Experimental Assessment of OSNMA-Enabled GNSS Positioning in Interference-Affected RF Environments

This article investigates the performance of the Galileo Open Service Navigation Message Authentication (OSNMA) system in real-life environments prone to RF interference (RFI), jamming, and/or spoofing attacks. Considering the existing data that indicate a relatively high number of RFI- and spoofing-related incidents reported in Eastern Europe, this study details a data-collection campaign along various roads through urban, suburban, and rural settings, mostly in three border counties in East and South-East of Romania, and presents the results based on the data analysis. The key performance indicators are determined from the perspective of an end user relying only on Galileo OSNMA authenticated signals. The Galileo OSNMA signals were captured using one of the few commercially available GNSS receivers that can perform this OSNMA authentication algorithm incorporating the satellite signals. This work includes a presentation of the receiver’s operation and of the authentication results obtained during test runs that experienced an unusually high number of RFI-related incidents, followed by a detailed analysis of instances when such RFI impaired or fully prevented obtaining an authenticated position, velocity, and time (PVT) solution. The results indicate that Galileo OSNMA demonstrates significant robustness against interference in real-life RF-degraded environments, dealing with both accidental and intentional interference.