Cooperative Interference Detection, Localization, and Mitigation in GNSS

Due to the low cost of GNSS receivers and their consequent diffusion, a wide range of location-aware applications are arising. Some of these applications are critical and have strict requirements in terms of availability, integrity and reliability. Examples of critical applications are precision landing and en-route navigation in air transportations; automated highways and mileage-based toll in road transportations; search and rescue in safety of life applications. A failure in fulfilling one or more requirements of a critical application may have dramatic consequences and cause serious damage. One of the most challenging threats for critical GNSS application, is represented by interference. In particular, jamming devices, operating inside GNSS bands, are easily and cheaply purchasable on the Internet. These devices transmit disturbing signals with the aim of preventing the correct operations of GNSS receivers. In order to satisfy the requirements of critical applications, it is necessary to promptly detect, localize and remove such interfering sources. Moreover, it is important to characterize the interfering signals in order to develop interference avoidance and mitigation techniques that ensure robustness of GNSS receivers to interference. This thesis studies the problem of interference in GNSS, from a cooperative perspective.