GPS Monitoring Installed by Israel Railways to Protect New Payment System

GPS repeaters from infiniDome Ltd. will be deployed by Focus Telecom at more than 30 railway stations across Israel, providing accurate, location-based service indoors at all locations for a new Israel Railways ticketing app. In March,2121, the Israeli Ministry of Transport expanded payment options for train tickets to include a payment app on a mobile phone.

A component of the project is a monitoring service that detects and provides alerts of any GPS disruption or interference in real time, as they are identified. This is furnished by infiniDome’s IoT GPSensors and its cloud-based GPS monitoring service, infiniCloud.

GPS repeaters consist of an active outdoor GPS antenna mounted on the roof of a building and a repeater unit with a built-in passive antenna to re-transmit the GPS signal indoors. Repeaters transmit the coordinates of the outdoor antenna, not the position of the repeater unit itself.

The GPS data is simultaneously transmitted over a digital cellular data link to infiniCloud, a software-as-a-service cloud-based solution that provides access to real-time and statistical data on GPS jamming attacks and ongoing GNSS monitoring data for its users as experienced in the field. infiniCloud monitors the health of the GNSS signals in addition to providing instantaneous alerts allowing early detection and immediate response for attacks on critical assets whether they are mobile and moving.

The repeaters’ resilient PNT capability are viewed as a necessary enhancement for critical infrastructure by the Israeli government. InfiniDome’s monitoring technology detects and alerts operators of threats and disruptions of GPS signals. Such disruptions from intentional jammers are perhaps more common in the region surrounding Israel than in any other area of the world, due to the conflict in neighboring Syria and frequent jamming by Russia and Russian-backed forced.

“All GPS signal data and its assured integrity are available as real time data so Israel Railways can react immediately and reduce downtime of the network,” said Omer Sharar, infiniDome CEO.

In 2018, Israel National Railway carried 68 million passengers.

Infinidome is headquartered in Caesarea, Israel and is a member of the U.S.-based Open PNT Alliance.

Image courtesy Israel Railways.