Spectral Correlation for Signal Presence Detection and Frequency Acquisition of Small Satellites

Challenges in interference-limited satellite detection arising from the low-earth orbit (LEO) and the Industrial, Scientific and Medical (ISM) frequency bands are addressed. In particular, a novel signal presence detector based on cyclostationary signal properties is proposed and analyzed for a low signal-to-noise-plus-interference ratio (SINR) regime. The performance of the proposed detector, which is applicable to various small-satellite scenarios, is evaluated on both simulated and real-world measurement data. This measurement data has been collected from the scientific satellite mission “Picosats Realizing Orbital Propagation Calibrations using Beacon Emitters” (PROPCUBE).