Spectrum Awareness: Deep Learning and Isolation Forest Approaches for Open-set Identification of Signals

Abstract

Over the next decade, 5G networks will become more and more prevalent in everyday life. This will provide solutions to current limitations by allowing access to bands previously unavailable to civilian communication networks. However, this also provides new challenges primarily for the military operations. Radar bands have traditionally operated primarily in the sub-6 GHz region. In the past, these bands were off limits to civilian communications. However, that changed when they were opened up in the 2010's. With these bands now being forced to co-exist with commercial users, military operators need systems to identify the signals within a spectrum environment. In this thesis, we extend current research in the area of signal identification by using previous work in the area to construct a deep learning-based classifier that is able to classify a signal as either as a communication waveform (Single-Carrier (SC), Single-Carrier Frequency Division Multiple Access (SC-FDMA), Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM), Amplitude Modulation (AM), Frequency Modulation (FM)) or a radar waveform (Linear Frequency Modulation (LFM) or Phase-coded). However, the downside to this method is that the classifier is based on the assumption that all possible signals within the spectrum environment are within the training dataset. To account for this, we have proposed a novel classifier design for detection of unknown signals outside of the training dataset. This two-classifier system forms an open-set recognition (OSR) system that is used to provide more situational awareness for operators.