The Scenario
A multinational coalition is operating in an electromagnetically contested environment. Unmanned reconnaissance systems, vehicles, and command-and-control information systems continue to report plausible position data that is consistent across systems. There is no obvious signal outage and no immediate warning.
In fact, however, the received GNSS signals are being manipulated gradually. A drone’s displayed position increasingly deviates from its actual position. As a result, reconnaissance findings are georeferenced incorrectly, movements of friendly forces are displayed inaccurately, and target data is assigned to the wrong location. Because the deviation is introduced slowly, navigation, the map display, and system messages initially appear to remain consistent.
At the same time, manipulation of GNSS time information can impair the synchronization of distributed sensors, communication systems, and IT infrastructures. Individual systems continue to function, but their data can no longer be reliably fused.
Therefore, forces must not only be able to detect that GNSS signals are being influenced. As early as possible, they need a reliable assessment of whether spoofing, jamming, a technical malfunction, or a non-adversarial environmental effect is present; which systems and PNT functions are affected; from which area the interference is likely originating; and how its impact area is developing.
The Challenge
The ECHIS Challenge is looking for early-stage technologies and solution components, in particular innovative approaches to detecting, classifying, characterizing, and localizing GNSS spoofing, as well as translating the results into situational awareness that can be used by operational forces. The Challenge is explicitly technology-agnostic; both individual sensors and algorithms as well as distributed or cross-platform solution approaches may be submitted.
With the final demo week and validation under realistic conditions, the ECHIS Challenge creates a framework in which not only the originality of an approach matters, but also its robustness in practical testing.
Important to know
Any questions?
We have compiled all the important questions and answers about the challenge here.