Systems and related methods for detection, tiered correlation, and notification of radio frequency (RF) anomalies

An apparatus for anomaly detection in a radio frequency (RF) signal, the apparatus comprising:

• a radio device having an RF transceiver;
• a sensor device physically connected to, and in electronic communication with, the radio device, the sensor device having:
• a collector, extracting signal data from the radio device, wherein the signal data is identifying data of a cellular base station and location data of that cellular base station;
• a sensor correlation database accessible by the sensor device, wherein at least a portion of the sensor correlation database includes data received from a governmental license database providing licensed frequency range data;
• a correlator, correlating the extracted signal data to detect at least one anomaly in the extracted signal data, wherein the extracted signal data is correlated with:
• sensor correlation data stored within the sensor correlation database;
• and
• geolocation data of the sensor device, wherein a location of the cellular base station and an absolute radio frequency channel number (ARFCN) data reported in the extracted signal data are compared against the licensed frequency range data received from the governmental license database to determine a licensed status of the cellular base station whereby the at least one anomaly is determined based on a deviation between the location of the cellular base station and the ARFCN data reported in the extracted signal data, and the licensed frequency range data received from the governmental license database;
• and
• a computerized service processing device having at least one processor and a non-transitory memory, wherein, when the at least one anomaly is detected in the extracted signal data, the computerized service processing device receives the correlated extracted signal data from the at least one sensor device and executes an updating process to a correlation sub-system within the computerized service processing device, wherein the at least one detected anomaly is curated by the computerized service processing device by receiving data about known RF anomalies from at least one open source intelligence database (OSINT) that feeds into the correlation sub-system in the computerized service processing device, and wherein the at least one curated detected anomaly is transmitted, from the computerized service processing device, to the sensor correlation database to update the sensor correlation data stored therein.

A method for distributed correlation of radio frequency (RF) information comprising:

• providing at least one sensor device in communication with at least one radio device having an RF transceiver;
• extracting signal data from the at least one radio device with a collector of the at least one sensor device, wherein the signal data is identifying data of a cellular base station and location data of that cellular base station;
• correlating, by the sensor device, the extracted signal data with sensor correlation data stored within at least one database of the at least one sensor device to detect at least one anomaly in the extracted signal data, wherein the at least one database includes data received from a governmental license database providing licensed frequency range data and data received from at least one open source intelligence database (OSINT), wherein a location of the cellular base station and an absolute radio frequency channel number (ARFCN) data reported in the extracted signal data are compared against the licensed frequency range data received from the governmental license database to determine a licensed status of the cellular base station, whereby the at least one anomaly is determined based on a deviation between the location of the cellular base station and the ARFCN data reported in the extracted signal data, and the licensed frequency range data received from the governmental license database;
• and
• transmitting, by the sensor device, the correlated extracted signal data to a computerized service processing device when at least one anomaly is detected, wherein the computerized service processing device has at least one processor and a non-transitory memory, and wherein, after receiving the correlated extracted signal data from the at least one sensor device, the computerized service processing device executes at least one of:
• an alert process to alert a user of the detected anomalies;
• and
• an updating process to a correlation sub-system within the computerized service processing device;
• wherein the at least one detected anomaly is curated by the computerized service processing device by receiving data about known RF anomalies from the at least one OSINT that feeds into the correlation sub-system in the computerized service processing device, and wherein the at least one curated detected anomaly is transmitted, from the computerized service processing device, to the at least one database of the at least one sensor device to update the sensor correlation data stored therein.