ROAD Statistics-Based Noise Detection for DME Mitigation in LDACS

Abstract

Interference mitigation in L-band Digital Aeronautic Communication Systems (LDACS) from legacy users is extremely important as any error in data retrieval of aeronautic communication can adversely affect flight safety. This paper proposes an LDACS receiver prototype which uses rank-ordered absolute differences (ROAD) statistics to detect the distance measuring equipment (DME) interference. The detected DME interference is reduced in the next stage by pulse blanking. The performance of the proposed ROAD pulse blanking method (ROAD PB) is compared with the existing interference mitigation methods which use the amplitude of the received signal for the detection of DME interference. In depth analysis of the obtained results affirms that the proposed ROAD value-based interference detection excels amplitude-based detection. For an SNR value of 0 dB, the proposed method of detection could achieve a 3% increase in terms of accuracy with a reduction of 4% in false alarms. With the advantage of ROAD statistics detection, the proposed ROAD PB could achieve an SNR saving of 2.7, 1.1, 0.7, 0.25 and 0.2 dBs at BER 10−1 in comparison with pulse blanking, Genie-aided estimation enhanced pulse peak attenuator (GAEPPA), GAE enhanced pulse peak limiter (GAEPPL), optimum Bayesien estimator enhanced pulse peak attenuator (OBEPPA) and OBE enhanced pulse peak limiter (OBEPPL). The comparative results show that the proposed ROAD pulse blanking outperformed the other techniques for the optimum threshold value of the operation.