Research Summaries

Back Cognitive and Agile Radio

Fiscal Year 2021
Division Graduate School of Operational & Information Sciences
Department Information Sciences
Investigator(s) Zhao, Ying
Sponsor Office of Naval Research (Navy)
Summary High frequency (HF) is being re-invented in terms of its survivability and robustness across the DoD services as they envision a great power competition and evaluate the survivability of satellite systems in a stressed RF environment. Maneuverability via redundant command and control is key and an agile radio using artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) could provide the agility and robustness needed across the HF spectrum with its unique characteristics.
Specifically, the weakness of an automatic link establishment (ALE) systems [1] is that they only transmit on frequencies within a lookup table. If those frequencies are in use or jammed the ALE system will not connect. A solution is an ALE protocol that can scan the spectrum to find the best spectrum given environmental conditions. An environmental condition can be data collected from a radio receiver in a specific location (e.g., a ship sailing in a mission location). The data might include information such as which frequencies are used, the patterns for when and how the frequencies are used, weather and terrain conditions for the location, and adversary activities such as jamming. Software defined radios (SDR) combined with recent machine learning and AI algorithms make it possible to define and adapt usable radio frequencies based on environmental inputs. To meet the need, the objective of this proposal is to demonstrate an SDR system leveraging ML/AI algorithms such as predictive models, cognitive architecture, optimization algorithms, and game theory. For example, HF communications via the Ionosphere between 3-30 MHz is a dynamic part of the spectrum where ALE radios already exist. They use lookup tables and do not "see" the spectrum and cannot make choices base on the actual environment. The HF spectrum is the most challenging environment and could be the first users to adopt the concept. If successful, this solution has direct application to our line of effort to improve HF communication in a SATCOM denied environment.
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Publications Publications, theses (not shown) and data repositories will be added to the portal record when information is available in FAIRS and brought back to the portal
Data Publications, theses (not shown) and data repositories will be added to the portal record when information is available in FAIRS and brought back to the portal