Development of Radio Frequency Interference Detection Algorithm for Passive Microwave Remote Sensing

Radio Frequency Interference (RFI) signals are man-made sources that are increasingly plaguing passive microwave remote sensing measurements. RFI is of insidious nature, with some signals low power enough to go undetected but large enough to impact science measurements and their results. With the launch of the European Space Agency (ESA) Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) satellite in November 2009 and the upcoming launches of the new NASA sea-surface salinity measuring Aquarius mission in June 2011 and soil-moisture measuring Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) mission around 2015, active steps are being taken to detect and mitigate RFI at L-band. An RFI detection algorithm was designed for the Aquarius mission. The algorithm performance was analyzed using kurtosis based RFI ground-truth. The algorithm has been developed with several adjustable location dependant parameters to control the detection statistics (false-alarm rate and probability of detection). The kurtosis statistical detection algorithm has been compared with the Aquarius pulse detection method. The comparative study determines the feasibility of the kurtosis detector for the SMAP radiometer, as a primary RFI detection algorithm in terms of detectability and data bandwidth. The kurtosis algorithm has superior detection capabilities for low duty-cycle radar like pulses, which are more prevalent according to analysis of field campaign data. Most RFI algorithms developed have generally been optimized for performance with individual pulsed-sinusoidal RFI sources. A new RFI detection model is developed that takes into account multiple RFI sources within an antenna footprint. The performance of the kurtosis detection algorithm under such central-limit conditions is evaluated. The SMOS mission has a unique hardware system, and conventional RFI detection techniques cannot be applied. Instead, an RFI detection algorithm for SMOS is developed and applied in the angular domain. This algorithm compares brightness temperature values at various incidence angles for a particular grid location. This algorithm is compared and contrasted with other algorithms present in the visibility domain of SMOS, as well as the spatial domain. Initial results indicate that the SMOS RFI detection algorithm in the angular domain has a higher sensitivity and lower false-alarm rate than algorithms developed in the other two domains.Ph.D.Atmospheric and Space SciencesUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/86308/1/samisra_1.pd

Detection Strategies and Intercept Metrics for Intra-Pulse Radar-Embedded Communications

This thesis presents various detection strategies and intercept metrics to evaluate and design an intra-pulse radar-embedded communication system. This system embeds covert communication symbols in masking interference provided by the reflections of a pulsed radar emission. This thesis considers the case where the communicating device is a transponder or tag present in an area that is illuminated by a radar. The radar is considered to be the communication receiver. As with any communication system, performance (as measured by reliability and data rate) should be maximized between the tag and radar. However, unlike conventional communication systems, the symbols here should also have a low-probability of intercept (LPI). This thesis examines the trade-offs associated with the design of a practical radar-embedded communication system. A diagonally-loaded decorrelating receiver is developed and enhanced with a second stage based on the Neyman-Pearson criterion. For a practical system, the communication symbols will likely encounter multipath. The tag may then use a pre-distortion strategy known as time-reversal to improve the signal-to-noise ratio at the radar receiver thereby enhancing communication performance. The development of several intercept metrics are shown and the logic behind the design evolutions are explained. A formal analysis of the processing gain by the desired receiver relative to the intercept receivers is given. Finally, simulations are shown for all cases, to validate the design metrics

Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) Project Algorithm Theoretical Basis Document SMAP L1B Radiometer Data Product: L1B_TB

The purpose of the Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) radiometer calibration algorithm is to convert Level 0 (L0) radiometer digital counts data into calibrated estimates of brightness temperatures referenced to the Earth's surface within the main beam. The algorithm theory in most respects is similar to what has been developed and implemented for decades for other satellite radiometers; however, SMAP includes two key features heretofore absent from most satellite borne radiometers: radio frequency interference (RFI) detection and mitigation, and measurement of the third and fourth Stokes parameters using digital correlation. The purpose of this document is to describe the SMAP radiometer and forward model, explain the SMAP calibration algorithm, including approximations, errors, and biases, provide all necessary equations for implementing the calibration algorithm and detail the RFI detection and mitigation process. Section 2 provides a summary of algorithm objectives and driving requirements. Section 3 is a description of the instrument and Section 4 covers the forward models, upon which the algorithm is based. Section 5 gives the retrieval algorithm and theory. Section 6 describes the orbit simulator, which implements the forward model and is the key for deriving antenna pattern correction coefficients and testing the overall algorithm

