E&F White conference on Radio Frequency Interference Mitigation Strategies

Abstract

The conference brought together expertise on a range of interference mitigation techniques from CSIRO, Australian and international industry and universities. Key goals were to: enhance the understanding of techniques and their inter-relationship, increase awareness of advanced technologies such as software radios and photonics, and foster a cooperative approach to the development of interference mitigation techniques. The foremost application in mind was the square kilometre array (SKA) and the need to find ways to develop an hierarchical scheme for removing unwanted signals from astronomical data. This paper gives an overview of the topics discussed at the conference and summarises some of the key ideas and results that were presented. Many of the interference challenges we face can be overcome with technical solutions. There will always be a place for regulatory and legal approaches to spectrum management, but too much reliance has been placed on these in the past. The strategy of avoidance has worked well in the past and will continue to be useful in the future, but is now limited by the growth of space based communications systems, which are visible everywhere on Earth. There is no technical solution which is likely to provide a silver bullet. Rather a hierarchical approach will be required, combining a range of techniques. We have just begun exploring technical solutions and their toxicity to astronomical data. We need to continue on this path, determining which techniques are best and how they interact in order to develop a flexible and powerful system for interference suppression.