FAA starts path to approve CRPA antennas for civil aircraft as GPS threats grow
The Federal Aviation Administration is working with the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division to begin the approval path for Controlled Reception Pattern Antennas on civilian aircraft.
The move targets rising risks from GPS and GNSS jamming and spoofing, which have become a more urgent aviation safety issue. The immediate step is a Request for Information posted on SAM.gov to study anti-jamming and anti-spoofing technologies and identify vendors whose antenna systems could be integrated into civil aircraft. CRPAs are designed to blunt terrestrial interference by electronically suppressing hostile signals, a capability that could help crews maintain situational awareness and reduce cockpit workload when navigation inputs are disrupted.
NAWCAD is leading the market outreach and evaluation effort. That work includes industry days and the use of Cooperative Research and Development Agreements to test hardware and measure performance. Responses to the RFI are due by May 26, 2025, at 5:00 p.m. Eastern, and questions will be accepted until April 25, 2025. Information gathered through the process, along with follow-on testing, is expected to feed into updated Minimum Operational Performance Standards for GPS and GNSS antennas and for cockpit display systems tied to those signals.
The push comes as U.S. regulators sharpen warnings about navigation disruption. The FAA issued Safety Alert for Operations 24002 on Jan. 1, 2024, cautioning operators and manufacturers that jamming and spoofing events can sharply raise pilot workload and erode situational awareness. Wider deployment of CRPAs across the commercial fleet is still likely to take years because FAA approval and certification are lengthy and installation costs are high. At the same time, Washington is moving to ease another barrier. The State Department has proposed removing CRPAs from the U.S. Munitions List and shifting them to Commerce Department export rules, a change set to take effect on Sept. 15, 2025, after a public comment process. That would align the technology with other dual-use systems and could simplify adoption. Even so, CRPAs mainly address ground-based threats, while space-based interference remains a separate concern. The result is clear: aviation is moving toward stronger GPS resilience, but closing the vulnerability gap will require new standards, more testing and sustained investment.