{"title":"Characterising RFI for SKA phase 1","authors":"A. Otto, R. Millenaar, P. S. van der Merwe","doi":"10.1109/RFINT.2016.7833536","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/RFINT.2016.7833536","url":null,"abstract":"The radio frequency environment in which the SKA Phase 1 telescopes should operate is characterised at locations within the proposed spiral arm layout. The total integrated power level of the radio frequency interference at the various locations is determined.","PeriodicalId":298772,"journal":{"name":"2016 Radio Frequency Interference (RFI)","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133898947","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Automated tuning of RFI identification and flagging algorithms","authors":"Bruno Martins, U. Rau","doi":"10.1109/RFINT.2016.7833532","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/RFINT.2016.7833532","url":null,"abstract":"It is known that Radio Frequency Interference affects a significant fraction of data from radio telescopes. These bad data must be carefully identified and eliminated before further processing. Current approaches require manual labor for tuning the parameters of auto flag algorithms or even marking individual regions of the data on a visual display. This paper presents a technique that can help automate the process of tuning auto flag parameters using an approach based on Artificial Intelligence, specifically on Evolutionary Computing. We describe a Genetic Algorithm that simulates the tuning of parameters throughout several generations, where no input is necessary and it produces a set of parameters that can be used in conjunction with the existing algorithms to flag the data. Experiment results demonstrate that we were able to successfully tune two auto flag algorithms for some low-frequency VLA (Very Large Array) datasets containing types of RFI that would otherwise have required manual tuning.","PeriodicalId":298772,"journal":{"name":"2016 Radio Frequency Interference (RFI)","volume":"73 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122786973","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Innovations in instrumentation for RFI monitoring","authors":"R. Millenaar, A. Otto","doi":"10.1109/RFINT.2016.7833533","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/RFINT.2016.7833533","url":null,"abstract":"Radio telescope sites, especially the two for the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) in South Africa and Western Australia, need to be radio quiet. Both man-made intentional transmissions (which we call radio frequency interference or RFI) and unintentional by-products, generated by electric and electronic equipment (referred to as electromagnetic interference or EMI), must be minimized in power and spectral occupancy as much as possible. Organization go to great lengths to create these conditions. In order to safeguard these conditions one must measure and monitor the interference environment, preferably with great sensitivity and over the same frequency band used by the telescope. We discuss the way monitoring was done in the past and provide an overview of a new project that has just started, to create an improved measuring platform. This platform is aimed to be state of the art, sensitive enough to track the interference environment relatively close to the low levels that the telescope has to deal with, and flexible to cater for the various use cases for deployment at or near the observatory.","PeriodicalId":298772,"journal":{"name":"2016 Radio Frequency Interference (RFI)","volume":"03 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129657626","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Yahia R. Ramadan, Yucheng Dai, H. Minn, F. Rodrigues
{"title":"Spectrum sharing between WiFi and radio astronomy","authors":"Yahia R. Ramadan, Yucheng Dai, H. Minn, F. Rodrigues","doi":"10.1109/RFINT.2016.7833538","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/RFINT.2016.7833538","url":null,"abstract":"The proliferation of wireless local area network also known as WiFi system has enabled easy wireless information access for consumers. However, it also causes radio frequency interference (RFI) to passive wireless systems such as radio astronomy systems (RAS), making almost impossible to get useful scientific observations around the WiFi bands. This paper proposes a new paradigm for the coexistence between WiFi and RAS. The proposed approach creates a coexistence access zone (CAZ) around the RAS site within which WiFi and RAS follow a pre-determined time-division spectrum access. Two modified WiFi medium access control (MAC) protocols are developed to embed the time-division coexistence access. Furthermore, traffic statistics based improved spectrum access is developed. Performance evaluation results show that at the cost of slight WiFi throughput reduction, RAS achieves substantial RFI-free spectrum access which were infeasible in the existing paradigm.","PeriodicalId":298772,"journal":{"name":"2016 Radio Frequency Interference (RFI)","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130806080","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Polar excision for radio frequency interference mitigation in radio astronomy","authors":"P. S. Wyckoff, G. Hellbourg","doi":"10.1109/RFINT.2016.7833547","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/RFINT.2016.7833547","url":null,"abstract":"As radio interference becomes pervasive, new methods might help to preserve reception of weak radio astronomical sources. When there is powerful interference that overlaps the desired weak signal in the frequency and time domains, spatial mitigation offers a potential solution. However, when the powerful interference and desired weak signal also exhibit similar — possibly identical — spatial signatures, existing interference mitigation methods deliver poor recovered signal-to-noise ratio. This paper explains a nonlinear technique that can outperform the orthogonal and oblique projection processors when the angle between the interference and desired signal spatial signatures is less than 45 degrees. Analytical and Monte Carlo simulation results demonstrate the performance benefits and limitations.","PeriodicalId":298772,"journal":{"name":"2016 Radio Frequency Interference (RFI)","volume":"110 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"117238794","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Terrestrial and space-based RFI observed by the GPM microwave