Radio frequency interference in microwave radiometry: statistical analysis and study of techniques for detection and mitigation

Microwave radiometry field has been increasing its performance with higher accuracy measurements, leading to a more presence in the remote sensing field. Several space-borne, air-borne and ground-based radiometers have been developed to perform measurement campaigns; however, the actual sensitivity of a radiometer is often limited by man-made radio emissions such as radars, broadcasting emissions, wireless communications and many other communication systems based on electromagnetic waves, limiting the improvement in the radiometers¿ performance. Consequently, in order to maintain the accuracy in the radiometric measurements, it has been researched in the Radio Frequency Interference (RFI) detection and mitigation systems and algorithms for the microwave radiometry field. The scope of this doctoral thesis is the development and testing of RFI detection and mitigation algorithms in order to enhance radiometric measurements performed by the Multifequency Experimental Radiometer with Interference Tracking for Experiments over Land and Littoral (MERITXELL). The MERITXELL has been developed during this thesis with the idea studying the RFI present in several radiometric bands and the way to mitigate it, as well as to obtain data from diverse frequency bands and devices in only one measurement campaign

Effect of Obstacle Angles on Signal Strength for Different Mounting Elevations of XBee Pro Module in Viral Advertisement System

This paper presents a study on the effect of obstacle angles on signal strength for different mounting elevations of XBee Pro module. The study has been conducted by using two units of XBee Pro modules which each represents a receiver and a transmitter. The transmitter is mounted in three different elevations which are 0.5, 1.5 and 2.5 meter from the ground while the receiver is fixed at the same elevation but at different positions which yield to different angles. When the transmitter continuously transmits the wireless signal carrying its particular address, the receiver will detect the signal address once the range of communication of both receiver and transmitter intersects. The results obtained are the values of signal strength, in percentage, with respect to the obstacle angles between receiver and transmitter for different mounting elevations of transmitter. These data are then converted into graph that illustrates the signal strength characteristics for each mounting elevation. Finally, the best mounting elevation is to be identified based on the result obtained

General Interference Suppression Technique For Diversity Wireless Rece

The area of wireless transceiver design is becoming increasingly important due to the rapid growth of wireless communications market as well as diversified design specifications. Research efforts in this area concentrates on schemes that are capable of increasing the system capacity, providing reconfigurability/reprogrammability and reducing the hardware complexity. Emerging topics related to these goals include Software Defined Radio, Multiple-Input-Multiple-Output (MIMO) Systems, Code Division Multiple Access, Ultra-Wideband Systems, etc. This research adopts space diversity and statistical signal processing for digital interference suppression in wireless receivers. The technique simplifies the analog front-end by eliminating the anti-aliasing filters and relaxing the requirements for IF bandpass filters and A/D converters. Like MIMO systems, multiple antenna elements are used for increased frequency reuse. The suppression of both image signal and Co-Channel Interference (CCI) are performed in DSP simultaneously. The signal-processing algorithm used is Independent Component Analysis (ICA). Specifically, the fixed-point Fast-ICA is adopted in the case of static or slow time varying channel conditions. In highly dynamic environment that is typically encountered in cellular mobile communications, a novel ICA algorithm, OBAI-ICA, is developed, which outperforms Fast-ICA for both linear and abrupt time variations. Several practical implementation issues are also considered, such as the effect of finite arithmetic and the possibility of reducing the number of antennas

