Space-Based GNSS Radio Frequency Interference Detection Evaluation Through Multi-Satellite Data Integration

Abstract

Space-based GNSS reflectometry (GNSS-R) can detect terrestrial radio frequency interference (RFI) through elevated noise power in delay-Doppler map forbidden zones. This study evaluates how constellation size affects detection performance using Level 1 delay-Doppler observations from seven CYGNSS spacecraft collected over three months from the NASA PO.DAAC archive. Four metrics are analysed: detection latency, spatial coverage, spatial coherence, and persistence monitoring reliability. Results show that the full seven-satellite constellation reduces median detection latency by a factor of 4.7 compared with a single satellite and increases interception probability for a 5-minute emission from 2\% to 11.5\%. Median footprint revisit time improves from 5.8 hours to under 2.0 hours. Spatial coherence analysis indicates that a single satellite leaves up to 72\% of source structure unresolved. Persistence monitoring confirms interference onset 39 days earlier than single-satellite deployment. The largest gains occur between one and three satellites, establishing three satellites as the minimum effective constellation size.