Supporting Mobile Operations in areas with
no infrastructure
Ragnar D Wik
Principal Systems Engineer Concept Development
KONGSBERG DEFENCE SYSTEMS
ReCAMP 2016, Tromsø
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About the presenter
• Military education and experience
– Major
– Company Commander Signal Coy
– NOR Army Material Command - tactical communications (tech/mngt)
• Civilian education and experience
– MSc in Physical electronics and Radio technology
– 20 years working in industry
• Product development, technical management
• Concept Development
– 5.5 years as Principal Scientist at NATO C3 Agency, The Hague, NL
• Communications Architecture Branch
• Focus on communications support to NATO Deployed operations
Military and scientific missions
Similarities?
• Support of advanced, technology requiring operations
• Operations are a long way from home base
• Harsh environment – and one cannot choose the area of operation!
• In general – no infrastructure in place
• Need to bring what we need ourselves
• No short-cuts possible!
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The choise to make
Accept limitation or build infrastructure?
• To communicate from a Base Camp to a Mobile unit far away there are
normally two choises
A. Accept that longer range has a cost on data rate
or
B. Accept the cost of building an infrastructure into the area of operation
A)
B)
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The choise to make
What counts?
• If low bandwidth is acceptable – go for the long range solution
– Low cost
– Fast to establish
– Supports high mobility
• If high bandwidth is needed – build the infrastructure
– Many options on HOW
– They all have a cost
– May still be mobile
• In military systems, the infratructure normally serves MANY smaller
operations/areas and thus makes the choise slightly easier
• The military infrastructure systems are built as «nodal systems»
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The nodal concept
Nodes connected to form a mesh
Area of Operation (AAO) 1
AAO 3
Logistic route
AAO 2
Base
Redundancy
Mobility
Coverage = more than «range»
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The military concept
Nodal system
Area of Operation
Long range radio
Long range radio
34Mbps@50-70km
100Mbps@20-40 km
Base Camp
Redundant backbone
High capacity, highly mobile nodes
Long range radio from node to forward units
The remote UAV operation concept
Reduced nodal system – same principle
Area of Operation
Unmanned
relay location
34Mbps@50-70km
100Mbps@20-40 km
34Mbps@50-70km
100Mbps@20-40 km
Base Camp
Non-Redundant backbone established
High capacity, highly mobile relay nodes – left unmanned
Area of interest covered from one or two locations.
Long range radio from node to UAV.
The remote UAV operation concept
Reduced nodal system – same principle
Area of Operation
34Mbps@50-70km
100Mbps@20-40 km
Forward Mission
Base Camp
One hop high capacity link from Base Camp
from which operations are conducted and data collected
Less coverage
More difficult to find supporting locations
The nodal approach
Benefits
• The nodal appraoch provides high data rates to a location close to the
operation of the UAV (Base Station)
• The range over which the radio communication to the UAV has to work –
is reduced – which allows for (much) higher bandwidths
• Clever selection of locations will allow larger areas to be covered from the
Nission Base Camp – relocating the Base station
High Datarate
Radio range
Day 7-9
Day 4-6
Day 1-3
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The Nodal approach
Alternatives
• A number of alternatives to radio relays
exists
– Aerostat
– UAV/UAS for communication relay
– Satellite
• They all come at a cost – and they all have
benefits
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The Nodal approach
Aerostats
– Relatively expensive in use (cost of Helium)
• 11m2 He/2 kg payload@450feet  5.5 kNOK (approx. 600EUR) per fill
– Has a «weight/size/power to units and tether length (heigth)»-issue
– Will in general rely on radio up/down-link (shared bandwidth)
– Will in general use omni directional antennas
– Are stable and cheap when in operation – even in bad weather
– Very much used in long endurance surveillance and communications
relay operations (military, customs, border control, similar)
From live tests
2009
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The Nodal approach
Aerostats
– Bandwidth limited for long range communications
(size/cost/power/antenna limitations)
– But – may be successfully used for direct relaying to UAV
High Datarate
Radio range
Less Coverage (than node based BS)
Reduced data rate if one radio is used
Day 7-9
Day 4-6
Weight sensitive
Day 1-3
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Mostly battery powered – creates a
«operational time vs size» issue
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The Nodal approach
UAS/UAV nodes
– Bandwidth limited for long range communications
(size/cost/power/antenna limitations)
– MANET operation saves weight, but reduce bandwidth
– May easily extend/change area of operations
– Racetrack path may cause periods of non-communication in either
direction
Loitering UAV relay node
Race Track must be within
radio range of both Base
Camp and sensor UAV
Sensor UAV
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The Nodal approach
Satellite
– In general difficult, complex and expensive to fit on smaller UAVs
– The new Low/Medium Ëarth Orbit Small Satellite capabilities may
become a potential game changer….
