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Design and development of a high throughput airborne line-of-sight communication link

Design und Entwicklung eines breitbandigen luftgestützten Line-of-sight-Kommunikationssystems

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Abstract

Line-of-sight (LOS) communication links have an ever increasing demand for high throughput IP-based data transmission. Such LOS systems are of particular interest for bi-directional communications from an aircraft to a ground station. A key requirement for the operation in various countries is carrier frequency agility because of the regulatory issues.

That is why the LOS link developed by JOANNEUM RESEARCH DIGITAL supports adjustable carrier frequencies in the range from 2 GHz to 6 GHz. The used TDD (Time Division Duplex) medium access has the advantage that only one frequency for up- and downlink is required. A further advantage is configurable allocation of the available carrier bandwidth between the downlink to the ground and uplink to the aircraft. The maximum throughput in the downlink is 8 Mbit/s. The system is based on a software defined radio (SDR) approach which leads to high flexibility because of fast development and testing of signal processing algorithms. This fact allows cost effective adaption of the system to different user requirements. The paper is organized in the following way. Section 1 provides a system overview. In Section 2 the modem design parameters are discussed in detail, followed by Section 3 and 4 which present the signal processing algorithms implemented and the RF front end. Finally, Section 5 shows the signal characteristic of a test flight with a DA42 aircraft.

Zusammenfassung

Der Bedarf an Breitband IP Line-of-sight(LOS)-Kommunikationsverbindungen ist stetig steigend. Besonders von Interesse sind in diesem Kontext bidirektionale Verbindungen, welche eine IP-basierte Datenübertragung von Flugzeugen zu Basisstationen am Boden ermöglichen. Eine wichtige Anforderung, durch die nicht einheitliche Frequenzvergabe in Europa ist Frequenzagilität. Daher unterstützt das von JOANNEUM RESEARCH DIGITAL entwickelte LOS-System den relevanten Frequenzbereich von 2 GHz bis 6 GHz. Das verwendete TDD(Time Division Duplex)-Zugriffsverfahren hat den Vorteil, dass nur eine Frequenz für Vorwärtskanal (Flugzeug zum Boden) und Retourkanal verwendet wird. Weiters kann die Bandbreite zwischen Vorwärts und Retourkanal per Konfiguration festgelegt werden. Die maximale Datenrate beträgt 8 Mbit/s. Für die Implementation wurde eine SDR-Lösung gewählt, die neben hoher Flexibilität auch effizientes Entwickeln und Testen von Algorithmen ermöglicht. Eine kosteneffiziente Anpassung an unterschiedliche Kundenanforderungen ist ebenfalls möglich.

Der Artikel ist folgendermaßen strukturiert: In Absch. 1 wird ein Überblick des Line-of-sight-Systems gegeben. Die Diskussion der System-Designparameter wird in Absch. 2 geführt. Abschnitte 3 und 4 beschreiben die Signalverarbeitungsalgorithmen und das HF-Front-End. Messergebnisse des Signalverlaufs von einem Testflug mit der DA42 werden abschließend in Absch. 5 präsentiert.

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Acknowledgements

This project was supported under the ESA/ESTEC contract No. 40001/13/NL/NR. In this context the authors like to thank ESA technical officer Laurence Duquerroy for guidance and advice in this project. Additionally, the authors wish to thank the team of Diamond Airborne Sensing for their integration support and their contributions during test flights.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. JOANNEUM RESEARCH-DIGITAL, Steyrergasse 17, 8010, Graz, Austria

    Harald Schlemmer, Eral Türkyilmaz, Michael Schmidt, Johannes Ebert & Heinz Mayer

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  1. Harald Schlemmer
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  2. Eral Türkyilmaz
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  3. Michael Schmidt
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  4. Johannes Ebert
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  5. Heinz Mayer
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Correspondence to Harald Schlemmer.

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Schlemmer, H., Türkyilmaz, E., Schmidt, M. et al. Design and development of a high throughput airborne line-of-sight communication link. Elektrotech. Inftech. 132, 282–288 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00502-015-0316-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00502-015-0316-3

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