GPS anti-jam increasingly big business

It’s getting bigger all the time, GPS/GNSS business. And coming along in its wake, starting to grow like a sproutly little brother, is GPS anti-jamming, to safeguard the signal in various scenarios.

The anti-jamming market for GPS is expected to reach US$4.8 billion in value and 309.2 thousand units in volume by 2022, according to a newly released report by Research and Markets, a Dublin, Ireland-based market research “store.”

Anti-jam technology sales revenue will increase at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 7.0 percent between 2016 and 2022, while volume goes up 10.1 percent. Major drivers at the moment lie in the military sector, but that could well change in the next decade. The proliferation of low-cost GPS jammers is seeing to that.

Meanwhile, any armed force that puts its faith in guided missiles now feels the acute need for a secured weapons system, something not easy to accomplish. Flight-control applications are especially vulnerable.

North America is the largest and most dynamic sector of the anti-jamming market, given its powerful military and the presence of three top players in the anti-jamming market for GPS: Rockwell Collins Inc. (U.S.), The Raytheon Company (U.S.) and NovAtel Inc. (Canada).

Other companies cited by the report, and given each their own subsection, are Cobham, Mayflower Communications, BAE Systems, Furuno Electric Company, Harris Corporation, Lockheed Martin, Thales Group, Boeing and u-blox.

Breaking down by receiver type, the report studies two major categories: military and government grade, and commercial transportation grade. The market is also analyzed geographically, with sub-sub-subsections devoted to “Threat From North Korea and Disputes With China,” “Dispute in the South China Sea,” and “The Crisis in Syria and Isis.”

Aside from looking — or deriving, more often — numbers according to Anti-Jamming Technique (nulling systems, beam-steering systems and civilian systems), the report does not concern itself overly with technical details. These usually are of little interest to investors, the report’s main target. Thus it will have little of interest for engineers, except for those practicing business development.

A market breakdown by application lists:

• flight control
• surveillance and reconnaissance
• position, navigation and timing
• targeting
• casualty evacuation
• timing installations
• logistics tracking
• law enforcement

From the Executive Summary:

“The nulling systems type of anti-jamming techniques accounted for a share of 70.0% in 2015; the market was valued at USD 2,180.3 million in the same year and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 6.7% between 2016 and 2022. The market for beam steering systems was valued at USD 662.8 million in 2015 and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 6.9% during the forecast period. A major reason for beam steering systems holding such a low market share is that they are comparatively new in the market since the last decades and hence are not widely used. They are very expensive and are used only on high-end military vehicles such as strike aircrafts. For a long time nulling systems was the only known type of GPS anti-jamming technique. However, with the development of beam steering systems and the civilian anti jamming systems, the market for GPS anti-jamming is expected to increase.”

In July, GPS World asked the experts, “What percent of a GNSS designer or manufacturer’s R&D budget should be devoted to mitigation of jamming?”

Here are their responses.

MIchael Ritter, President & CEO, Novatel Inc.

“Solving for jamming, intentional or unintentional, in the design of any GNSS technology platform is no longer an option. How much any one company spends is largely a function of how much is spent on engineering overall and of how much has already been invested upfront on jamming mitigation. The required level of jamming resistance of any PNT solution also depends very much on the particular application, which in turn influences the budget allocated.”

Jeff Martin, Director GPS/GNSS Sales,
Spirent Federal

“GNSS jamming is a growing concern, and an assessment of risks and an element of testing against the most applicable real world threats should be included as part of every developer’s engineering process. Spirent has decades of experience in providing test equipment and services to engineers working to understand and mitigate jamming threats. We have seen increased investment by designers and integrators of PNT systems that are driven to provide robust/resilient solutions to their customers.”

Andrey Soloviev, Principal, Qunav

“While some receivers already incorporate jamming protection (e.g., CW excision), more sophisticated methods (for example, against broad-band jamming and spoofing) should be incorporated into perspective products. The percentage of R&D budget depends on a line of business. For manufactures pursuing applications such as military and critical infrastructure, the number can be as high as 50 percent. For many civilian applications a potential impact of jamming is less damaging. Yet, from 10 percent to 20 percent should be still allocated.”