– But – they still have to be made available
• with affordable UAV antenna systems and cost (per bit)
• with proven reliability
• … in the northern/southern polar regions
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The long range radio alternative
Good range is always an upside
• Long range at best possible data rate is always our first choise
λ
Friis transm. Equation : PT = PTUAV + GBS + GUAV + 20log10(4π𝑅)2
BS
What we want is:
• High power in the transmitter
• High gain in all antennas
•
•
•
•
Colours as seen from BS
The BS antenna Gain and Power can be optimized
The UAV is power and antenna gain limited
High frequency allows high antenna gain – but higher path loss
The link from UAV to BS and UAV to UAV will normally limit the system
performance (see equation)
• For a given received power (to noise ratio), the radio will be able to receive a
number of bits/second = receiver sensitivity
• For higher data rates – RF bandwidth increase (more Hz needed) – so the
Noise element increase – and the modulations’ S/N requirement increase
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The long range alternative
Range is always in focus – always an upside
• There is no silver bullet
• Frequencies are a managed resource – and not for free selection/use
• A mixed approach is favourable use different links for different things
– Low frequency (VHF) - for control and telemetry
– Medium frequency (UHF) - for medium range/medium data rate communication
– High frequency (SHF) - for short range, high data rate communication
But… can the platform accept the
Size Weight Power and Cost ???
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KONGSBERG radios
VHF MRR/LFR
Frequency range:
Data rate:
Sensitivity:
Output power:
Built for harsh env:
Encrypted link
IP-interface
Serial for hanheld
Ethernet vehicle
MANET multi hop
Voice
Ground-ground ranges;
20-110 km
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30-88 MHz
2.4 kbps & 20 kbps
125dBm @ 2.4 kbps
1W handheld
5/50W vehicle
-40oC
To go into the UAV (approx 0.5 kg)
Vehicle and portable variants
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KONGSBERG radios
UHF UM600/SR600/EM600
Frequency range:
Data rate:
Output power:
Built for harsh env:
Encrypted link
IP-interface:
MANET multi hop
Voice
225-400 MHz
225 kbps – 2.5 Mbps
1W handheld
5W vehicle
20W in development
-40oC
Ethernet
EM600 version planned for
integration in smaller platforms
like UAV’s (SWaP optimized).
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To go into the UAV (approx 0.6 kg)
5W UHF
50W VHF
5W UHF
20W UHF in dev.
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KONGSBERG radios
Long range support of ATC voice for RPAS
• Both UHF and VHF radios have analogue interfaces with PTT-signals
• Assuming the ATC radio is placed in the UAV and the electrical interface
is adjusted to match the ATC radio, the two can work back to back
UAV
VHF ATC
LNxx2 please decline
1000 feet
VHF
UAV operator
LNxx2 – confirms
Decline 1000 feet
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Long range Radio Relays
RL532 – UHF Band III
• Frequency Range:
1 350 – 2 690MHz
• Data rates :
– 64-QAM:
256 kbps - 34 368kbps
8 448 – 34 368kbps
• 50MHz duplex spacing fixed frequency
• Output Power > 5W FSK / 1W QAM
• Interface: 10/100Mb Ethernet
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Long range Radio Relays
RL542 – UHF Band IV
• Frequency Range 4 400 – 5 000MHz
• Data rates : 2 048 – 100 Mbps
• Output Power :
4W CPM
1W QAM
• Interfaces 1Gb Ethernet on TP and optical
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So - build your own infrastructure
It has a cost
But it provides coverage
with high bandwidth
It is ATV/Snowmobile
deployable
It is built to survive the
weather challenges and
transport!
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or use a long range radio…
No silver bullet available
UAV antenna critical
On-board storage allows
optimization for long range
Supports VOICE and DATA
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QUESTIONS?
kongsberg.com
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