Cancellation of jammers and jammer multipath in a GPS receiver

It is demonstrated by simulation that jammers and jammer multipath can be cancelled using an adaptive space-time array, leading to nearly ideal GPS performance     

Equivalent transformation for a partially adaptive array

A partially adaptive array is one in which elements of a phased array are controlled or adaptively weighted in groups or in which certain elements, called auxiliary elements, are made controllable. Mathematically, this type of array is formed by transforming all of the elements of an array by a nonsquare matrix such that the resulting output vector has a length less than the number of array elements. It is shown that there is an equivalent matrix transform that can effectively be utilized in analyzing the partially adaptive array's performance when a small number of external jammers are present. Processor implementation and convergence rate considerations lead to the desirability of reducing the dimensionality of the cancellation processor while maintaining good sidelobe interference protection. A meaningful measure of canceller performance is to compute the optimal output signal-to-noise ratio. This expression is a function of the jammer, direction-of-arrival vectors (DOAVs), jammer powers, the array steering vector, and internal noise. It is shown that if this expression is computed for the fully adaptive array then it is easily computed for the partially adaptive array by transforming the jammer DOAVs and the steering vector by the orthogonal projection matrix defined by the rows of the subarray transformation matrix and substituting these vectors back into the original expression for the fully adaptive array     

Clutter and jammer multipath cancellation in airborne adaptiveradar

Airborne surveillance radars must detect and localize targets in diverse interference environments consisting of ground clutter, conventional jamming, and terrain scattered jammer multipath. Multidimensional adaptive filtering techniques have been proposed to adaptively cancel this interference. However, a detailed analysis that includes the effects of multipath nonstationarity has been elusive. This work addresses the nonstationary nature of the jammer multipath and its impact on clutter cancellation and target localization. It is shown that the weight updating needed to track this interference will also modulate sidelobe signals. At the very least, this complicates the localization of targets. At the worst, it also greatly complicates the rejection of clutter. Several techniques for improving cancellation of jammer multipath and clutter are proposed, including 1) weight vector interpolation, extrapolation, and updating; 2) filter architecture, constraint, and beamspace selection; 3) prefilters; 4) 3-D STAP architectures; and 5) multidimensional sidelobe target editing     

Application of Adaptive Arrays to Suppress Strong Jammers in the Presence of Weak Signals

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that an adaptive array can be used to acquire weak signals, whose direction and timing are unknown, in an environment of stronger jammers. Specifically, it is shown that in an environment of one weak signal and one strong jammer, the adaptive array output suppresses the strong jammer below the weak signal by roughly the same amount that the jammer exceeded the signal before adaptation.     

Multipath Limitations on Low-Angle Radar Tracking

This paper investigates the problem of tracking targets at a low elevation angle in the presence of specular and diffuse multipath. Quantitative estimates are derived of the elevation angles, and hence, range, at which targets of specified height can be accurately tracked. A parametric approach is followed in which the long-standing uncertainty of how terrain forward-scatters at low grazing angles is recognized at the outset. Particular attention is given to the effects of target motion which permit rejection of multipath components falling outside the radar tracker's passband. The results are presented in a form which can be readily applied to a spectrum of radar trackers with differing requirements. The limited experimental ental data on the specular and diffuse scattering parameters for several generic types of terrain are applied to estimate the significance of multipath under different situations and to indicate specific areas in which additional experimental data are critically needed.     

Multipath-adaptive GPS/INS receiver

Multipath interference is one of the contributing sources of errors in precise global positioning system (GPS) position determination. This paper identifies key parameters of a multipath signal, focusing on estimating them accurately in order to mitigate multipath effects. Multiple model adaptive estimation (MMAE) techniques are applied to an inertial navigation system (INS)-coupled GPS receiver, based on a federated (distributed) Kalman filter design, to estimate the desired multipath parameters. The system configuration is one in which a GPS receiver and an INS are integrated together at the level of the in-phase and quadrature phase (I and Q) signals, rather than at the level of pseudo-range signals or navigation solutions. The system model of the MMAE is presented and the elemental Kalman filter design is examined. Different parameter search spaces are examined for accurate multipath parameter identification. The resulting GPS/INS receiver designs are validated through computer simulation of a user receiving signals from GPS satellites with multipath signal interference present The designed adaptive receiver provides pseudo-range estimates that are corrected for the effects of multipath interference, resulting in an integrated system that performs well with or without multipath interference present.     

An LMS Adaptive Array for Multipath Fading Reduction

Multipath fading often poses a serious hindrance in radiocommunication. The application of a least-mean-square (LMS)adaptive array to the problem of multipath fading reduction is discussed. However, it is known that multipath components are in general correlated with one another. We examine the effect of the correlation on the performance of the LMS adaptive array. When the correlation coefficient does not equal or approximate 1, the LMS adaptive array suppresses the multipath signals significantly by nulling. On the other hand, when the correlation coefficient nearly equals 1, the LMS adaptive array prevents the output signalpower from decreasing. Therefore, the LMS adaptive array mayreduce the multipath fading effectively for any correlation coefficient value. A reference signal in the LMS adaptive array is also discussed. It is shown that synchronization in the referencesignal generation must be extremely accurate. Moreover, aprocessor configuration is proposed which may generate thereference signal with the required accuracy.     

