Agilent RF Surveillance Solutions - Keysight€“ Adds antenna, receiver location, and direction to...

Agilent RF Surveillance Solutions

Presented by: Giuseppe Savoia

Today’s Surveillance Issue

Surveillance systems must be capable of measuring unknown or unfriendly transmissions and possibly extract the target information content.

Direction Finding (DF) and geolocation are usually associated with these types of systems as signal recovery and knowledge of the emitter location is desirable.

Surveillance of wireless signals is rapidly expanding in the areas of spectrum regulation, public safety, boarder and coastal security and military intelligence.

In the government and military areas, these transmissions are often characterized in a category called Signals Intelligence (SIGINT).

Who needs Signal Monitoring?

Typical Users:

International Defense Agencies

International Government End-users and Contractors

Military and Commercial Test Range and “Frequency Managers”

Prime Contractors involved in RF Range tests International

Worldwide Aerospace Service providers

Regulatory Agencies (similar to FCC in US)

Commercial Spectrum Monitoring

Commercial Manufacturers of Communications Systems

Measurement Needs

Make “off-the-air” measurements Hunt RF interference in a crowded spectrum Detecting small signals in a large band Ultimately need to “control” the RF airspace May need to “shut down” illegal transmitters May need to clear the test range of emitters before a test May need to get a “baseline” on the environment Need a complete solution for high performance RF survey

Investigating the RF Spectrum

RF Spectral Monitoring Challenge

Signals of interest are not in your control – Signals of interest can be at any frequency– They may be short duration – Signals of interest are intermittent– They may be low power

RF environment is not in your control– There may be thousands of irrelevant signals of varying

power, duration, and bandwidth

RF Spectral Monitoring Challenge

Maximize Probability of Intercept (POI)

POI - The probability that a search system will detect the presence of a signal of interest.

Advanced RF Spectral Monitoring Solution Signals of interest are not in your control

– Signals of interest can be at any frequency

– They may be short duration – Signals of interest are intermittent– They may be low power

RF environment is not in your control– There may be thousands of irrelevant

signals of varying power, duration, and bandwidth

Wide Bandwidth

High Speed SearchHigh Resolution

Signal Detection Tools

RF Spectral Monitoring – What You Need

• You need high speed RF search– Signals may come and go– Wide spectrum to search

Problem:Swept Spectrum

Analyzers only provide speed OR resolution

E3238S = Speed AND Resolution

AND• You need high resolution

– Signals may be near other signals– Signals may be near noise

Basic System Components

E2730B tuner (2.7 GHz) or

E2731B tuner (6.0 GHz)

E1439D ADC

E9821A Signal Processor

IEEE-1394 (Firewire) connects PC to

E8491B VXI Slot 0

Modular and ScaleableModular and Scaleable

System Architecture

Tuner Digitizer Spectrum computation Processing

Short tuner settling time allows fast

frequency steps.

Wide IF bandwidth (high sample rate) reduces the

number of steps.High dynamic range to

accurately digitize multiple signals.

High speed digital I/O to transfer the data at real-time rates.

Multiple Digital Signal Processors (DSP) working in

parallel to compute the spectrum.

Additional processing preserves the high resolution (maybe

500,000 points!), and finds signals of interest.

RF Sweep Speed vs. Resolution (E3238S)

0.01

0.1

1.

10.

100.

0.11.10.100.1,000.

Resolution (RBW kHz)

Swee

p Sp

eed

(GHz

/Sec

)

4 GHz/SecOr 250 mSec/GHz

E3238S isover 1000 times

faster!Example:1GHz Span2 kHz RBW

(500,000 points!) 5 Minutes

1 GHz

100 MHz

10 MHz

1MHz

Display and Measurement Resolution

What is a search and collection system?

Search

Rapid hunt for energy/signals

Sort for energy & signals of interest

Operator judgementAutomated software

algorithmsAutomated detectors

Monitor

Collect/exploit signals of interest

Handoff RxTape/disk recorderModulation analyzersLocate/trackDDC+DSP

Classify

E3238S Signal Detection Tools

High Resolution and High

Speed Spectrum

Energy History

Alarm Conditions

Energy Detection Threshold

Alarm TasksHandoff

Snapshot

Freq. List

…

Signal Detection Tools are needed to reduce the data to information – just the “signals of interest”

Requirements

The RF Spectrum

Detect new RF spectral energy

Is energy of interest?

Detect & demod/decode

signal

Is signal of

interest?

SOI Payload

Wideband search

Narrowband collection

Computational complexity

Universal Signal Detector

• Bandwidth• Frequencies, or frequency bands

• Shape of power spectrum• RBW• Averaging

• Modulation Recognition • Format, Symbol rate, bandwidth, deviation, …

• Automatic, simultaneous, gap-free recording of signal of interest (raw IQ, AM, or FM)

Exploits characteristics of an RF transmission that can be used to automatically identify signals of interest

Narrowband ConfirmerNarrowband Confirmer

Wideband DetectorWideband Detector

Universal SignalDetector

Bandwidth Filter,Frequency Plan

Wideband Detectors

Narrowband Confirmers

Recording or Streaming

Detectors employ both wide and narrowband technologies to maximize POI

Universal Signal Detection Flow

Automating the wideband search process

Does RF energy exceed spectral threshold?

