Intentional and unintentional GNSS interferences can greatly affect the performance of precise timing and localization needed in areas such as automated driving or airport traffic. Nevertheless, we see that jamming occurs near many European airports that are located close to a highway or in heavy industry areas due to interfering signals that are broadcasted there.

In order to assess the impact of such potential risks, we investigated interferences occurring on a section of highway that is located both near an airport and close to logistic centers as part of the Austrian Security Research Program project CATCH-IN. This section of highway is of particular interest asthe highway runs in parallel to the approach path of aircrafts and crosses the approach path 3.7 km before the aircraft touches down (the flight altitude is only 200 m above the ground).

For this experiment, we distributed six Septentrio Mosaic x5 GNSS receivers as sensors along the highway and monitored this section for five months. We analyzed the data with AGC monitoring, CN0 monitoring and baseband sample monitoring to identify interferences along the highway that could in turn affect the sensors along the descending flight trajectory. During the period of this experiment, we saw events that could cause potential safety risks and problems for aviation safety. In the analysis, we focused on the statistical evaluation of the temporal repetitions, in particular on the times of day that see more interference and on frequencies at which more interference occurs. Additionally, we analyzed the performance of these different algorithms for dealing with large data sets.

The results provide new insight into potential monitoring stations near airports and raise awareness of potential risks and vulnerabilities in aviation safety as well as automated driving along highways.