Evaluation and reduction of multipath-induced bias on GPS time-of-arrival

New expressions are presented for the multipath-induced pseudorange error (i.e. bias) and variance introduced by multipath onto the time-of-arrival estimate obtained using a noncoherent early-late gate discriminator. The results include the effect of front-end bandwidth and early-late gate spacing. We also investigate a blind method for cancelling the multipath, in order to improve the time-of-arrival estimate. Our approach uses early-late gate processing on an objective function derived from an adaptive finite impulse response (FIR) filter that attempts to match the crosscorrelation of the received signal with a multipath-free replica of the desired crosscorrelation. This method performs reasonably well, and decreases the multipath-induced pseudorange error by approximately a factor of 2, even in very stressing multipath environments.     

Results from a Four-Element Adaptive Antenna Experiment

Experimental results from a four-element, linear, half-wavelength spacing, adaptive-array antenna under the control of the least mean square (LMS) algorithm are presented. The array is found to be capable of nulling a 70-MHz signal to -35 dB below a desired signal over a 5-MHz bandwidth. The antenna processing gain is constant over a desired signal-to-jammer signal power ratio range from -20 dB to 5 dB. A sharp reduction in processing gain is observed for angular separations between jammer and desired signal of less than 10°. Antenna patterns taken with weights set in 300 iterations of the LMS algorithm show that the one strong, one weak jammer combination has a longer weight convergence time and reduced processing gain compared with a two strong jammers combination. Contours of constant desired signal-to-jammer signal power ratio, after adaptive antenna processing, reveal a complex shape for communication between air and ground due to the finite angular resolution of the adaptive antenna.     

Prediction of Adaptive Array Performance

A direct relationship between the conventional properties of an array and the array performance in an adaptive mode is given. Expressions are provided to obtain the output signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) of an adaptive array in terms of its conventinal pattern and the locations of the desired signal and jammers. These expressions permit one to evaluate the performance of an adaptive array without an exhaustive search for all possible scenarios and parametric values to ascertain that the required performance levels be met. In fact, one can predict the jammer locations for which the array will provide its best and worst performance by observing the conventional pattern. Several examples are provided to demonstrate the relationship between the conventional pattern and the adaptive array performance. The examples include both linear and planar arrays.     

Multipath Tracking Errors in Elevation-Scanning and Monopulse Radars

The tracking performance of elevation- scanning and monopulse radars in the presence of multipath propagation are compared. The key difference between these two generic types of radars is the way they respond to moving targets. There are no significant differences between their responses to pure specular multipath, nor to diffuse multipath for targets on radial courses. However, they are found to respond quite differently to the diffuse com ponent for low-altitude crossing targets. For these conditions the tracking errors for elevation-scanning radars may be several times those for monopulse radars.     

Efficient wideband jammer ing when using stretch processing

Techniques are described for performing adaptive jammer ing over extremely wide bandwidths on radar systems which use linear frequency modulated (LFM) waveforms and stretch processing. It is assumed that the range uncertainty of the target is a small percentage of the equivalent range extent of the uncompressed pulse. The assumption allows the cancellation to take place following stretch processing in either the time domain using a narrowband sliding filter that keeps up with the chirp fate or in the frequency domain. The new approach supports ing performance over gigahertz of bandwidth comparable to that previously achieved over a few megahertz using approximately the same number of spatial degrees of freedom.     

Multipath Channel Model for Over-Water Aeronautical Telemetry

A multipath propagation model for aeronautical telemetry over water at 8.0 GHz is presented. Data recorded during channel sounding experiments, conducted over the Pacific Ocean near Point Mugu, CA was used to model the multipath propagation. The modeling results show that a three-ray model consisting of line-of-sight propagation and two reflected propagation paths is a good fit for the measured channel frequency responses. One of the reflected propagation paths is a strong specular reflection determined by the geometry defined by the airborne transmitter, the ground-based receiver, and the sea surface. For the flight profiles used, the delay of this path is between 10 and 50 ns. The other propagation path is a more diffuse, random reflection whose amplitude is significantly smaller than the amplitude of the specular reflection and whose mean excess delay is 57 ns with an rms delay spread of 25 ns.     

On Optimizing Array Reception of Multipath

This paper reviews system configuration requirements and analyzes detectability performance characteristics for maximum likelihood array reception of multipath. Performance is analyzed to determine the effects of channel multipath structure (multipath delay and signal power division among the paths), space-time correlation properties of the incident processes, and the array spacing. It is shown by a series of case studies, that for single element coupling, as well as array coupling, an increased multipath delay factor results in decreased system detectability for fixed signal and noise intensity levels. The performance capacity is degraded as the available signal power tends to distribute more uniformly between the paths. These effects are attributed to the loss of effective signal energy concentration, resulting in a lower effective pre-detection signal-to-noise ratio. An investigation of the effects upon system performance, due to array element spacing, shows that performance is enhanced by increasing the spacing relative to the multipath delay factor and the reciprocal signal bandwidth. The former is the result of a more directive detectability (beam) pattern arising from the increased spacing. In effect, with increased spacing, the main lobe of the pattern is narrowed, while the side lobes are optimally suppressed by the required noise related array element link, frequency filters (weights).     

