EUROCONTROL Think Paper #9 - Radio Frequency Interference to satellite navigation: An active threat for aviation?

Galileo satellite in orbit

Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) are essential to safe aviation operations, enabling today’s aircraft to rely on accurate and reliable position, speed or time at any point and without interruption.

However, GNSS is vulnerable to interruption by Radio Frequency Interference (RFI), which has massively risen in recent years – reducing the efficiency of the overall aviation system, placing a higher workload on pilots and air traffic controllers, and requiring complementary communications, navigation and surveillance (CNS) services to be maintained to more demanding requirements. It also poses a serious potential risk to safety if no further mitigating actions are taken.

EUROCONTROL’s latest Think Paper, the ninth in a series of thought-provoking papers aimed at industry leaders and policy-makers, uses exclusive EUROCONTROL analysis to outline the scale of the problem, investigate what lies behind the rise in RFI and where it is occurring, and suggest actions to mitigate the problem and safeguard the importance and reliability of GNSS for aviation while maintaining safety at the highest possible level.

Headline impacts of RFI on European aviation:

  • 2,000% increase in GNSS RFI incidents in 2018 as measured by voluntary incident reporting, with a sustained high rate since;
  • 38.5% of European en-route traffic operates through regions intermittently but regularly affected by RFI;
  • 5% of traffic in these regions could, given current RFI levels, need special assistance.

Download the full paper to learn more.

Think Papers are produced to stimulate debate and look at alternatives. They do not represent the official view of the Agency or its Member States.

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EUROCONTROL Think Paper #9 - Radio Frequency Interference to satellite navigation: An active threat for aviation?