Boeing Leads Research on Jamming Countermeasures for Autonomous Air Taxis
Boeing is leading a research project to tackle interference with global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) that threatens autonomous air taxis and other advanced air mobility aircraft. The three-year project, called VARIANT, brings together Boeing Aerospace Spain, SkyGrid, and Austrian telecom software firm Dimetor. They aim to detect and counter jamming and spoofing of GNSS signals in urban areas, where eVTOL aircraft could fly low and rely on these signals for navigation.
The consortium will integrate Dimetor's NAVSentry platform, which uses artificial intelligence to monitor and alert against jamming and spoofing. This approach aggregates data from existing national telecom networks, such as mobile base stations, creating a real-time interference-monitoring grid without new hardware. The platform has already been deployed on military sites.
The VARIANT project will assess how the detection service applies to advanced air mobility operations in urban areas, including flight planning and contingency management. It will also address ground-based traffic surveillance, local weather monitoring, and vertiport resource management. Boeing Aerospace Spain and SkyGrid bring aerospace integration and certification expertise, while Dimetor contributes the NAVSentry platform.