Adaptive processing at the subarray level

This paper describes a class of partially adaptive arrays with adaptive processing applied to the outputs of steered subarrays. The problem is to detect a signal or estimate its direction of arrival in the presence of jammers. The advantage of applying adaptive processing to subarrays is that it requires much less CPU time than the corresponding fully adaptive processing. The subarray processing equations for the two kinds of problem are described. In this paper, we compare partially adaptive processing performance with fully adaptive processing performance in the case of the following antenna and signal sources:

• •- array with regularly spaced sensors ;
• •- between 20 and 100 elements ;
• •- between 3 and 20 subarrays ;
• •- a single jammer ;
• •- desired signal from the antenna zenith.

We suggest a method for determining the optimal subarray configurations in this case. An example is given to show that the performance of an antenna with five subarrays is comparable to that of a fully adaptive thirty-element array for eliminating a single jammer with a target at the zenith.     

2-D spatial smoothing for multipath coherent signal separation

The use of two-dimensional spatial smoothing (SS) to increase channel capacity of wireless communications system is discussed, The necessary and sufficient conditions on array configuration for applying SS to multiple signal classification (MUSIC), and adaptive beamforming algorithms are defined and proved, This array must have an orientational invariance structure with an ambiguity free center array, and the number of subarrays must be larger than or equal to the size of the largest group of coherent signals. We also studied the cause of ambiguities in a multipath environment. We found the necessary and sufficient conditions for a three-sensor array manifold to be ambiguity free and identified several higher order ambiguity situations, If an array is also central symmetric, the forward/backward SS (FBSS) can be used to improve the resolution. Finally, we extended our results to the estimation of signal parameters via rotational invariance techniques (ESPRIT). All the predicted results are verified by simulations     

GPS多径信号的自适应滤波估计方法

 研究全球定位系统(GPS)多径信号估计的问题。通过分析自适应滤波器的原理,建立了数字中频信号处理的数学模型,提出一种用自适应滤波实现GPS多径幅度、码相位和载波相位估计的方法。该方法采用不同延迟的伪随机序列对信号进行解扩、解调和累加,得到了作为期望信号的系列自适应滤波相关值。对该方法与其他3种方法进行了理论上的分析比较,得出本方法具有信噪比高、自适应滤波性能好、带有码相位信息和不存在载波模糊度问题等优点。根据各种滤波器算法的特点和本应用的需求,给出了选用递归最小二乘算法实现的方法。通过计算机仿真,验证了提出的方法能够在14 dB的信噪比下,以1个采样间隔的时间延迟分辨率和0.005周的载波相位估计精度估计出GPS L1的多径信号。     

Bias compensation and tracking with monopulse radars in the presence of multi path

The problem of tracking targets in the presence of reflections from sea or ground is addressed. Both types of reflections (specular and diffuse) are considered. Specular reflection causes large peak errors followed by an approximately constant bias in the monopulse ratio, while diffuse reflection has random variations which on the average generate a bias in the monopulse ratio. Expressions for the average error (bias) in the monopulse ratio due to specular and diffuse reflections and the corresponding variance in the presence of noise in the radar channels are derived. A maximum maneuver-based filter and a multiple model estimator are used for tracking. Simulation results for five scenarios, typical of sea skimmers, with Swerling III fluctuating radar cross sections (RCSs) indicate the significance and efficiency of the technique developed in this paper-a 65% reduction of the rms error in the target height estimate.     

Wideband cancellation of interference in a GPS receive array

We have demonstrated that by using an adaptive space-time array the interference from multiple, strong interferers plus multipath can be canceled down close to the noise floor without producing serious loss or distortion of a GPS signal. Design criteria are presented and limitations are examined. We also compare space-time processing with suboptimum space-frequency processing, and demonstrate by simulation that for equal computational complexity space-time processing slightly outperforms suboptimum space-frequency processing     

Beamspace ML bearing estimation incorporating low-angle geometry

A problem in low-angle radar tracking, namely, bearing estimation in the presence of a strong specular multipath component that arrives within the beamwidth of the direct path signal, is studied. Three-dimensional beamspace domain maximum likelihood (3D-BDML) is a computationally simple ML bearing estimation algorithm applicable in this scenario which operates in a 3-D beamspace. A variation of 3D-BDML incorporating the multipath geometry as a priori information is presented. In symmetric 3D-BDML the pointing angle of the center beam is equal to the bisector angle between the direct path ray and the image ray, which may be estimated a priori given only the radar height and the target range. The effect of the inclusion of a priori information on the performance of 3D-BDML is analyzed in terms of the dependence on the relative phase difference between the direct and specular path signals, the sensitivity to error in the bisector angle estimate, and the results of operation when no specular multipath component is present in the data. In addition, computationally simple schemes for coherently incorporating multifrequency data into 3D-BDML are investigated