Airborne Detection of Spoofed ADS-B Reports

Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast (ADS-B) is an airspace surveillance system being implemented in the US and several nations globally. In this system, each aircraft determines its location using GPS, and broadcasts this to other local traffic and ground stations, along with other flight data (aircraft ID, speed, heading, flight number, altitude, etc). This endows local traffic with high situational awareness, enabling greater security, efficiency and airspace capacity. However, ADS-B can be effectively spoofed using a simple ADS-B transmitter driven by a computer and a GPS simulator program. For the DoD, the issue is one of denial of airspace access: an adversary can put up phantom traffic in a contested airspace, thus preventing allied aircraft from entering. Therefore, there is an immediate need for airborne military aircraft to be able to detect spoofed ADS-B reports in real time, in a stand-alone manner. In this SBIR project, KalScott Engineering is developing and demonstrating a method to detect spoofing of ADS-B reports using airborne signals intelligence (SIGINT) techniques. BENEFIT: This technology can be used to ensure access to airspace without the threat of false ADS-B target attacks, both in military and civilian operations.