Entropy-based spectral processing on the IEEE 802.11a OFDM waveform

  • Authors:
  • Christopher R. Rehm;Michael A. Temple;Richard A. Raines;Robert F. Mills

  • Affiliations:
  • Sensors Directorate Air Force Research Laboratory, Wright-Patterson AFB, OH;Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Air Force Institute of Technology, Wright-Patterson AFB, OH;Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Air Force Institute of Technology, Wright-Patterson AFB, OH;Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Air Force Institute of Technology, Wright-Patterson AFB, OH

  • Venue:
  • MILCOM'06 Proceedings of the 2006 IEEE conference on Military communications
  • Year:
  • 2006

Quantified Score

Hi-index 0.00

Visualization

Abstract

The problem of non-matched filter signal detection, identification and/or characterization is of significant interest to military planners who require increased situational awareness of Radio Frequency (RF) systems operating in a given area. Situational awareness can also provide a management tool for interference avoidance by allowing the integration of new RF-based devices without affecting the performance of existing ones. This research introduces an entropy-based spectral processing technique for passively identifying and characterizing communication signals. The proposed technique is based on well-established concepts of sequence entropy or concentration occurring within a specified transformation space of the signal of interest. As demonstrated here, performance of the entropy-based spectral processing technique is dictated by input variables which partition the signal interest, transform the partitioned signal to the spectral domain, and calculate an entropy-based metric for each transformed partition. The process produces a Spectral-Entropy response for the signal of interest. A proof-of-concept demonstration was conducted by applying the proposed technique to both a simulated and an experimentally collected IEEE 802.11a OFDM waveform. Features which emerge within the Spectral-Entropy response are visually correlated with known deterministic and random components of the 802.11a waveform at different Signal-to-Noise Ratios (SNR). These components are readily identifiable through their comparatively low Spectral-Entropy response (high concentration) at SNR's approaching -5.0 dB.