The effect of blanking of TDMA interference on radio-astronomical observations: experimental results

The fast growth of the wireless communication industry poses severe limitations on radio-astronomical observations. This is largely due to the fact that in radio astronomy, in contrast to communication systems, the signals of interest are many orders of magnitude below the receiver noise power levels. The structure of some communication signals opens the possibility to reduce the effect on radio-astronomical observations using advanced array processing techniques. One such structure is time slots, used in TDMA communication systems such as the Iridium system and the GSM system. We present the results of blanking of time-slotted interfering signals measured at the Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope.