DSN In-Band Continuous-Wave Radio Frequency Interference-Suppression Techniques

Radio frequency interference has been a potential threat to the operation of NASA’s Deep Space Network. Despite regulatory efforts to avoid potential sources of such interference, the increasing crowding of the S-band (2.3-GHz) and X-band (8.4-GHz) spectra inevitably limits the effectiveness of frequency management efforts. In this article, two interference-suppression schemes for in-band continuouswave interferences using either the time-domain adaptive filtering technique or the frequency-domain filtering technique are presented. The simulated performances based upon the tracking of a fully suppressed binary phase-shift keyed signal are compared, and trade-offs between them are discussed. The results show the timedomain approach to be the best method to mitigate the in-band continuous-wave type of radio frequency interference, while the frequency-domain approach potentially can deal with out-of-band interferences.