IMPROVING INTERFERENCE IMMUNITY OF GROUND-TO-AIR RADIO LINKS BY ADAPTIVE ROUTE MODIFICATION OF A UAV RELAY BASED ON INTERFERENCE ENVIRONMENT ANALYSIS
Abstract
The relevance of the work is driven by the increasing intensity of electronic countermeasures in the tactical command echelon, where traditional relay communication methods with fixed routes fail to ensure the required interference immunity and signal security. The objective of this study is to develop a method for adaptive route control of a UAV relay based on continuous monitoring of the electromagnetic environment in order to improve interference immunity of ground-to-air radio links. The primary method employed is multi-criteria flight path optimization with adaptive weighting coefficients, simultaneously considering three criteria: minimization of interference levels at the relay operating frequencies, ensuring radio accessibility with network correspondents, and reduction of detection probability by enemy electronic warfare assets. To reconstruct the spatial interference pattern from a limited set of onboard measurements, several interpolation and extrapolation methods are examined: inverse distance weighting, radial basis function interpolation, and statistical extrapolation based on a spatial correlation function. A cyclic operational procedure for the adaptive routing system is developed, comprising data collection, construction of a three-dimensional interference map, prediction of its evolution, calculation of the optimal trajectory, and monitoring of the maneuver outcome. Simulation results show that the proposed method increases the signal-to-interference ratio by 1.5–2 dB on average and up to 8 dB in the worst-case scenario compared to fixed-route flight. The practical significance lies in the possibility of implementing the proposed method using existing UAV platforms and radio-electronic equipment without fundamentally new technical solutions.
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