(London) The British army announced on Wednesday the construction of a facility presented as one of the largest in Europe, intended to prepare its equipment for the risk of GPS signal jamming, a practice of which Russia in particular has been accused.
This “anechoic hangar”, that is to say without echo, will be the size of an aviation hangar, allowing the testing of drones, Chinook helicopters or F-35 fighter jets without risk to local air traffic, indicated the Ministry of Defense in a press release.
It will be built by 2026 at the Boscombe Down base in southern England by the British company QiteniQ under a £20 million contract (around CAD 35.5 million).
The facility allows “simulation of a number of hostile environments to test how equipment can respond to jamming and other threats that seek to deceive or disrupt military assets,” the ministry explained.
“Hostile threats to jam GPS signals to disorient military equipment have become increasingly common,” Defense Contracting Secretary Maria Eagle said in the statement.
“This state-of-the-art facility will allow us to eliminate vulnerabilities […]to protect our national security and to better protect our armed forces during their deployments around the world,” she added.
Since Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, disruptions to GPS signals have intensified, particularly around the Baltic, Black Sea and Eastern Mediterranean, sometimes affecting civil aviation.
In April, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania warned that Russia’s widespread GPS jamming was increasing the risk of plane crashes.