Interference mitigation in satellite communications

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Satellites act as relay stations and form a critical part of the world-wide communications infrastructure. They are used for communications, positioning, remote sensing, in civil and/or military applications such as Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB), high-definition video, amateur radio communications, broadband Internet, weather forecasting, environment surveillance, Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS), etc. Satellite Communications (SatCom) systems are sensitive to Radio Frequency Interference (RFI). The rapid rate of technological developments will continue to lower the entry barrier for space, increasing the number of players in the space arena. This fact, in combination with the ever-increasing thirst for satellite communications bandwidth, will inevitably lead to a dramatic increase in RFI. Unfortunately, because of RFI's variety of sources and causes, RFI is a challenging problem for researchers, operators and manufacturers. The AVIO-601 project aims to develop a technical framework for the detection, measurement and mitigation of RFI to resolve satellite link interference issues and increase the global robustness of SatCom systems. The main strategic goal of this project is to develop novel cognitive system architectures and digital signal processing techniques to detect, localize, characterize and suppress RFI in SatCom networks and to demonstrate their feasibility in real world situations through implementation of a proof-of-concept hardware/software prototype. An additional objective is to develop an RFI atlas platform, that is, a complete database of RFI sources, characteristics, and locations that will be updated in real-time by an RFI measurement and monitoring module. The project will also study the potential of using reconfigurable antennas as a means to reduce RFI at the radiofrequency hardware level. The AVIO-601 project team will consist of 16 students, and 3 professionals. The proposed research program will provide a platform for the training of highly-qualified personnel in innovative architectures and new concepts of adaptive filtering, blanking, signal authentication, encryption, adaptive equalization, adaptive antenna beams and resource management, null steering, etc.