Universal Air-to-Ground Broadband Networking Communications Waveform

The airborne tactical environment presents a number of challenges for waveform design. High dynamics and multipath at the physical layer and heterogeneous link conditions at the network layer dictate the use of a modern waveform with intelligent networking capability. In Phase-I, TrellisWare developed a modern communication waveform that brings together TrellisWare''s advanced flexible forward-error-correction (FEC) technology and the energy-efficient continuous-phase modulation (CPM) to deliver robust broadband throughput over tactical air-to-ground links. With state-of-the-art physical layer receiver processing technologies Per-Survivor Processing (PSP) and Adaptive Iterative Detection (AID) the proposed waveform effectively combats severe multipath and extreme platform dynamics at the same time, while delivering data rates over 1.3 Mbps with a single 1.2 MHz- bandwidth channel and over 5 Mbps using multicarrier signaling. Developed with the current software-defined radio (SDR) constraints in mind, the proposed waveform is an excellent candidate for delivering robust broadband performance universally across different tactical platforms. TrellisWare’s Phase II effort is focused on demonstrating that the flexibility provided by the Phase I approach can be leveraged to retrofit enhanced PHY capability into existing waveforms. This approach if proven can dramatically reduce waveform development costs by enabling significant reuse of the waveform cost drivers (MAC/Networking Software).