Common data link (CDL) interference model

The increasing use of airwaves for military communication and surveillance and commercial applications places burdens on spectrum use. This crowding of the spectrum presents two broad problem categories. The first is "cosite interference" where numerous transmitters and receivers are physically located in a small area and share a given portion of the spectrum. Under these conditions, a receiver can be "victim" to a co-located transmitter. The second category involves numerous transmitters (typically airborne) well separated from each other but communicating to receivers placed in a relatively small area. The common data link (CDL) refers to a standard protocol for military data delivery and communication. Surveillance platforms such as tactical unmanned aerial vehicles (TUAV), JSTARS, U2s, Global Hawks will stream high rate surveillance data (radar, visual and/or infrared imagery, etc) down to ground terminals. As such, bandwidths are wide (100s MHz) and the potential exists for ground receivers to be victim to signals from airborne transmitters other than its desired source. MITRE has developed a CDL interference model to assess potential problems in realistic tactical surveillance scenarios. This paper documents the physical basis of the CDL interference model.