Introduction to UHU Technologies LLC
UHU Technologies is a privately owned engineering research and development company that designs products to detect and mitigate GPS spoofing and jamming. Our company has strong roots in Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) and radio location, with years of experience producing high-performance hardware. We are applying our expertise to the protection of GPS receivers for critical infrastructure and Naval Information Warfare Systems Command (NAVWAR) applications using techniques borrowed from the SIGINT world.
The Northstar and UHU1000
UHU Technologies offers two signature products:
The Northstar GPS Health Monitor.
The UHU1000 mobile unit capable of detecting, mitigating, and geolocating the source of GPS jamming or spoofing.
The Northstar detects GPS jamming and spoofing, immediately alerting users via the network and switching nearby GPS timing receivers into holdover. With the ability to provide the direction of any threat and geolocate threats when multiple units are networked, NorthStar adds unparalleled situational awareness and threat detection capabilities to any GPS-dependent platform.
1-U NorthStar and 4-Element Antenna Array with Mounting Kit
The UHU1000 is a 7-channel, phase coherent GPS receiver developed under an Army C5ISR contract. The system, shown in Figure 2, is comprised of a custom CRPA array and the receiver itself, a 1U rack-mount device. Although the UHU1000 looks much like a traditional anti-jam (AJ) receiver, UHU’s proprietary signal processing allows the UHU1000 to detect and defeat sophisticated spoofing and jamming attacks.
Figure 1 – UHU1000 Basic Kit
The LA / Long Beach Port GPS Jamming Story
“UHU Technologies revealed persistent unwanted emissions in the GPS L1-CA band that jammed / impacted critical equipment in the LA ”
– Long Beach Ports
In October 2021, UHU Technologies offered to deploy three Northstar systems in the Los Angeles and Long Beach Port areas to monitor potential impact from GPS jammers or spoofers. Working with L.A. and Long Beach port authorities and container terminal owners, we initially selected three container terminals shown in Figure 3.
Figure 3 – Original Locations October 2021
When positioned approximately 2 miles apart, the team could assess a variety of jamming threats over a large area, establishing a consistent pattern of interference that justified a more rigorous monitoring of the heavily trafficked terminal in the port. Terminal C in the image above agreed to work with our Team to monitor their terminal south entrance.
Working with the port authorities, we repositioned three NorthStar units approximately 0.25 miles apart and adding a camera to the Northstar facing the terminal’s south truck entrance. We had a much better visual of the testing area. – see Figure 4.
Figure 4 – View of LA / Long Beach Port testing area, from UHU Northstar camera at terminal’s south truck entrance.
After this move, the team was capable of precisely identifying jamming sources with a high-degree of accuracy – see Figure 5.
Figure 5 – Started to see multiple vehicles with personal jammers.
UHU Technologies has operated three NorthStar GPS Health Monitors at various locations around L.A. and Long Beach ports for the last 4 years. During that period, the systems have detected and identified hundreds of vehicles with suspected personal GPS jammers – see Figure 6.
Figure 6 – Added a license plate reader to camera at entrance of Yusen Terminal
However, in November 2024, UHU Technologies detected a different pattern; A very high-power signal appeared in the L1-CA frequency band approximately every four hours and lasted about four minutes. This pattern persisted for several weeks, which allowed us to deploy our UHU1000 Rapid Deployment mobile unit (see – Figure 7) to provide cross bearings with the UHU Northstar units. UHU Technologies identified an area inside the Yusen terminal where generators (gensets) for refrigeration units for cargo containers were stored and maintained, separated from the containers themselves. Dozens of similar gensets operate in this area, making it difficult to identify the specific suspect unit.
Figure 7 – UHU1000 Rapid Deployment Kit
Please note that the red Lines of Bearing (LOB) in the video move around and have different shades due to RF reflections and multipath with all the steel containers and environment.
The unwanted interference jamming the GPS L1-CA signal was impacting their Network Servers and Container Handling Equipment (CHE).
Figure 8 – March 2025: Two Northstar units in Yusen’s Terminal lot showing cross bearing to confirm the unwanted jamming noise source location.
In March 2025, the pattern returned. UHU worked with one of Rohde & Schwarz’s Southern California support teams, Curtis Ingram and Ben Wilson. They showed up with Rohde & Schwarz’s handheld FPH spectrum rider and HE400 directional antenna (see – Figure 9). On the second 4 hour event, Curtis identified the suspect genset. The unit was powered off and the problem went away to confirm that was the suspected noisy genset unit. This unit is owned by a foreign shipping company, complicating follow-up action. UHU is working with Ken Fletcher (Yusen Security Manager / FSO) and Mark McHargue Director of IT on the next steps. We know that this specific genset departed YTI and is being tracked by the shipping companies’ internal systems using Globe Tracker for monitoring the unit.
Figure 9 – Curtis Ingram from Rohde & Schwarz hunting down the bad genset.
In June 2025, the team detected more jamming events with the same line of bearing (LOB), occurring every four hours for four minutes. The shipping company confirmed the previous unit identified as the problem unit was in Illinois during the June event, indicating UHU has confirmed at least one genset, and most likely three genset units generating high-power RF noise in the L1-CA band impacting critical equipment. We are working with several government agencies and local port authorities on this problem.
Current update – “Globe Tracker” has the known bad unit in their Florida office being evaluated. Hopefully they will identify the bad component causing the noise and add a maintenance check for that component during their routine service schedule.
This page was produced by North Coast Media’s content marketing staff in collaboration with UHU Technologies. NCM Content Marketing connects marketers to audiences and delivers industry trends, business tips and product information. The GPS World editorial staff did not create this content.