Practical Jamming of a Commercial 5G Radio System at 3.6 GHz

Fifth-generation (5G) mobile technology has attracted interest from armed forces worldwide due to its many new possibilities for communication. Military operations may face threats in the electromagnetic spectrum, such as intentional jamming of the radio signals. Insights into the effect of jamming are needed to assess operational scenarios in which 5G is safe for military use. This paper presents a study based on an experiment of radio jamming on a commercial 5G system typical for deployments in mobile operators' networks. The prime objectives of the study were to identify a commercial 5G radio system's response to jamming and determine the jamming signal power needed to disrupt the 5G communication. The 5G base station was equipped with a massive Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) antenna operating at the 3.6 GHz frequency band. The analysis results showed that the 5G radio system managed to adapt to the jamming by lowering the modulation and coding order until a breaking point was reached at which the interfering signal overcame the UE signal in the uplink, leading to the 5G connection being terminated. The required level of jamming signal strength needed to disrupt the communication agreed with the results from theoretical studies.