imager (GMI) within NTIA semi-protected passive earth exploration bands at 10.65 and 18.7 GHz","authors":"D. Draper","doi":"10.1109/RFINT.2016.7833526","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/RFINT.2016.7833526","url":null,"abstract":"The Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Microwave Imager provides a valuable case study to evaluate levels and distribution of observable radio frequency interference (RFI) in semi-protected bands above 10 GHz from terrestrial and space-based sources. The GMI views the earth from a variety of different observation geometries and polarizations. The GMI detects significant earth-based RFI at 10.65 GHz over Europe, Middle East, Asia, and Mexico. In addition, 18.7 GHz channels GMI sense RFI reflected from the ocean, lakes, and frozen terrain in and around the continental United States originating from direct broadcast satellites. Over the first 2.5 years of GMI operations, the RFI levels have not significantly changed except over China, where 10 GHz RFI has significantly increased.","PeriodicalId":298772,"journal":{"name":"2016 Radio Frequency Interference (RFI)","volume":"2 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131661834","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A canonical interferencelet-based approach to RFI identification","authors":"Daniel J. Czech, A. Mishra, M. Inggs","doi":"10.1109/RFINT.2016.7833524","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/RFINT.2016.7833524","url":null,"abstract":"Radio frequency interference (RFI) is a significant concern for radio astronomy, even in radio-quiet reserves. Whereas frequency-based algorithms are well suited for detecting and classifying intentional RFI (like communication links), the identification of unintentional RFI events (like those from devices such as relays or electric motors) is far more difficult. In this work we describe a novel way of dealing with time-domain unintentional RFI events. We show that irrespective of their sources, the time-domain RFI signals seem to consist of sub-impulses. These sub-impulses are akin to a canonical set of signals which we have named Canonical Interferencelets. We establish this hypothesis through a range of experiments. This method of analysing RFI signals is deemed very useful in the detection and identification of RFI events.","PeriodicalId":298772,"journal":{"name":"2016 Radio Frequency Interference (RFI)","volume":"23 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114328432","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Identifying radio frequency interference with hidden Markov models","authors":"Daniel J. Czech, A. Mishra, M. Inggs","doi":"10.1109/RFINT.2016.7833525","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/RFINT.2016.7833525","url":null,"abstract":"Radio frequency interference (RFI) is a significant concern for radio astronomy. Identifying unintentional RFI signals (for example, from equipment operating in the vicinity of radio telescopes) is a challenging topic due to the highly non-ergodic nature of such signals. Another non-ergodic signal type which has been very well researched is human speech, for which hidden Markov model-based approaches have led to some of the best performing classification algorithms. Inspired by this, in this work, we propose the use of HMMs to identify transient RFI events. We train HMMs to distinguish between the sources of several different types of RFI in a previously recorded dataset. We demonstrate that basic HMMs can be used to classify different RFI events according to their sources in the time-domain, providing useful levels of accuracy.","PeriodicalId":298772,"journal":{"name":"2016 Radio Frequency Interference (RFI)","volume":"11 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116234146","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
B. Indermuehle, L. Harvey-Smith, Carol D. Wilson, K. Chow
{"title":"The ASKAP RFI environment as seen through BETA","authors":"B. Indermuehle, L. Harvey-Smith, Carol D. Wilson, K. Chow","doi":"10.1109/RFINT.2016.7833529","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/RFINT.2016.7833529","url":null,"abstract":"We present the results of a radio frequency interference (RFI) study conducted using the Boolardy Engineering Testing Array (BETA) phased array feeds (PAFs) built for the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) and located at the same site as the Australian component of the Square Kilometre Array (SKA). We first provide a brief overview of the radio quiet zone (RQZ) set up around the Murchison Radio Observatory (MRO), followed by a summary of the RFI signals found, some of which originating from well below the radio horizon and propagated via tropospheric ducting. We conclude with an outlook of work to be done in the next step to remain fully RFI aware, enabling us to extract the best possible science through application of RFI mitigation techniques as well as RQZ compliance and environment monitoring using an array of dedicated receiver systems.","PeriodicalId":298772,"journal":{"name":"2016 Radio Frequency Interference (RFI)","volume":"112 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121666573","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A sustainable petroleum practice around the SKA protected areas","authors":"Serge K. Tshibangu","doi":"10.1109/RFINT.2016.7833546","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/RFINT.2016.7833546","url":null,"abstract":"Three thousands advanced radio telescopes are currently being built and/or converted in eight African partner countries, which will ultimately host the SKA telescope stations under an international enterprise to build the largest and most sensitive radio telescope in the world. To ensure that the geographic areas that are suitable for Astronomy and related scientific activities are protected and preserved, different Astronomy Advantages Areas (AAAs) with definitions and management regulations are being identified, and in some cases, established such as in South Africa. While still providing protection for radio astronomy, there is a need to facilitate the continued development and viability of oil and gas activities in these areas. AAAs for the SKA African partner countries are presented briefly in this paper.","PeriodicalId":298772,"journal":{"name":"2016 Radio Frequency Interference (RFI)","volume":"30 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122661176","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}