Identification of the source of an interferer by comparison with known carriers using a single satellite

TL;DR

This paper presents a novel quantum-inspired method to identify the source of satellite interference by analyzing signal signatures and comparing them with known carriers, enabling source attribution using a single satellite.

Contribution

The paper introduces a new quantum-inspired algorithm for signature extraction and a distance measure for source identification of satellite interferers using only one satellite.

Findings

Effective identification of interferer source demonstrated with measured data.

Signature comparison accurately distinguishes between different uplink antennas.

Method shows promise for real-time interference source detection.

Abstract

We describe a method for identifying the source of a satellite interferer using a single satellite. The technique relies on the fact that the strength of a carrier signal measured at the downlink station varies with time due to a number of factors, and we use a quantum-inspired algorithm to compute a 'signature' for a signal, which captures part of the pattern of variation that is characteristic of the uplink antenna. We define a distance measure to numerically quantify the degree of similarity between two signatures, and by computing the distances between the signature for an interfering carrier and the signatures of the known carriers being relayed by the same satellite at the same time, we can identify the antenna that the interferer originated from, if a known carrier is being relayed from it. As a proof of concept we evaluate the performance of the technique using a simple statistical model applied to measured carrier data.