Wideband Channel Emulation for Networked Radios

The family of multi-functional SDR systems currently being developed and deployed by the JTRS Program will provide the Joint and Coalition Warfighter with the next generation of networked voice, video, and data communications. The very features that will make JTRS radios so critical to the Warfighter e.g. wideband operation and transformational networking complicate their testing and evaluation. For example, the combinatorial explosion of the number of links in a networked radio system precludes the use of COTS fading channel simulators. As early as 2007, TrellisWare was faced with precisely the same problem that this SBIR topic seeks to address: how to emulate a high fidelity, operationally representative radio frequency (RF) environment for a network of tactical radios? While TrellisWare faced a problem that is somewhat restricted in scope compared to that considered presently our focus was on the terrestrial operation of a system with a maximum bandwidth of 20 MHz the channel emulator that we developed internally to evaluate our CheetahNet platform nonetheless provides the foundation for the development of a multi-channel, programmable, scalable, and extensible RF channel emulator that will enable laboratory verification of next-generation military and commercial radio and waveform capabilities.