Triggering UMTS user equipment inter-RAT cell reselection using noise jammers

In this work a strategy for triggering an interradio access technology cell reselection in UMTS user equipment is proposed. All mobile devices within the effective range of a transmitter radiating a noise-like RF signal on the UMTS downlink frequency bands are forced to leave the UMTS cells and camp on non-UMTS cells, such as e.g., GSM. This allows to use a GSM based localization technique even in areas with UMTS coverage. In contrast to classical RF communication jammers which focus on disrupting the communication link, our exclusive goal is to trigger the inter-RAT cell reselection to GSM. In particular we estimate the necessary jammer RF power by examining the cell reselection procedure running in the user equipment (UE) and using some exemplary geographical scenarios. We use a hardware system to proof the results.