  While research on adversarial examples in machine learning for images has
been prolific, similar attacks on deep learning (DL) for radio frequency (RF)
signals and their mitigation strategies are scarcely addressed in the published
work, with only one recent publication in the RF domain [1]. RF adversarial
examples (AdExs) can cause drastic, targeted misclassification results mostly
in spectrum sensing/ survey applications (e.g. BPSK mistaken for 8-PSK) with
minimal waveform perturbation. It is not clear if the RF AdExs maintain their
effects in the physical world, i.e., when AdExs are delivered over-the-air
(OTA). Our research on deep learning AdExs and proposed defense mechanisms are
RF-centric, and incorporate physical world, OTA effects. We here present
defense mechanisms based on statistical tests. One test to detect AdExs
utilizes Peak-to- Average-Power-Ratio (PAPR) of the DL data points delivered
OTA, while another statistical test uses the Softmax outputs of the DL
classifier, which corresponds to the probabilities the classifier assigns to
each of the trained classes. The former test leverages the RF nature of the
data, and the latter is universally applicable to AdExs regardless of their
origin. Both solutions are shown as viable mitigation methods to subvert
adversarial attacks against communications and radar sensing systems.
