Accessibility statement

Future VHF/UHF 25kHz Capacity Improvements

The availability of radio spectrum is a key constraint and integral component of almost all large scale military operations. Wireless propagation loss favours some regions of spectrum more than others; as a result certain frequencies in the VHF & UHF bands are able to achieve maximum transmission range at minimal power consumption. These frequencies are highly contended by military and commercial users alike.

Current solutions for high spectrum efficiency tactical communications, operating over 25kHz channels with potentially non-linear High Power Amplifier (HPA) are based on binary Frequency Shift Keying (FSK). The project evaluates and explores the scope for capacity improvements within the existing bearers deploying narrow-band modulation of 25kHz channels within Tactical Communications Infrastructure & Support (TacCIS) for voice and data communications in the VHF and UHF bands.

This project targets at a 5 to 10 fold increase in bearer capacity and extremely low out-of-band spectrum emissions for VHF/UHF narrowband channel within future TacCIS in both land and littoral deployment. The solutions include exploring advanced non-linear modulation approaches which avoid the use of non-linear HPA, and developing turbo-based detector which can be used in conjunction with channel coding as a form of iterative coded modulation.

Members

  • Alister Burr
  • Yi Wang

Funding

  • ESII

Dates

  • Start: July 2012

Research