Robust Spoofing Detection for GNSS Array Receivers Using the Auxiliary Reference Element Method

In recent years, global navigation satellite system (GNSS) spoofing detection techniques have attracted wide attention. Spoofing attacks have posed a greater security threat than jamming and are more difficult to detect due to their strong concealment. The antenna array has proved to be an effective means of spoofing detection utilizing the direction of arrival (DOA) estimation. However, such approach remains a major challenge since the uncertainty in the attitude estimation and antenna array calibration. This article proposes a method for GNSS array receivers to detect the spoofing without affecting the mitigation to high-power interference. The double difference of carrier phase (DDCP) produced by adding the auxiliary reference element (ARE) processing is further proposed as a testing statistic for spoofing detection. Simulation and experiment results are given to demonstrate the detection performance of the proposed metrics. The method does not require the DOA estimation or array calibration, but is flexible to implement using the observed measurements and can provide an effective defense in the combination of jamming and spoofing attacks.