About Electronic Protection Measures (EPM) for an OFDM Wide Band Waveform

This contribution presents the results of an ongoing study evaluating civil wireless communication systems or Waveforms (WFs) for their potential use in military radios. It is a continuation of the work presented in [1, 2]. After having evaluated several civilian communication systems in [1], the WLAN IEEE 802.11n OFDM WF has been selected as the base WF for further investigation [2]. In addition, the originally included multiple access method has already been replaced by the better suited Unified Slot Assignment Protocol and the preamble coding and detection has been changed [2]. The focus of the present contribution is on potential Electronic Protection Measures for the new Wide Band Waveform (WBWF) to be designed. The studies will contribute to the international activities of standardizing IP and network capable WBWFs for military Software Defined Radios. After an overview on elementary aspects of Electronic Warfare, especially Electronic Protection in the communication area, some interesting WFs are mentioned which are already in military use or at least offered therefore. Afterwards, a number of possibilities for protecting WBWFs, particularly OFDM WFs, are collected and structured. The collection is based on the publicly available literature. In parallel, simulations for testing the susceptibility of an OFDM signal under jammer influences are carried out. Furthermore, first results for a swept jammer with tone and noise source signals are presented which exhibit the jammer influence and its mitigation by a new anti-jam demodulator.