UE-Assisted Jamming Detection in 5G NR

Resilience against radio jamming is a key feature for the trustworthiness of next-generation mobile radio access networks (RAN) and systems for detecting jamming attacks are required in order to notify operators and effectively deploy mitigation techniques. This paper proposes a novel approach for jamming detection in 5G new radio (NR) that leverages user equipment (UE) as distributed sensors by collecting and analyzing standardized UE measurement reports. We propose a detection method based on the signal-to-interference-and-noise ratio (SINR) measured at the UEs and analytically derive the corresponding error probabilities. Furthermore, we provide a method for positioning the jammer source based on information on the location of the UEs. We validate the effectiveness of the proposed method based on SINR measurements obtained from a static 5G network simulator. Our results show that the method accurately detects the jammer even at low transmit power and provides a coarse indication of the jammer position.