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To protect civilian Global Positioning System (GPS) users from spoofing, the Air Force Research Lab has developed the chips-message robust authentication (Chimera) signal enhancement for the GPS L1C signal. With Chimera, standalone receivers that only have access to the GPS signal will be able to authenticate their received measurements once every 3 min, whereas users with access to an out-of-band source will be able to perform authentication once every 1.5 or 6 s. However, moving receivers typically rely on much faster real-time GPS update rates of 1-20 Hz. In this work, we design a spoofing-resilient filter framework that provides continuous and secure state estimation between Chimera authentication times. By leveraging self-contained sensors on-board the vehicle, such as an inertial measurement unit or wheel encoder, as well as the periodic Chimera authentication, our proposed filter determines how much to rely on the received unauthenticated GPS measurements for state estimation. In this respect, our filter relies more extensively on GPS measurements in order to improve real-time navigation performance and reduce localization errors when GPS signals are authentic, while successfully mitigating spoofing-induced errors during an experienced attack. We experimentally validate our proposed spoofing-resilient filter in a simulated test environment for a ground vehicle model with access to the 3-min Chimera channel, under various simulated spoofing attack scenarios. To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first adaptive filter proposed for Chimera that continuously leverages real-time GPS measurements in a spoofing-resilient manner. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To protect civilian global positioning system (GPS) users from spoofing attacks, the U.S. Air Force Research Lab has proposed the chips-message robust authentication (Chimera) enhancement for the L1C signal. In particular, the Chimera fast channel allows users to authenticate the received GPS signal once every 1.5 or 6 s, depending on the out-of-band source utilized for receiving the fast channel marker keys. However, for many moving receiver applications, receivers often use much higher GPS measurement rates, at 5-20 Hz. In this work, we derive a stochastic reachability (SR)-based detector to perform continuous GPS signal verification and state estimation between Chimera authentications. Our SR detector validates the received GPS measurement against any self-contained sensor, such as an inertial measurement unit, in the presence of bounded biases in the sensor error distributions. We demonstrate via Monte Carlo simulations that our detector satisfies a user-defined false alarm requirement during nominal conditions, while successfully detecting a simulated spoofing attack. We further demonstrate that our SR state estimation filter successfully bounds the true state during both authentic and spoofed conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been a growing interest in using small satellites (SmallSats) for a future lunar navigation and communication satellite system (LNCSS). We conceptualize the design of a SmallSat-based LNCSS with Earth-global positioning system (GPS) time transfer that provides navigation and communication services near the lunar south pole. A hybrid constellation design is formulated, wherein all satellites provide navigation services while only a fraction are communication-enabled. Using Systems Tool Kit software, we examine various LNCSS case studies based on an elliptical lunar frozen orbit with a lower-grade chip-scale atomic clock. Case studies are evaluated in terms of (1) navigation considerations, including position and timing accuracy, lunar user equivalent ranging error, and dilution of precision, (2) communication considerations, including data volume, availability, and data rate, and (3) SmallSat factors, including cost, size, weight, and power. We performed a trade-off analysis for satisfying the criteria outlined by international space agencies while designing low-cost, low-SWaP lunar constellations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is growing interest in designing a future lunar navigation satellite system (LNSS) while utilizing a SmallSat platform. However, many design decisions, e.g., regarding the satellite clock and lunar orbit, are yet to be finalized. In our prior work, we developed an LNSS architecture that leverages intermittently available Earth-GPS signals to compute timing corrections, thereby alleviating the need for a higher-grade onboard clock. In this work, we formulate twenty case studies with different grades of clocks and lunar orbits to analyze the trade-offs in designing a SmallSat-based LNSS with time transfer from the Earth GPS. For each case study, the accuracy of ranging signals is assessed via the lunar user equivalent range error (UERE). Even with lower-grade clocks, the lunar UERE exhibits performance comparable to that of the Earth GPS. Furthermore, variations in the lunar UERE are also examined when the available Earth-GPS measurements are processed at different rates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For the future lunar navigation satellite system (LNSS), a GPS-like constellation for the Moon, NASA has expressed interest in using a smallsat platform. However, many design decisions have yet to be finalized, including the orbit, constellation, and onboard clock. Furthermore, designing a dedicated smallsat-based LNSS limits the payload capacity, thus restricting the size, weight, and power (SWaP) of the onboard clock. We propose an LNSS design with time transfer from intermittently available GPS signals wherein we design a Kalman filter to estimate timing corrections for a low-SWaP clock. Additionally, we devise a lunar User Equivalent Range Error (UERE) metric to characterize the ranging accuracy of signals transmitted by an LNSS satellite. We further validate our time-transfer technique with simulations of an LNSS satellite in an elliptical lunar frozen orbit (ELFO) with an onboard chip scale atomic clock (CSAC) while analyzing the visibility effects of GPS, timing errors, and lunar UERE across ELFOs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the birth of the next-generation GPS III constellation and the upcoming launch of the Navigation Technology Satellite-3 (NTS-3) testing platform to explore future technologies for GPS, we are indeed entering a new era of satellite navigation. Correspondingly, it is time to revisit the design methods of the GPS spreading code families. In this work, we develop a natural evolution strategy (NES) machine-learning algorithm with a Gaussian proposal distribution which constructs high-quality families of spreading code sequences. We minimize the maximum between the mean-squared auto-correlation and the mean-squared cross-correlation and demonstrate the ability of our algorithm to achieve better performance than well-chosen families of equal-length Gold codes and Weil codes, for sequences of up to length-1023 and length-1031 bits and family sizes of up to 31 codes. Furthermore, we compare our algorithm with an analogous genetic algorithm implementation assigned the same code evaluation metric. To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first work to explore using a machine-learning approach for designing navigation spreading code sequences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the future, the modernized power grid, or smart grid, will utilize devices called phasor measurement units (PMUs) to continuously monitor the power grid state in real time. These devices utilize GPS to synchronize the voltage and current phasor measurements across the continental network; however, because the civilian GPS signals are unencrypted, PMUs are susceptible to GPS spoofing attacks. We propose a spoofing detection algorithm using a wide‐area, hierarchical architecture. In the network, each PMU transmits conditioned signal fragments containing the military P(Y) signal, which serves as an encrypted signature in the background of all authentic GPS signals. This signature is then verified among a subnetwork consisting of a select number of well‐dispersed receivers. We subsequently compare representative signals generated for each subnetwork in order to detect coordinated attacks against the subnetwork receiver collection. Using real‐world data recorded during a government‐sponsored, live‐sky spoofing event, we demonstrate that our algorithm successfully evaluates the authenticity of a widely dispersed receiver network. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]