Do energy features meet pre-defined alarm criteria?

Extract energy features and put in database

Execute pre-defined energy alarm tasks

yesno

yesno

Handoff receiver(s)

Audio alarm

Visual alarm

Is energy of interest?

Process is based on externalenergy info

•Center frequency

•Bandwidth

•+ others ( shape)

Pass C

F and span to narrow

band collection process

CF, BW, etc

Automating the narrowband collection process

Extract signal info and put in database

Detect, demod, and decode signal

Execute pre-defined signal alarm tasks

yesno

Audio alarm

Visual alarm

Is signal of interest?

Process is based on internalsignal info

•Mod type

•ASCII message

•Baud rate

Execute another narrow

band collection process

Does signal info meet pre-defined criteria?

Mod type, ASCII message, etc

Noise threshold

Environment threshold

Auto (noise-riding) threshold

Level threshold

Energy Detection Thresholds

Energy Detection

Others tools to detect /exploit (Universal Signal Detection and Multi-Channel Continuous Recording)

Not only detect signals based on their energy but Detect signals of interest based on their characteristics…

• Frequency• Bandwidth• Spectral shape• Modulation type• Symbol rate

… and record them for analysis(or stream them for in-line processing)

Narrowband Confirmation

HF ALECriteria

Confirm the Signal of Interest with narrowband modulation recognition

Modulation Types Confirmed

– 16 QAM– 32 QAM– 64 QAM– 128 QAM– 256 QAM– AM– AM DSBSC– LSB– USB– OOK (aka ASK)

– FM OOK– 4PAM (aka 4-level ASK)

– Manual Morse– Machine Morse

– FSK– 3-level FSK– 4-level FSK– 8-level FSK– Analog FM (includes multi-

level FSK not shown above)

– MSK (includes GMSK andOffset (aka Staggered) QPSK)

– FM MSK– BPSK– QPSK (includes DQPSK)

– /4 QPSK (incl. /4 DQPSK)

– 8 PSK– 16 PSK– V.29 Modem

– Pure Carrier– Noise– Unknown Digital

(reports symbol rate of other digital modulation formats)

Modulation Attributes

– Frequency– Bandwidth– SNR– Symbol Rate– Frequency Deviation

E3238S SQL Database

The E3238S system has an integrated SQLrelational database

– Relates Energy History and Signal Database

– Adds antenna, receiver location, and direction to Energy History

– Adds periodic updates of amplitude, location, and direction to Energy History

– Stores data from multiple instances of E3238S using one license

– Query DB directly with SQL or use E3238S commands through the command socket

– User selectable storage duration with automatic clean-up

– No additional cost– PostgreSQL

E3238S

E3238SE3238S

E3238S

PC

Handoff Receiver Drivers

WJ-8607WJ-8611WJ-8615PWJ-8621WJ-8629WJ-8629AWJ-8634WJ-8711WJ-8712AWJ-8712PWJ-8721WJ-8723WR-G303e

Aro AR5000ACubic VXI-3250Cubic VXI-3550Cubic VXI-3570Cubic R-2411/UCubic R-2412/UIcom IC-R20Icom IC-R8500Icom IC-PCR1000R&S EK-895Ten Tec RX-331

Drivers for other handoff receivers may be developed with Host User Programming (option ASD) or contact factory AE’s

E3238S Option WRP - Features

Delivers continuous, gap-free, full IF record/playback

Can be added to both HF and V/UHF E3238S Signal Detection and Monitoring Systems

Monitor the RF spectrum in a continuous loop recording mode

Record now, analyze later

Playback data into the E3238S DSP taking advantage of all detection and narrowband collection functions

Playback data at different rate to change POI vs. processing time tradeoff

Integration with TCI Wideband DF Processor

• Simultaneous DF on all detected signals• Configurations for Fixed-Site, Temporary,

and Mobile• V/UHF 20MHz – 3GHz frequency coverage• 20MHz instantaneous bandwidth• 3GHz per sec DF scan rate

Wideband Direction Finding (WDF)

High Speed integrated search, collection and wideband DF

Equivalent to thousands of simultaneous parallel narrowband DF systems

Allows search and collection processes to be qualified by direction-of-interest and LOB.

DF caching allows E3238S collection system to go back in time and precisely re-compute direction on short-duration signals of interest

Intuitive new displays show signal directions by azimuth, color, or tactical polar display

Integrated mapping facility plots emitter LOB on GeoTIFF maps

Industry standard KML output provides tactical DF overlays for popular geographic information system (GIS)

Supported DF systems:1. Now: Variety of Wideband DF subsystems from TCI International, Inc. provide

solutions for mobile, fixed-site and temporary site applications2. Other systems may be supported in future.

Seminar Summary

Off-the-air spectral monitoring presents challenges with unknown, non-collaborative, short-duration emitters

High speed AND high resolution are required for measurement of closely spaced, transient, and/or weak signals over a wide RF span

High-speed spectral survey creates enormous amounts of data that signal detection tools must reduce to information – just the “signals of interest”

Multiple simultaneous channels of data can be recorded in a narrowband mode

A commercially-available high-speed survey system from Agilent is optimized for wideband signal survey and narrowband collection

Questions

Demo of E3238S/N6820E

Agilent RF Surveillance Solutions - Keysight€“ Adds antenna, receiver location, and direction to...

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