Institute for Telecommunication Sciences / Research / Interference Modeling and Analysis / IMA
Interference Modeling and Analysis
The National Spectrum Strategy, released in November 2023, highlights the extent to which wireless services have become essential for citizens, businesses, and governments at every level rely upon wireless services. All spectrum demands are important, and every service must be protected from harmful radio frequency interference to ensure a high level of service availability and to best serve the public interest.
Spectrum sharing proposals look to emerging technologies to enable interference-free sharing between commercial wireless broadband and incumbent federal users. Smart wireless devices have such a rapid development cycle that it is feasible to imagine that by the time sharing has been codified, commercial devices entering a particular bandwidth will have the technology required to share gracefully with incumbents.
However, many Federal incumbent devices that operate in the most desirable spectrum bands (like radar and satellite systems) have a refresh cycle of 50 years or more and are either difficult or impossible to update with new technologies due to their complexity or location. New proposals for spectrum sharing or repurposing describe conditions intended to ensure that there is no harmful interference to existing critical federal and nonfederal uses of the spectrum.
While opening bands to shared use is the fastest way to accommodate more users, it is critical that safety-of-life systems used by the Federal Aviation Administration, the U.S. Coast Guard, the National Weather Service, and similar agencies be fully protected. At the same time, entrants into bands where such devices operate must be able to devise technology that can reliably operate around these systems in order to be able to fully exploit the bandwidth that is being made available to them.
Effective spectrum sharing and spectrum reallocation can only be accomplished if both legacy and new services operating in the same or adjacent bands can be protected from interference so they can fulfill their missions. First, the interference potential must be understood and quantified. Then mitigation methods can be devised, tested, and standardized.
ITS is a recognized leader in radio frequency measurements, analyses, and simulations for interference prevention, diagnosis, and mitigation. Particular areas of expertise range from accurate measurement and characterization of emissions from transmitters of all kinds to complex simulation and modeling of proposed communications scenarios. From root cause analysis that traces experienced interference to its source, to developing complex mathematical models capable of driving multi-parameter simulations to prevent interference in systems under development, other Government agencies and private sector entities look to ITS for assistance to make sharing work.
ITS performs interference modeling and Analysis for other Government agencies via Interagency Agreements (IA) and for private entities via Cooperative Research and Development Agreements (CRADAs). These agreements provide benefits for both the Government and the private-sector partners. In addition to performing measurements and analyses on request, ITS engineers transfer knowledge to other agencies and the private sector through training in spectrum measurement, analysis, and modeling techniques developed over more than half a century of research.