Photonic signal cancellation for co-site interference mitigation

Co-site interference is becoming an increasingly significant problem in wireless communication systems as a result of antennas being forced to operate in close proximity with one another due to space limitations. Solutions to mitigate such effects are therefore crucial to enable reliable tactical communications. With the application of RF photonic links to antenna remoting evolving, there are compelling advantages in processing the RF signals optically. In this paper we propose a photonics-based approach for co-site interference mitigation, suitable for use in conjunction with fiber-optic antenna remoting architectures. We also report on the results of our proof-of-concept experiments using readily available COTS (commercial off the shelf) photonic and RF components in which we demonstrate greater than 40 dB suppression of a co-site interferer.