Security

Continuous GNSS signal integrity monitoring for critical infrastructure, defence, and government.

Modern infrastructure depends on GNSS for positioning, timing, and synchronisation. That dependency is now a vulnerability.

Sentrinav operates a national ground-truth monitoring network accross Ireland, providing real-time detection of jamming, spoofing, and signal degradarion events — wit verifiable evidence and immediate alert capabilities for critical asset operators.

Your operations depend on GNSS. Do you know when it fails?

1. Positioning

Aviation approach and landing systems, vessel navigation, precision machine control, and surveying all rely on GNSS for positioning. A degraded or falsified signal is not always obvious — receivers may continue operating while reporting incorrect positions.

2. Timing & Synchronisation

Power grids, mobile networks (4G/5G base station timing), financial transaction timestamps, and emergency service dispatch systems rely on GNSS-derived time. A spoofing event that shifts the clock by milliseconds can cascade silently across dependent systems.

3. Monitoring & Compliance

Area monitoring systems, environmental sensor networks, drone operations, and land parcel boundary systems (such as LPIS used by DAFM) use GNSS as a trusted reference. Interference introduces error without any visible alarm.

4. The Detection Gap

Standard GNSS receivers are designed to receive signals — not to assess their integrity or detect interference. Without a dedicated monitoring layer, organisations operating in affected areas have no early warning. They discover the problem when the damage is already done.

GNSS interference is no longer theoretical. It is happening now, across Europe.

GNSS interference was once considered a specialist concern confined to conflict zones. It is now a daily operational reaity across European airspace, maritime routes, and ground infrastructure — and the gap between affected regions and Ireland is closing.

  • JAMMING

Jamming overwhelms GNSS receivers with radio frequency noise, preventing them from acquiring satellite signals. Receivers typically report "no fix" or degrade silently to lower accuracy.

Key characteristic: Detectable by signal strength monitoring; origin can be localised.

 

  • SPOOFING

Spoofing transmits counterfeit GNSS signals that mimic legitimate satellites. Receivers accept the false signals and report incorrect position, velocity, or time — often without any error indication.

Key characteristic: More dangerous than jamming because the receiver appears to be functioning normally. Requires correlation analysis and independent reference data to detect.

 

  • SIGNAL DEGRADATION / INTERFERENCE

Unintentional or low-level interference from terrestrial radio systems, industrial equipment, or poorly shielded electronics can degrade GNSS accuracy without triggering alarms. Also includes ionospheric events.

Key characteristic: Hardest to attribute; requires long-term baseline data to identify.

Documented european incidents

Over 46,000 instances of potential GNSS signal disruption were reported by aircraft operating over the Baltic between August 2023 and March 2024, traced to interference originating from the Kaliningrad region. Finland's national carrier Finnair temporarily suspended flights to Tartu, Estonia after two aircraft were prevented from landing due to GPS disruptions. Source: Inside GNSS / Complex Discovery

Latvia's Electronic Communications Office recorded 820 cases of satellite signal interference in 2024, compared to 26 in 2022 — a 30-fold increase — and warned that affected areas have expanded significantly. Source: AP / Military.com

Persistent GNSS spoofing and jamming was documented across the Romanian Flight Information Region, the Danube Delta, and western Black Sea maritime zones. A high-altitude scientific balloon launched from Constanța in August 2024 recorded a definitive spoofing event at approximately 11 km altitude, with reported position abruptly displaced toward Crimea while the balloon's actual track remained unchanged. Romanian defence officials reported weekly spoofing incidents. Source: Spire Global

Reports confirmed active jamming and spoofing of GNSS signals across the eastern Baltic Sea, causing vessels to disappear from radar and AIS systems to transmit incorrect location data. European countries increased patrol vessel deployment in response. Source: Militarnyi / EU sanctions announcement

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen's aircraft experienced loss of electronic navigation systems on approach to Bulgaria, with GPS jamming suspected as the cause. The aircraft landed safely. EU member states have since confirmed near-daily jamming and spoofing incidents across 13 countries. Source: DISA / Inside Telecom

A joint research team recorded GNSS jamming and spoofing in Baltic waters near Gdańsk, Poland, resulting in false position data and signal loss. Lithuanian armed forces reported hundreds of GNSS interferences per week — approximately 20 times the 2024 rate. Source: Grey Dynamics

The International Air Transport Association estimated approximately 430,000 GNSS jamming and spoofing incidents over conflict zones in 2024, up 62% from 260,000 in 2023. Roughly 56 in every 1,000 flights experienced GNSS issues. Source: Business Standard

Ireland is not inside the current active jamming zones — but the pattern of interference is geographic, escalating, and increasingly linked to hybrid activity targeting EU infrastructure.

