{"id":86244,"date":"2026-07-21T15:34:20","date_gmt":"2026-07-21T13:34:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fhi.nl\/nieuws\/when-signal-becomes-the-threat-how-reliable-data-keeps-drones-flying-through-gps-and-emp-interference\/"},"modified":"2026-07-21T15:34:20","modified_gmt":"2026-07-21T13:34:20","slug":"when-signal-becomes-the-threat-how-reliable-data-keeps-drones-flying-through-gps-and-emp-interference","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/fhi.nl\/en\/news\/when-signal-becomes-the-threat-how-reliable-data-keeps-drones-flying-through-gps-and-emp-interference\/","title":{"rendered":"When Signal Becomes the Threat: How Reliable Data Keeps Drones Flying Through GPS and EMP Interference"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n\t\t\t\t\tWhen Signal Becomes the Threat: How Reliable Data Keeps Drones Flying Through GPS and EMP Interference\t\t\t\t<\/h1>\n\n\t\t\t\t
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In recent months, Belgian and Dutch authorities scrambled to respond to a wave of drone sightings above sensitive sites: military bases, international airports and a nuclear research facility.<\/h5>\n

Flights across the region were cancelled. Anti-drone weapons were deployed. Governments pledged hundreds of millions in countermeasures. And in most cases, nobody could definitively explain where the drones came from or why they ended up there.<\/strong><\/p>\n

These incidents highlight a fundamental shift in modern defense: neutralizing drones is no longer about deploying expensive missiles, but about using electronic warfare, including GPS jamming, spoofing, and EMP disruptions. Spoofing is particularly dangerous, feeding falsified position data to force an aircraft off-course without triggering an immediate alert. As electronic countermeasures become the primary weapon to bring drones down (a reality already clearly demonstrated in conflicts like Ukraine) defending the drone's internal systems and data integrity against these disruptions has become a crucial success factor.<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is not a hardware problem. It is an embedded software problem. And it is one that development teams can solve.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

A problem close to home<\/h3>\n
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The incidents across the Benelux<\/strong> paint a clear picture. In Belgium, drones were spotted above military bases<\/strong> including Kleine-Brogel, Florennes, Leopoldsburg and Schaffen. Flight operations at Brussels Airport<\/strong> were suspended following drone sightings. A drone was observed above the nuclear research center<\/strong> in Mol. In the Netherlands, military airbases<\/strong> including Eindhoven and Volkel were targeted by unidentified drone activity.<\/p>\n

An unmanned aircraft crashed on a school playground in Mechelen. What was clear is that the aircraft had ended up far outside its intended or permitted flight zones<\/strong>. GPS interference<\/strong>, in the form of jamming<\/strong> or spoofing<\/strong>, is one of the key mechanisms that can cause this to happen.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

A pattern that cannot be ignored<\/h3>\n
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The Benelux incidents do not stand alone. Spoofing incidents<\/strong> increased by 500%<\/strong> in 2024, driven in large part by the proliferation of modern drone warfare in Eastern Europe and the Middle East. According to IATA<\/strong> data, GPS signal loss events<\/strong> increased by 220%<\/strong> between 2021 and 2024. Poland<\/strong> alone reported 2,732 GPS jamming incidents<\/strong> in January 2025. Around 900 flights per day<\/strong> are currently affected by GPS interference<\/strong> globally.<\/p>\n

These are not numbers from a distant conflict zone. They reflect a threat that is increasingly affecting commercial aviation<\/strong>, critical infrastructure<\/strong> and embedded systems<\/strong> across the region where Logic Technology operates.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

A Dutch stake in the outcome<\/h3>\n
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The Netherlands is not just dealing with the fallout of GPS interference<\/strong>. It is becoming one of the more active players in it drone development<\/strong> itself. The government recently confirmed it will supply drones to Ukraine as part of NATO policy<\/strong>, a decision that puts Dutch-built systems<\/strong> directly into one of the most electronically contested airspaces on the planet. That is precisely the environment where jamming<\/strong> and spoofing<\/strong> are already routine, and where a single corrupted data write<\/strong> can be the difference between a mission completed and an aircraft lost.<\/p>\n

Dutch and European manufacturers, from established industrial players such as VDL<\/strong> to newer aerospace ventures like Destinus<\/strong>, are shaping this next generation of drone platforms. Alongside existing European users of Logic Technology's solutions, including Airbus Defence & Space<\/strong>, they represent exactly the kind of engineering teams that need them data layer<\/strong> to hold up when external signals cannot be trusted.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>

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Beyond GPS: How drones navigate when signals fail<\/h3>\n
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There is an important distinction between jamming<\/strong> and spoofing<\/strong>, and both present serious risks to drone systems. Jamming simply denies access to GPS signals<\/strong>, while spoofing actively manipulates the navigation system, causing a UAV to fly off-course, crash, or land in unauthorized locations. In the worst cases, spoofing does not trigger any immediate warning (the system believes it is operating correctly, while in reality it is being guided toward failure).<\/p>\n

To maintain resilience when GPS signals are jammed or spoofed, modern autonomous and semi-autonomous drones rely on secondary navigation and communication mechanisms:<\/p>\n