Protecting the Spectrum

 

Leads: J. Ruyle, T. Maccarone,  A. Madanayake 
Thrust contributors: I. Guvenc, J.M. Jornet, J. Kocz, T. Melodia, A. Ranganathan, F. Restuccia, M. Sichitiu, D.Wertheimer, H. Wang
 

The Problem: Incumbent systems designed with expectation of quiet exclusive bands, guard bands, lower Tx power from nearby systems

  • Infrastructure that can’t move in frequency (science observations) or prohibitively expensive to move

    • Dynamic sharing won’t work

  • Jamming intentionally or unintentionally

    • Frequency tuning needed with tight filtering

The Solutions:

  • Spectral use database and RFI limits of necessary systems

  • RFI Mitigation and Secure-by-Design Communications​

    • Algorithmic RFI mitigation​

      • Infrastructure or science can’t move in frequency​

  • Hardware RFI mitigation​

    • Pair reconfigurable front-ends with software defined radios and radars

  • Create new frequency-agile sensing and communication systems that are secure by design ​

 

 

Expected High-Impact Outcomes

  1. A Secure-by-design, Fully Reconfigurable Radio 

    • True reconfigurability for communications and sensing systems breaking disciplinary barriers to combine hardware and software reconfigurability

    • Work with Thrust 2 to find optimal dynamic spectrum sharing techniques

    • Work with Thrust 1 to transition reconfigurability to >100 GHz technology

  2. RFI Threat Modeling and Mitigation Toolset 

    • Use VLBA archives and calibration data to develop an understanding of RFI

    • Work with Thrust 2 to develop tools for optimal scheduling of science projects, accounting for scientific and comms constraints 

    • Improved algorithmic RFI mitigation processes

    • Enable open-world class discovery, where new types of waveforms and incumbent patterns are learned without supervised training.