Efficient Detection of Galileo SAS Sequences Using E6-B Aiding

Galileo Signal Authentication Service (SAS) is an assisted signal authentication capability under development by Galileo, designed to enhance the robustness of the European Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) against malicious attacks like spoofing. It operates by providing information about some fragments of the unknown spreading codes in the E6-C signal. Unlike other approaches, Galileo SAS uniquely employs Timed Efficient Stream Loss-tolerant Authentication (TESLA) keys provided by Open Service Navigation Message Authentication (OSNMA) in the E1-B signal for decryption, avoiding the need for key storage in potentially compromised receivers. The encrypted fragments are made available to the receivers before the broadcast of the E6-C signal, along with their broadcast time. However, if the receiver lacks an accurate time reference, searching for these fragments—which typically last for milliseconds and have periodicities extending to several seconds—can become impractical. In such cases, the probability of detection is severely diminished due to the excessively large search space that results. To mitigate this, initial estimates for the code phase delay and Doppler frequency can be obtained from the E1-B signal. Nevertheless, the alignment between E1-B and E6-C is not perfect, largely due to the intrinsic inter-frequency biases they exhibit. To mitigate this issue, we can leverage auxiliary signals like E6-B, processed by High Accuracy Service (HAS)-compatible receivers. This is a logical choice as E6-B shares the same carrier frequency as E6-C. This could help in obtaining more precise estimates of the location of the encrypted fragments and improving the probability of detection, resulting in enhanced robustness for the SAS authentication process. This paper presents a comparison of uncertainties associated with the use of the E1-B and E6-B signals, based on real data samples obtained with a custom-built Galileo SAS evaluation platform based on Software Defined Radio (SDR) boards. The results show the benefits of including E6-B in SAS processing, with minimal implementation cost.