Toward Characterization of the Epoch of Reionization with Redshifted 21 cm One-point Statistics

abstract: One of the most fundamental questions in astronomy is how the Universe evolved to become the highly structured system of stars and galaxies that we see today. The answer to this question can be largely uncovered in a relatively unexplored period in the history of the Universe known as the Epoch of Reionization (EoR), where radiation from the first generation of stars and galaxies ionized the neutral hydrogen gas in the intergalactic medium. The reionization process created "bubbles" of ionized regions around radiating sources that perturbed the matter density distribution and influenced the subsequent formation of stars and galaxies. Exactly how and when reionization occurred are currently up for debate. However, by studying this transformative period we hope to unravel the underlying astrophysics that governs the formation and evolution of the first stars and galaxies. The most promising method to study reionization is 21 cm tomography, which aims to map the 3D distribution of the neutral hydrogen gas using the 21 cm emission lines from the spin-flip transition of neutral hydrogen atoms. Several radio interferometers operating at frequencies below 200 MHz are conducting these experiments, but direct images of the observed fields are limited due to contamination from astrophysical foreground sources and other systematics, forcing current and upcoming analyses to be statistical. In this dissertation, I studied one-point statistics of the 21 cm brightness temperature intensity fluctuations, focusing on how measurements from observations would be biased by different contaminations and instrumental systematics and how to mitigate them. I develop simulation tools to generate realistic mock 21 cm observations of the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array (HERA), a new interferometer being constructed in the Karoo desert in South Africa, and perform sensitivity analysis of the telescope to one-point statistics using the mock observations. I show that HERA will be able to measure 21 cm one-point statistics with sufficient sensitivity if foreground contaminations can be sufficiently mitigated. In the presence of foreground, I develop a rolling foreground avoidance filter technique and demonstrate that it can be used to obtain noise-limited measurements with HERA. To assess these techniques on real data, I obtain measurements from the legacy data from the first season observation of the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) and perform additional high-precision radio interferometric simulations for comparison. Through these works, I have developed new statistical tools that are complementary to the power spectrum method that is currently the central focus of the majority of analyses. In addition to confirming power spectrum detections, one-point statistics offer additional information on the distribution of the 21 cm fluctuations, which is directly linked to the astrophysics of structure formation.Dissertation/ThesisDoctoral Dissertation Astrophysics 201

Enhancing the performance of spread spectrum techniques in different applications

Spread spectrum, Automotive Radar, Indoor Positioning Systems, Ultrasonic and Microwave Imaging, super resolution technique and wavelet transformMagdeburg, Univ., Fak. für Elektrotechnik und Informationstechnik, Diss., 2006von Omar Abdel-Gaber Mohamed Al

Radio transients: Surveys and Techniques

I present two pilot surveys and a range of new algorithms to aid in planning and implementing wide-field radio surveys for transient and variable sources. The first pilot survey is a blind survey for transient and variable radio sources with the Molonglo Observatory Synthesis Telescope at 843~MHz. This survey discovered 53 highly variable sources and 15 transient sources and determined surface densities of 0.268 \unit{deg^{-2}} for variable sources and 1.3 \times 10^{-2} \unit{deg^{-2}} for transient sources, with associated timescales of between one day and three years. I also propose two new techniques which were developed for this survey. The first technique provides a post-imaging calibration for image gain. The second technique is a statistical method for verifying whether flux error measurements agree with the scatter in light curves over a population of sources. I also describe a follow-up survey for prompt radio emission from gamma ray bursts (GRBs) at 1.4~GHz. This survey used a single-dish telescope to automatically slew to a GRB position within 2~min of the gamma ray trigger and performed single-pulse, repeating and low-time resolution searches for variability. This survey discovered single, dispersed pulses following two long GRBs, which are possibly related to the delayed formation of a black hole at the centre of the GRBs. The high-time resolution measurements from this survey are some of the most constraining limits on prompt radio emission from GRBs to date. I also present two efficient new algorithms for detecting dispersed radio emission in interferometric data: the Chirpolator and the Chimageator. These two techniques excel in the regime of sparse arrays, where they both require substantially lower data rates, and the Chirpolator requires a much lower post-integrator operation rate than the existing algorithms. These techniques are well matched to future supercomputing architectures, where the arithmetic capability is outstripping the bandwidth capa! bility, and are therefore suitable for use by interferometer-based fast transient surveys. The surveys and techniques described in this thesis will have immediate application to upcoming surveys with the next generation of wide-field radio telescopes, such as the two transients surveys proposed for the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder