Military Full-Duplex Radio Shield for Protection Against Adversary Receivers

This paper provides experimental results regarding an emerging physical-layer concept within the field of military communications, viz. the full-duplex 'radio shield', by building on the recently discovered full-duplex technology that allows an individual radio device to simultaneously transmit and receive (STAR) on the same spectrum. Its basic idea is to protect the surroundings of a radio device by broadcasting powerful jamming while successfully receiving tactical transmissions on overlapping frequencies. The jamming creates a protective dome of interference around such a military full-duplex radio (MFDR). The experimental results reported herein prove that the radio shield yields a large SINR advantage against interception, even though a fully practical full-duplex radio prototype with residual self-interference is used. Moreover, we show that the prototype radio shield is capable of preventing the control of improvised explosives or rogue drones while simultaneously receiving tactical signals. Therefore,the full-duplex radio shield can give armed forces a significant technical lead over an enemy by preventing it from using the frequency band for offensive purposes.Peer reviewe