ROAD value-based detection for GAE enhanced interference mitigation in LDACS

The increasing volume of air traffic has placed significant stress on the current Air Traffic Management (ATM) systems, especially concerning the use of Very High Frequency (VHF) communication bands. As air traffic continues to grow, the limitations of the existing spectrum and infrastructure necessitate significant upgrades to ensure safety, efficiency, and capacity. The modernization of air traffic management systems has led to the development and introduction of the L-band Digital Aeronautical Communication System (LDACS), a new communication protocol. LDACS is designed to operate alongside existing L-band systems, ensuring compatibility with legacy users. The coexistence of LDACS with legacy systems poses significant interference challenges, as any disruption in data retrieval can critically impact flight safety. This paper proposes four potential interference mitigation techniques that LDACS can employ to detect and reduce the primary source of interference: Distance Measuring Equipment (DME). The authors introduce a prototype LDACS receiver that uses Rank-Ordered Absolute Differences (ROAD) statistics for effective interference sensing and employs GAE-enhanced pulse peak processors to mitigate Distance Measuring Equipment (DME) interference. Unlike the current GAE-enhanced pulse peak processors, the proposed methods use ROAD value-based detection for identifying DME interference. The performance of the proposed methods - ROAD GAE enhanced Pulse Peak Attenuator (RGPPA), ROAD GAE enhanced Pulse Peak Limiter (RGPPL), ROAD joint GAE enhanced Pulse Peak Attenuator (RJGPPA), and ROAD joint GAE enhanced Pulse Peak Limiter (RJGPPL) is analyzed across different threshold ROAD values to determine their efficacy in various signal conditions. Moreover, the performance of the proposed methods is compared to existing methods such as conventional pulse blanking and GAE-enhanced nonlinear devices, which use the amplitude of the received signal for the detection of interference. Furthermore, the proposed method's performance is compared to another method, ROAD PB, which uses ROAD statistics to detect DME interference and pulse blanking for DME mitigation. The comparative results show that the proposed methods outperformed conventional pulse blanking and ROADPB. Besides, these methods outperformed existing GAE-enhanced methods for their optimum threshold ROAD value.