Interference-Tolerant Digital Data (ITD2) Modem for High Data Rate Communications

In this proposed Phase I project, SICOM will determine the feasibility of a unique design for a low-cost, high performance, interference- and multipath-tolerant radio for military and commercial applications, SICOM developed and recently field-tested an ASIC-based 57 kbps HF direct-sequence spread-spectrum (DSSS) modem which improves the Rake concept to achieve exceptional tolerance to both multipath and dynamic narrowband interference. The proposed development will greatly enhance the spectral efficiency of that revolutionary radio by: 1) reducing its spred-to-data bandwidth ratio without sacrificing robust performance; 2)improving its effective code rate by concatenating a unique pragmatic trellis-coded modulation with Reed-Solomon coding; and, 3)eliminating interference caused by its transmissions on narrowband co-channel signals. SICOM will also evaluate potential cost and power-consumption reduction tradeoffs for consolidating the multi-ASIC design into fewer ASICs using recently-available CMOS processes. he cost-effectiveness of this new radio using. In Phase I SICOM will perform trade studies to determine the best combination of codes, modulation, and processing architecture, assess the feasibility of the resulting baseline radio design, and prepare a specification for a UHF/VHF transceiver. The transceiver will developed in Phase II, and commercialized in Phase III. Anticipated Military Benefits: The proposed project directly addresses the military's need for a high data rate, interference-, jammer- and multipath-tolerant transceiver for the battlefield. An NDI DSSS modem based on SICOM's revolutionary improvement to Rake has been proposed for the army's Near-Term Digital Radio (NTDR). The proposed Phase I project will increase link quality and spectral-efficiency, while reducing cost, weight and power consumption of SICOM's breakthrough modem technology in time to support the next generation radio beyond NTDR, the "Future Data Radio."