MIMO functionality for Legacy Radios

Multiple-input, multiple-output (MIMO) RF systems are revolutionizing the RF communications industry by transforming historically problematic, heavily faded RF environments into rich, multi-channel media data rates enhanced by factors of 2-4X or more. Although the air-air datalink scenario does not enjoy the rich multipath environments that are exploited by commercial and military MIMO systems, many of the salient features of MIMO can be applied to airborne directional datalink systems to great effect. In this program, we mature several MIMO-related enhancements that are applicable to any distributed aperture airborne data link system. The enhancements include real time analog combining of multiple antennas to upgrade link capacity through utilization of multiple antenna arrays in receive mode. Numerous existing directional datalink systems incorporate multiple high-gain antenna arrays which provide a strong base for significant MIMO-inspired capability enhancements with the introduction of the proposed applique. Our proposed concepts have great potential to enhance the capacity, robustness, and other performance aspects of legacy distributed datalink systems without requiring changes to the current radio or waveform.