined satellite positions), monitoring the power
(e.g., absolute, relative, and across satellites), checking the accuracy of clock compo-
nents, reference monitor (e.g., inertial navigation system (INS), optical sensor, range
sensor, bearings sensor), vestigial peak correlation, and verifying code and phase rate
consistency. In this research work, we proposed a novel spoofer design, in which the
spoofer relies on a target tracker and fusion module to track the motion of the target
and spoof effectively. A strategy for the spatial deployment of multiple spoofers is
formulated as an optimization problem to combat direction of arrival (DOA) anti-
spoofing algorithms. In addition to that, the target kinematic information is used to
adaptively change the transmitting powers of the spoofers and effectively combated
the anti-spoofing algorithms like monitoring reception of an individual satellite’s sig-
nal, and power thresholding. Further, distributed fusion of local estimates to improve
the effectiveness of GPS spoofing for low-observable targets is proposed. Furthermore,
multi-spoofer multi-target (MSMT) based efficient spoofing technique is developed.
In distributed spoofing scenario, the spoofers work independently to each other with
i
out any prior information about number of spoofers and targets within the given
surveillance, which results in lower hit ratio. To address this spoofer-to-target as-
sociation problem, three novel centralized networking-based spoofing techniques are
proposed, namely global nearest neighbor (GNN) based centralized spoofing, spoofers
of opportunity-based centralized spoofing, and tunable transmitting power-based cen-
tralized spoofing. The proposed algorithms provide better hit ratio in comparison to
the distributed spoofing.
The second objective of the research is to develop anti-spoofing algorithms for sin-
gle and multiple GPS receivers. Most of the research works assume that the spoofing
signals and the authentic signal attributes are different, and accordingly developed
the anti-spoofing algorithms. This research proposed to consider both the authen-
tic GPS and spoofed GPS pseudo measurements into the positioning algorithm and
performing the robust positioning with all possible combinations. Further, to effi-
ciently represent the robust positioning algorithm, the M-best positioning algorithm
is proposed, which provides only M-best positions at a given epoch. Besides, this
work is extended to time-varying targets with the help of Kalman filter and nearest
neighbor (NN) data association approaches. The track swapping (TS) is occurring
in NN framework due to the hard decision on the track-to-measurement association.
This track-to-measurement association problem is resolved with the probabilistic data
association (PDA) and attained lesser TS. Furthermore, this problem is extended to
multiple GPS receiver problem and proposed an anti-spoofing algorithm by localizing
the spoofer. In a clean environment, all the DOA are distinguishable since they are
from different satellites. Whereas in spoofing scenario, all the DOAs are from the
same direction and hence declared a spoofing attack. This research work proposes to
install multiple GNSS receivers (on a target or in the given surveillance) to detect and
mitigate the spoofing attack. While installing multiple GNSS receivers, we assume
that each GNSS receiver’s relative position vector (RPV) is assumed to be known
precisely. The installed GNSS receivers use the extended Kalman filter (EKF) frame-
work to estimate its PVT. We proposed to calculate the equivalent-measurement and
equivalent-measurement covariance of each GNSS sensor in the Cartesian coordinates
in tracklet framework. These tracklets are translated to the target platform center us-
ing RPV to obtain translated-tracklets. The generalized likelihood ratio test (GLRT)
ii
based spoofing attack detection is derived at a given epoch using these translated-
tracklets. In addition to that, these translated-tracklets are processed in a batch least
square (LS) framework to obtain the platform’s position. Once the attack is detect-
ing at a specific epoch, it quantifies that the position information is false. Moreover,
another detection test is also formulated by using DOA of signals. Once both the
tests confirms the spoofing attack, the spoofer localization is performed using pseudo-
updated states of GNSS receivers and acquired bearings in the iterative least-squares
(ILS) framework. Mitigation of spoofing attack is achieved either by projecting the
null beam in the direction of the spoofer or by launching the counter counter-measure
on spoofer. The results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm performs detection
of spoofing attack and ensures the continuity in navigation track.
The results obtained in this research investigation demonstrates superior perfor-
mance in the spoofer design. Further, the anti-spoofing approaches proposed in this
thesis work are novel and provides improved performance over existing techniques.
Furthermore, the contributions made in this thesis incorporated significant domain
knowledge in the area of spoofing and anti-spoofing algorithms based on target target
and data association.