AREAL
Automated Radio Monitoring System
for Detection of Unauthorized Radio Emissions
One of the priority areas in the development of automated systems and radio monitoring equipment is detection of unauthorized transmissions of any communication systems, including those made by command link transmitters and data lines of unmanned and manned aerial vehicles, as well as localization of radio emission sources in confined spaces, inside buildings, as well as vehicle-based sources, etc. Main users of such systems are law enforcement, overseeing, security, and departmental structures.
ASR AREAL is intended for revealing of unauthorized radio emission and localization of their sources. It's based on the same hardware software platform as ARMADA ASMS. ASR AREAL can perform continuous, periodic, or on-demand radio monitoring. The configuration of included technical means varies accordingly.
The main task of ASMS is achieved by searching "new" radio emissions, assessment of their hazard degree, localization of their sources and, eventually, displaying results of their work on electronic plans of objects and maps, saving information in the databases of the radio electronic environment. ASR AREAL enables the user to:
- Analyze frequency range occupancy in deployment area and determine actual usage of frequencies
- Identify changes of radio frequency environment (RFE) and detect new radio emissions
- Search and localization of emission sources outdoor
- Classify the detected radio emission sources and estimate their importance or criticality
- Maintain the radio emission sources database for the monitored areas, zones, premises, or vehicles
- Process and systematize radio monitoring results and update the corresponding databases
- Display structure and condition of the system assemblies, location of radioelectronic equipment, and mapping of radio monitoring data for a specific area or facility
- Detect radio networks and directions and link them to radio emission sources.
- Monitor the progress of radio monitoring task
- Analyze radio monitoring results over a time period in automated mode
- Export from and import to reference databases, as well as monitoring results database
- Perform automated monitoring of equipment operation time and technical condition
- Generation of reports as per operation results.
ASR AREAL configuration depends on operation scenarios, task execution time and periodicity of radio monitoring.
Maximum ASR AREAL configuration includes Control Center and technical means distributed over the monitored territory and in premises. One of these technical means can be located at the same place as the Control Center.
The necessary amount of radio monitoring technical means in ASR AREAL depends on the monitored area, its relief, the time assigned for the radio monitoring task In an ideal case, any point of the monitored area must be located within the coverage of at least two equipment units determining the RES coordinates and parameters. However, in case of such an approach the price of the system can be unreasonable high, so there can be used another approach to ARMS design: a radio monitoring system shall comprise fixed stations with combined coverage of the highest-perimeter areas; mobile stations installed on land, air, or water vehicles; and portable (transportable) stations, which can be rapidly deployed in respective areas.
Actual electromagnetic availability area (EAA) of ASR AREAL is determined by the quantity of equipment used, its EAA sensitivity and the antenna system altitude. Precise determination of RES position depends on instrument accuracy of the equipment used and quantity of the RES monitoring equipment within the monitored area.
System design typical options
Subject to the analysis data, all variety of ASR AREAL operation conditions can be reduced to several standard scenarios Table presents typical operation scenarios of ASR AREAL, their features and expected outcome of using ARMS.
Table. ASR AREAL typical usage scenarios
| Scenario code | Scenario conditions | Duration of monitoring | Periodicity of monitoring | Expected results |
| AREAL-1 | Along an extended monitoring boundary and at the adjacent territory | Continuous monitoring | - | Coordinates and parameters of new RES's, continuously updated REF database |
| AREAL-2 | Limited outdoor area - local operations area (maneuvers, sport events, etc.) | Throughout operation activities | On-demand | Coordinates and parameters of new RES's, updated REF database |
| AREAL-3 | Limited outdoor area, 2 stages: Stage 1: primary radio monitoring |
Depending on RFE analysis data | On-demand | Coordinates for transportable vehicles |
| • Stage 2: detailed RFE monitoring | Depending on radio traffic intensity | One-time, cyclic, or on-demand | Updated RFE database for the particular area | |
| AREAL-4 | Completely confined territory | Continuous monitoring | - | Parameters and coordinates of unauthorized RESs |
| External monitoring of radio emissions coming from premises of the object, mapping of RES on the object's layout | On-demand | Cyclic or on-demand | Suggestions to eliminate identified violations | |
| AREAL-5 | Remote radio monitoring inside premises (zones) of protected objects | Continuous monitoring | - | Coordinates and parameters of unauthorized RES's, updated REF database |
| Radio monitoring inside a separate premise or in a vehicle | Depending on RFE and on demand | Cyclic or on-demand | Suggestions to eliminate identified data leakage channels | |
| AREAL-6 | Detection of unmanned or manned aerial vehicles with active radio emission sources within monitored air space | Continuous. Radio Monitoring Stations are ground-based |
On-demand | Real-time updated database of REF within monitored air space Coordinates and parameters of unauthorized RESs |
| AREAL-7 | Limited outdoor area monitored with UAV at site of local operations (maneuvers, sport events, etc.) | Throughout operation activities. Radio monitoring stations are installed to low-sized UAV |
On-demand | Real-time updated database of REF within monitored area Coordinates and parameters of unauthorized RESs |
Scenarios and options for the AREAL-1 to AREAL-7 operations are provisional only. In practice, some other scenarios are possible, however, these should not alter the technical approaches provided herein.