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DME/TACAN interference mitigation for GNSS: algorithms and flight test results

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Abstract

The Galileo E5a/E5b signals and the Global Positioning System (GPS) L5 signal lie within the aeronautical radionavigation services (ARNS) band. They suffer interference from the services in this frequency band, in particular, pulsed signals from distance measuring equipment (DME) and tactical air navigation (TACAN) systems. To maintain system accuracy and integrity, interference mitigation is beneficial and necessary. We first present the real DME/TACAN environment at Stanford, CA as an example to illustrate the need for mitigating DME/TACAN interference. We then propose a time and frequency joint mitigation algorithm—Hybrid Blanking and its simplified version, frequency domain adaptive filtering (FDAF) for hardware implementation. Finally, a flight measurements campaign was performed over a European DME/TACAN hotspot near Frankfurt, Germany, to record a worst-case DME interference environment. Recorded data from the flight tests mixed with injected GNSS signals verify the effectiveness of the proposed mitigation algorithm.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported in part by the US Federal Aviation Administration under Grant—G-007 and by the European Commission.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Aerospace Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana-Champaign, IL, USA

    Grace Xingxin Gao

  2. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana-Champaign, IL, USA

    Grace Xingxin Gao & Liang Heng

  3. Institute of Communications and Navigation, German Aerospace Center (DLR), Cologne, Germany

    Achim Hornbostel

  4. Galileo Control Centre, Wessling, Germany

    Holmer Denks

  5. Department of Navigation of the German Aerospace Center (DLR), Institute for Communications and Navigation, Cologne, Germany

    Michael Meurer

  6. Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA

    Todd Walter & Per Enge

Authors
  1. Grace Xingxin Gao
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  2. Liang Heng
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  3. Achim Hornbostel
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  4. Holmer Denks
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  5. Michael Meurer
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  6. Todd Walter
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  7. Per Enge
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Correspondence to Grace Xingxin Gao.

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Gao, G.X., Heng, L., Hornbostel, A. et al. DME/TACAN interference mitigation for GNSS: algorithms and flight test results. GPS Solut 17, 561–573 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10291-012-0301-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10291-012-0301-9

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