Analysis of reactive jamming against satellite communications

In this paper, we analyze the feasibility of reactive jamming in a satellite communications scenario and propose a countermeasure that takes advantage of the constraints associated with reactive jamming. A reactive jammer is a type of jammer that has the ability to sense a portion of spectrum and immediately transmit a jamming signal when it senses a signal it wants to jam. Thus, a reactive jammer can counter the processing gain associated with frequency hopping spread spectrum. This paper provides a three‐step approach to analyzing the primary constraints associated with reactive jamming, as well as detailed example scenarios (both theoretical and simulated) that demonstrate the feasibility analysis. Additional clarity is provided by splitting the analysis into uplink and downlink jamming. A strategy to mitigate the effects of reactive jamming is presented, which takes advantage of the geometric constraints of reactive jamming by using a coding and interleaving scheme that results in the transmitted bits appearing at the very beginning of each hop. This work demonstrates that reactive jamming is a valid threat to satellite communication systems. The analysis and simulation results suggest that as long as the geographical area around user terminals is free of reactive jammers, substantial mitigation can be achieved using the proposed mitigation strategy. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.