A Subspace-Tracking Approach to Interference Nulling for Phased Array-Based Radio Telescopes

Several next-generation radio telescopes, now in the planning stages, are based on phased-array technology. One reason for this is to make use of adaptive nulling techniques to combat radio frequency interference, which is a growing problem for radio astronomy. This paper presents a low-complexity approach to interference nulling which is suitable for use in such systems. The approach uses subspace tracking to identify interference, followed by spatial projections to place deep nulls in the directions of interferers. This technique overcomes two limitations of power-minimization algorithms (e.g., “minimum variance”), namely power inversion and pattern rumble, which create serious problems for radio astronomy. Furthermore, this technique imposes a lower computational burden and provides side information which is useful in later stages of data processing. Performance results from a phased array demonstrator system and a simulation are presented.