Patent ID: 7336745

Claim:
A communications system with interference protection, the system comprising: at least one main antenna operable to receive a main communication signal; one or more auxiliary antennas, each auxiliary antenna operable to receive an auxiliary signal containing a source of interference; one or more communication interference suppression units coupled to the at least one main antenna and the one or more auxiliary antennas, each suppression unit comprising: a signal modulator that generates a cancellation signal based on an interference level in the main and auxiliary signals; a summing coupler, coupled to the at least one main antenna, the summing coupler adapted to sum the cancellation signal with the main communication signal to produce a modified main communication signal; an automatic gain control, coupled to the signal modulator, the automatic gain control operable to match signal levels of interference in the main communication signal and interference in the auxiliary signal with gain and dynamic range levels of the signal modulator; a group delay equalizer, coupled to at least one of the at least one main antenna and the one or more auxiliary antennas, the group delay equalizer operable to match cumulative delays of the main communication signal and the auxiliary signal; a correlating receiver, coupled to receive the auxiliary signal and the modified main communication signal, the correlating receiver adapted to measure the phase and amplitude relationship of a common interference element in both the auxiliary signal and the modified main communication signal; and a controller, responsive to the correlating receiver, that controls the signal modulator in response to the phase and amplitude relationship measured by the correlating receiver; at least one system receiver that receives one or more output signals from each of the one or more communication interference suppression units; a receiver interface coupled to the at least one system receiver; and a system interface bus in communication with the receiver interface in each of the one or more communication interference suppression units, the system interface bus operable to provide performance measurements from the at least one output receiver to the one or more communication interference suppression units.