By BlueShift and AFP | 2025-04-21

Suspected jamming of Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) signals in Finland has surged since 2022, prompting researchers to fast-track technology that can counter interference in real time.

The satellite-navigation jamming signals originate from Russia, Helsinki suspects.

The interference has affected GNSS services such as the Global Positioning System (GPS) and Galileo, and has disrupted satellite imagery used by Finland's military, border guard and forestry sector.

Prompted by an "urgent need" to tackle the attempts, which pose both security and economic risks, Finnish researchers in April began developing a device to identify and mitigate intentional jamming of satellite positioning signals, said Mika Saajasto, a senior research scientist with Finland's National Land Survey.

"We are now developing a prototype to detect interference in real time and warn users about it," Saajasto said in a statement April 16. "The idea is also to save positioning data and develop methods for processing aerial photos in GNSS interference situations."

Alternate landing systems

"We will develop algorithmic solutions suitable for our conditions that can identify the interference and warn the end user that there's something in the air that doesn't belong there," Saajasto, who is leading the project, told AFP a day earlier.

About 2,800 reports of satellite positioning interference were registered in Finland last year, compared to just 200 reports in 2023, according to the Finnish Transport and Communications Agency (Traficom).

The country shares a 1,340km-long border with Russia and has been ramping up its defense and border security since Moscow's 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

The European Union-funded project will run over a period of two years in North Karelia, a region in eastern Finland where the interference in satellite positioning data has been especially frequent.

"Some [aircraft] have not been able to land in eastern Finland," Saajasto said.

Almost every airport in Finland at some point has had to switch to alternative landing systems because of GPS interference, the Uutissuomalainen news group reported earlier this year.

The problem has led to three airports in eastern Finland resorting to the use of radio navigation equipment to facilitate landings, Yle News reported in airports.

GPS jamming has caused problems for maritime traffic in sea areas near Finland, according to Traficom.

The incidents have included malfunctions in vessels' Automatic Identification Systems, which enable electronic navigation, in the Baltic Sea.

The malfunctions cause them to stray from their routes and significantly increase the possibility of an accident, Yle reported last October.

Moscow has denied any involvement in the satellite jamming.