The question for Irish operators is not whether this could affect them, but whether they would know if it did. Sentrinav is building the ground-truth monitoring layer that answers that question.

Ground-truth GNSS monitoring across Ireland — continuous, independent, actionable.

Continuous Monitoring Network

Sentrinav operates reference receivers at fixed, surveyed sites across Ireland. These receivers independently track satellite signals 24 hours a day, providing a stable ground-truth baseline against which anomalies — jamming, spoofing, or degradation — can be detected in real time.

Jamming Detection

Signal strength, carrier-to-noise ratio, and satellite tracking metrics are continuously analysed. Sudden or localised drops in these parameters indicate jamming activity. Alerts can be issued to subscribed operators within minutes of detection onset.

Spoofing Detection

Spoofing is identified through correlation of receiver-reported positions against the known, independently verified position of each reference site. Inconsistency between reported and actual position, combined with signal constellation analysis, flags spoofing attempts that would be invisible to standard receivers.

Reporting & Evidence

Each detected event is logged with timestamp, signal parameters, and site reference. Reports can be produced in formats suitable for regulatory submission, incident investigation, or insurance purposes. Historical data is retained for trend analysis and post-event review.

Who needs gnss signal security

Aviation / IAA

Approach and landing systems, airspace management, and UAV corridors depend on GNSS integrity. Interference events may not trigger cockpit alarms — ground-truth monitoring provides the independent verification layer.

Maritime / Irish Coast Guard

Vessel navigation, AIS transponder accuracy, and port approach procedures rely on GNSS. Spoofing can cause ships to report — and navigate toward — positions that do not reflect their actual location.

Defence / Óglaigh na hÉireann

Military operations, drone systems, and communications infrastructure require assured GNSS. Detection of interference in operational areas provides commanders with the situational awareness to switch to backup navigation modes before problems escalate.

ComReg / Spectrum Management

Jamming sources are unlicensed transmitters operating in protected GNSS frequency bands. Ground-level monitoring provides the RF environment data needed to identify interference origins and support enforcement action.

Utilities / Energy & Water

GNSS-disciplined timing underpins grid synchronisation, smart meter infrastructure, and SCADA systems. Timing anomalies introduced by spoofing are silent and difficult to diagnose without independent reference data.

Transport Infrastructure Ireland

Road and rail construction, bridge monitoring, and infrastructure management systems increasingly use GNSS-based positioning. Signal integrity monitoring ensures that precision measurement data used in critical works remains trustworthy.

Two ways to work with Sentrinav

Commission GNSS signal monitoring for your area of operation

Sentrinav provides a fully managed monitoring service for critical infrastructure operators, government bodies, and regulated industries.

We deploy, configure, and continuously operate reference receivers at your site or in your operational area — with real-time alerting, incident reporting, and direct access to our GNSS engineering team.

Commission signal monitoring

Need to monitor your own infrastructure? We'll help you build it.

For organisations with larger or distributed operational areas, Sentrinav offers end-to-end design, supply, installation, and commissioning of dedicated GNSS signal security networks.

You own the infrastructure. We provide the expertise — from site selection and hardware specification through to monitoring platform integration and ongoing technical support.

Discuss a security network

Why Sentrinav?

National CORS network

Sentrinav operates 30 continuously operating reference stations across Ireland — the country's largest independent GNSS reference network. This existing infrastructure is the foundation of our monitoring capability.

Ground-truth accuracy

Every reference site is precisely surveyed to centimetre level. This means our monitoring is not estimated — it is compared against a known, verifiable position. That distinction matters when producing evidence-grade incident reports.

GNSS engineering expertise

Our team has over a decade of experience in GNSS network design, station installation, and precision positioning infrastructure across Ireland and internationally.

European research alignment

Sentrinav monitoring methodology is consistent with the interference detection approaches documented by the European GNSS Agency (EUSPA) and is aligned with the European Commission's 2025 anti-spoofing and monitoring initiative.

Discuss a security network