Universal Air-to-Ground Broadband Networking Communications Waveform

Modern military in-theater tactical and emergency communications would benefit greatly from an ability to communicate among all service platforms, but no common waveform standard currently exists to support this. Ideally, such as waveform would fully leverage the higher bandwidth connectivity capabilities inherent in aircraft-to-ground communications, while preserving the capabilities of current terrestrial waveform standards. These operational settings are very challenging for wireless communications because the waveform must simultaneously be robust to multipath and the associated signal fading and inter-symbol interference, and to Doppler shifts typically encountered with air platforms. In this effort Toyon proposes to develop a waveform standard capable of adequately meeting these divergent requirements, as well as developing the associated software and hardware to demonstrate these capabilities. For this purpose we pursue a technical path focusing on orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM), which combined with the spatial diversity benefits inherent in multiple-input and multiple-output (MIMO). At the successful completion of this Phase I effort, Toyon will provide real-world demonstrations of the technology and work with the Navy to select a final system to which to target development in a potential Phase II.