Jamming/Garbling assessment and possible mitigations in the OpenSky network

The Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) technology is one of the pillars of the future surveillance system for air traffic control. However, its many fundamental vulnerabilities are well known and an active area of research. This paper examines two closely related ADS-B radio frequency channel issues, jamming and garbling. Both jamming and garbling produce the same physical effect: the reception of mixed signals, coming from different sources (usually not co-located). In this paper, we assess the impact of these reception problems and examine three separate mitigation techniques. Through the use of theoretical evaluations, simulations and real-world analysis based on data collected by the OpenSky Network, we compare their effectiveness and establish a first baseline for their use in modern low-cost, crowdsourced ADS-B networks.