Analysis and Presentation of Signal JammingEffectiveness

Brandon Vargo

Abstract

The effectiveness of signal jamming depends on a number of differ-ent factors such as the type of environment, line of sight, the distancesbetween jammers and transmitters, and the output power of both jam-mers and transmitters. While sources for much of this information arereadily available, it is tedious and non-optimal to gather the requireddata and make a computation by hand. This project aims to auto-mate this process, producing a 3D, interactive map on which the signaljamming effectiveness from a set of jammers is clearly displayed, andthe safe and non-safe areas are easily identifiable.

Keywords: Signal jamming, jamming effectiveness, 3D map, en-vironment type, line of sight

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1 Introduction

Signal jamming plays an important role in securing our country againstthreats around the world. However, in order to be able to fully use the bene-fits of signal jamming, it is desirable to be able to calculate the effectivenessof jamming in any particular location as a result of a set of jammers placein the surrounding region. Not only does this allow for planning before evendeploying jammers, but it also can help predict the effectiveness of deployedjamming solutions against threats that have not been fully identified.

In order to calculate the effectiveness of jamming in a particular location,several sources of data are necessary in order to ensure a proper calculation.These include the location information of jammers, the received power at thejammer’s location of the transmitter’s signal, a category of the surroundingenvironment type, and elevation data. At the moment, this project focuses onusing a standard path loss algorithm, which only requires the locations of thejammers and the received power, to calculate jamming effectiveness. How-ever, in the future, the project will be expanded to include varying effectsof signal jamming in different environments and line of sight calculations.Different environments play a large role in how fast a particular signal de-grades; for instance, in an urban environment, a signal is quickly attenuated.However, in a desert, the signal is not attenuated as quickly. Line of sightcalculations help predict the attenuation of a signal based on any obstaclesin the way. For instance, on a flat plain, a signal could be received for miles,but in the mountains, the signal may be largely blocked by a cliff face.

All of these variables must be taken into account when estimating theeffectiveness of jamming in a particular region. This project aims to createa computer interface that is able to gather much of this information auto-matically and display the results on a 3D map that clearly indicates how aparticular jammer is expected to behave in a particular region.

2 Background

NOTE: The ”real-world” application of this specific project cannot be in-cluded here, as this information cannot be released.

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3 Signal Jamming Analysis

3.1 Project Requirements

This program aims to produce an interface within which a user is able toevaluate the effectiveness of signal jamming devices placed in a particularregion given the locations and characteristics of a set of signal jammers. Inparticular, it should be easy to identify safe locatiosn in addition to locationsthat are not protected by a jammer.

3.2 Platform Components

3.2.1 NASA World Wind

NASA World Wind is an open source virtual globe on which various im-agery and datasets can be displayed. As part of the World Wind project,NASA has released a Java SDK under an open source license, allowing thepower and intuitiveness of World Wind’s 3D interface to be integrated intocustom applications. As signal jamming effectiveness is linked heavily withthe surrounding environment, World Wind is an effective tool to display thesignal jamming data in an intuitive manner. By integrating the capabilitiesof World Wind into a custom Java application, it is possible to plot the signaljamming characteristics directly on World Wind’s 3D globe, in addition toall of the other data that is accessible via the World Wind APIs.

3.2.2 Eclipse Rich Client Platform

The Eclipse Rich Client Platform (Eclipse RCP) is a development platformthat consists of a core platform, the standard widget toolkit (SWT), JFace,the Eclipse workbench, and the Equinox OSGi standard bundling framework.Together, these components form a platform off of which custom applications,consisting of one or more plugins, can be developed. By using the EclipseRCP, developers are able to use the existing codebase in order to speeddevelopment time. This platform has already been extended internally byNorthrop Grumman in the form of SWB, a platform that provides function-ality common to intelligence projects. NASA World Wind has already beenlargely integrated into the Eclipse RCP as a part of SWB in a way that it iseasy to integrate World Wind into the signal jamming analysis application,

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Figure 1: NASA World Wind Globes

which itself will be an Eclipse RCP plugin. This will allow future develop-ers to easily adapt and integrate the created program to suit the real-worldapplications of this project.

3.3 Data Entry

Jammer data is stored in the form of a comma separated value (CSV) file.This file can either be imported from an existing document, or can be cre-ated within the program itself. In the case of the latter, the map display isautomatically updated as the data is updated. User-configured preferencesare stored in Eclipse’s built-in preference framework, which is automaticallysaved and restored.

3.4 Presentation

The primary program display consists of a NASA World Wind globe (figures1 and 2), on which various layers are displayed representing different datasets.Signal jamming effectiveness is rendered as a translucent layer consisting ofcolors representing the signal jamming effects.

3.5 Testing and Analysis

3.5.1 Signal Jamming Analysis

Testing of the signal jamming analysis is primarily conducted by randomlyselecting regions on the Earth’s surface and creating sample scenarios within

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each region. After running the signal jamming analysis for the selected re-gion, the computed results are compared with results that would be expectedfor the region being tested.

3.5.2 Program Components

Testing of the program itself primarily consists of testing the individual com-ponents of the program as they are developed. When a number of featuresthat depend on one another have been developed, this group of features istested as a unit to ensure the code is free of any problems. This cycle ensuresquality code while maintaining a quick development cycle.

4 Results

This project has produced a flexible interface on which it is relatively easy toplot signal jamming effectiveness. The project is currently being expanded tomake the interface more flexible and generic. In addition, a sample jammerand signal has been created within this framework for which the path losscan be calculated; this model is currently being tested to see how closely itsresults match the expected results. In the future, this sample jammer andsignal implementation will be expanded to include other factors affectingsignal jamming effectiveness, such as land topology and line of sight.

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