Characterization of radar interference sources in the Galileo E6 band

In Global Navigation satellite System (GNSS) applications the signals at the user receiver antenna exhibit a very low power level (around -160 dBW), and can be impaired by interference sources. In the case the receiver operation is compromised by the presence of an interferer, an important issue is the identication of the undesired source. To achieve this goal, xed and mobile monitoring stations can be deployed in critical areas to assist and alert users. Since the interference signals present characteristics very dierent from each others, specic monitoring techniques must be designed ad hoc for dierent classes of interferers. Moreover, in specic scenarios (e.g., airports), the type of the interference source might be known, and the issue is to recognize its presence in the received signal. The algorithm proposed in this paper is a technique to detect and characterize pulsed signals. Radar interferers that share portions of band with Galileo E6 are used as a case study. However the method can be also applied to other pulsed interfering signals. The technique is based on the analysis of the autocorrelation function of the received signal and it exploits the characteristics of both the noise and GNSS signals. Moreover the technique is adapted to two dierent types of Air Trac Control Radar: the classical radar with unmodulated pulses (e.g. klystron radar), and the solid state radar, that use chirp signals. The simulation results show that the technique is able to recognize the interferer with a high level of accuracy.