Weak Interference Detection with Signal Cancellation in Satellite Communications

Interference is identified as a critical issue for satellite communication (SATCOM) systems and services. There is a growing concern in the satellite industry to manage and mitigate interference efficiently. While there are efficient techniques to monitor strong interference in SATCOM, weak interference is not so easily detected because of its low interference to signal and noise ratio (ISNR). To address this issue, this paper proposes and develops a technique which takes place on-board the satellite by decoding the desired signal, removing it from the total received signal and applying an Energy Detector (ED) in the remaining signal for the detection of interference. Different from the existing literature, this paper considers imperfect signal cancellation, examining how the decoding errors affect the sensing performance, derives the expressions for the probability of false alarm and provides a set of simulations results, verifying the efficiency of the technique