On-board the Satellite Interference Detection with Imperfect Signal Cancellation

Interference issues have been identified as a threat for satellite communication systems and services, resulting in throughput degradation and revenue loss to the satellite operators. In this context, an on-board spectrum monitoring unit (SMU) can be used to detect interference reliably. Current satellite SMUs are deployed on the ground and the introduction of an in-orbit SMU can bring several benefits, e.g. simplifying the ground based station in multibeam systems. This paper proposes a two-step algorithm for on-board interference detection, exploiting the frame structure of DVB-S2X standard, which employs pilot symbols for data transmission. Assuming that the pilot signal is known at the receiver, it can be removed from the total received signal. Then, an Energy Detection (ED) technique can be applied on the remaining signal in order to decide the presence or absence of interference. The simulation results show that the proposed technique outperforms the conventional ED in low interference-to-signal and noise ratios (ISNRs).