An RFML Ecosystem: Considerations for the Application of Deep Learning to Spectrum Situational Awareness

While deep learning (DL) technologies are now pervasive in state-of-the-art Computer Vision (CV) and Natural Language Processing (NLP) applications, only in recent years have these technologies started to sufficiently mature in applications related to wireless communications, a field loosely termed Radio Frequency Machine Learning (RFML). In particular, recent research has shown DL to be an enabling technology for Cognitive Radio (CR) applications as well as a useful tool for supplementing expertly defined algorithms for spectrum awareness applications such as signal detection, estimation, and classification. A major driver for the usage of RFML is that little, to no,
a priori
knowledge of the intended spectral environment is required, given that there is an abundance of representative raw Radio Frequency (RF) data to facilitate training and evaluation. However, in addition to this fundamental need for sufficient data, there are other key considerations, such as trust, security, and hardware requirements, that must be taken into account before deploying RFML systems in real-world wireless communication applications that largely go unaddressed in the current literature. This paper examines the prior works related to these major research considerations, with focus on the dependencies between them and factors unique to the RFML space.