Performance assessment of time--frequency RFI mitigation techniques in microwave radiometry

January 1, 2017·
Jorge Querol
,
R. Onrubia
,
A. Alonso-Arroyo
,
Daniel Pascual
,
Hyuk Park
,
Adriano Camps
· 2 min read
DOI
Abstract
Radio-frequency interference (RFI) signals are a well-known threat for microwave radiometry (MWR) applications. In order to alleviate this problem, different approaches for RFI detection and mitigation are currently under development. Since RFI signals are man made, they tend to have their power more concentrated in the time-frequency (TF) space as compared to naturally emitted noise. The aim of this paper is to perform an assessment of different TF RFI mitigation techniques in terms of probability of detection, resolution loss (RL), and mitigation performance. In this assessment, six different kinds of RFI signals have been considered: a glitch, a burst of pulses, a wide-band chirp, a narrow-band chirp, a continuous wave, and a wide-band modulation. The results show that the best performance occurs when the transform basis has a similar shape as compared to the RFI signal. For the best case performance, the maximum residual RFI temperature is 14.8 K, and the worst RL is 8.4%. Moreover, the multiresolution Fourier transform technique appears as a good tradeoff solution among all other techniques since it can mitigate all RFI signals under evaluation with a maximum residual RFI temperature of 21 K, and a worst RL of 26.3%. Although the obtained results are still far from an acceptable bias <; 1 K for MWR applications, there is still work to do in a combined test using the information gathered simultaneously by all mitigation techniques, which could improve the overall performance of RFI mitigation.
Type
Publication
IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing
publication

Abstract & Overview

Radio-frequency interference (RFI) signals are a well-known threat for microwave radiometry (MWR) applications. In order to alleviate this problem, different approaches for RFI detection and mitigation are currently under development. Since RFI signals are man made, they tend to have their power more concentrated in the time-frequency (TF) space as compared to naturally emitted noise. The aim of this paper is to perform an assessment of different TF RFI mitigation techniques in terms of probability of detection, resolution loss (RL), and mitigation performance. In this assessment, six different kinds of RFI signals have been considered: a glitch, a burst of pulses, a wide-band chirp, a narrow-band chirp, a continuous wave, and a wide-band modulation. The results show that the best performance occurs when the transform basis has a similar shape as compared to the RFI signal. For the best case performance, the maximum residual RFI temperature is 14.8 K, and the worst RL is 8.4%. Moreover, the multiresolution Fourier transform technique appears as a good tradeoff solution among all other techniques since it can mitigate all RFI signals under evaluation with a maximum residual RFI temperature of 21 K, and a worst RL of 26.3%. Although the obtained results are still far from an acceptable bias <; 1 K for MWR applications, there is still work to do in a combined test using the information gathered simultaneously by all mitigation techniques, which could improve the overall performance of RFI mitigation.

Publication Metadata

  • Authors: Jorge Querol, R. Onrubia, A. Alonso-Arroyo, Daniel Pascual, Hyuk Park, Adriano Camps
  • Venue: IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote (2017)
  • Research Areas: JCAS & Earth Observation, RFI Mitigation & GNSS Security
  • DOI: 10.1109/jstars.2017.2654541
JCAS & Earth Observation RFI Mitigation & GNSS Security