The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is making plans to ask its top advisors on signal interference to assist with mapping out allowable power limits for applications utilizing frequencies close to those used by the satellite navigation community. The decision comes as part of an effort to develop new spectrum interference standards that will maintain the current allocated frequencies for GPS receivers and open under-used spectrum bands to a wider variety of applications.
The planned three-year study will be divided into two areas of research that the Radio Technical Commission for Aeronautics (RTCA) will explore concurrently on behalf of the FAA. The first area of research will focus on power limits involving GPS signals and current receivers—particularly aviation receivers—while the second area of research will focus on GNSS signals, multi-constellation receivers and a variety of design tradeoffs including possible exclusion zones. The RTCA will also be given the tasks of developing a receiver interference mask and determining if it is possible to build receiver that is more resistant to interference.
According to Ken Alexander, the navigation team leader for the FAA’s Aviation Safety Aircraft Certification Service, the approval for the research is currently pending. His agency plans to formally request the study by the end of November.
