Steven J. Crowley, P.E.
Consulting Engineer
Archive for the ‘WiMAX’ Category
Experimental Radio Applications at the FCC
This summarizes a selection of applications for the Experimental Radio Service received by the FCC during June 2010. These are related to aircraft systems, WiMAX, sports telecast support, public safety communications, tactical cellular service, medical telemetry, satellite, antennas, radar, white-space devices, weapons telemetry, spacecraft communications, and broadcasting.
- AAI/Textron Systems Corporation filed an application (with supporting exhibits) for experimental license. The company wants to test its Shadow 200, Aerosonde, Orbiter and other unmanned aircraft systems. This is related to work for the United States Marine Corp. Operation is to be on 310-390 MHz, 902-928 MHz, 1090 MHz, 1350-1390 MHz, 1700-1859 MHz, and 4400-4999 MHz. Transmitting equipment is manufactured by Microhard Systems Corporation, Free Wave Technologies, Advanced Microwave Products, Global Microwave Systems, and Microair Avionics.
FCC staff has asked for several items of information before approving the application. The FAA operates in the frequency bands 328.6-335.4 MHz, 1090 MHz, and 1215-1390 MHz; FCC staff asks for coordination of these bands with the FAA Regional Office. In addition, the frequency bands 225-328.6 MHz and 335.4-399.9 MHz are used for military purposes, and the applicant was asked to coordinate with NTIA’s Interdepartment Radio Advisory Committee (IRAC).
- AAI/Textron Systems Corporation also filed an application (with supporting exhibits) for special temporary authority to operate on 420-450 MHz and 2000-2400 MHz for a government project apparently involving the Orbiter miniature unmanned aircraft system. There is not much information about the proposed operation, and FCC staff has asked for more details.
In correspondence to the applicant, FCC staff notes that the “Aerospace & Flight Test Radio Coordinating Council (AFTRCC) oversees the frequency bands; 1435-1525 MHz, 2310-2320 MHz, and 2345-2390 MHz. These frequency bands need to be removed or need to be prior coordinated.”
- Sportvision filed an application (with supporting exhibits) for special temporary authority for testing of an automobile race track wireless data system that is to provide data communications between vehicles in a race track and one or more fixed base stations installed along a track. Operation is to be on 2395-2400 MHz.
One application seen for this system is video image enhancement for television broadcasting of automobile racing events. The would allow television viewers to see, displayed on screen, the real-time location of cars during a racing event.
The vehicles would be equipped with GPS receivers and other sensors that generate a data packet every 200 milliseconds. The wireless system would collect those packets and deliver them to a control station in real time. “The radio itself is a direct sequence spread spectrum unit, using production radios for 2.4 GHz. The system may ultimately be deployed on an unlicensed basis in the 2.4 GHz band or elsewhere, but the high noise levels in that band in the test locations (commercial automobile race tracks) are unsuitable for development and testing of the product.”
“An Intersil baseband processor performs the Direct Sequence modulation and demodulation. It is part of a five-chipset developed for the 802.11b standard. It uses 1/4th of the standard 802.11 speed resulting in a narrow occupied RF bandwidth.”
The frequency band requested is allocated on a primary basis to the Amateur Radio Service, and coordination is to be performed with the ARRL. This application was granted on June 4.
Experimental Radio Applications at the FCC
This summarizes a selection of applications for the Experimental Radio Service received by the FCC during March 31 – April 15, 2010. These are related to WiMAX, unmanned aerial vehicles, radar, cellular networking, rural broadband, ultra-wideband, satellite, software defined radio, white space, adaptive networks, and amplitude companded side band.
- Clearwire filed an application for special temporary authority (with supporting exhibits) to test WiMAX equipment at various locations in California on 2502-2568 MHz. The purpose of the test is to validate the ability of equipment to operate satisfactorily in the presence of collocated equipment licensed to Sprint in the 800 and 1900 MHz bands.
- DataSoft Corporation filed an application (with supporting exhibit) for experimental license. The company says it is developing a Software Defined Radio platform featuring a configurable 400 MHz to 4000 MHz transceiver intended for markets requiring an adaptable, programmable, or cognitive radio such as TV white space, smart grid, and home networking. The experimental license is to support testing of the transceiver in a TV white space application. Due to lack of available white-space client devices, the applicant proposes using re-banded Wi-Fi equipment in the experiment. Operation is to be in Scottsdale, Arizona on 500-540 MHz.
- BAE Systems filed an application (with supporting exhibit) for experimental license to test a wireless link for use by the US Army between a soldier’s night weapon sight and night vision goggles. The wireless link will utilize WiMedia MB-OFDM Ultra-wideband technology. Operation is to be on 3.168-4.752 GHz.
- Honeywell filed an application (with supporting exhibits) for experimental license to test integration of a direct digital radio link into small unmanned aerial vehicles. This is in support of two US Army programs and one US Navy program. The radio is manufactured by AeroVironment, Inc. Both command and control, as well as video downlink, utilize the same radio. Frequency bands requested are 1711.5-1721.5 MHz and 1755-1848 MHz. Operation will be in Albuquerque and Rio Rancho, New Mexico.
- Texas Tech University Wind Science and Engineering Research Center filed an application (with supporting exhibit) for special temporary authority to operate a Ka-band mobile radar systems in support of tornado research. Operation is to be at 34.86 GHz.
- Kestrel Signal Processing filed an application for special temporary authority to allow “testing of a novel cellular network technology that is compatible with standard GSM cellular handsets.” The operation will be on the grounds of, and overlap in time with, the Burning Man event held near Gerlach, Nevada Aug. 30 – Sept. 6, 2010. Operation will be on 869-894 MHz and 1930-1945 MHz.
- CenturyTel Broadband Wireless filed an application for special temporary authority to assess the performance of equipment manufactured by IPWireless (but not yet FCC type accepted) for providing 700 MHz rural broadband service. Operation is to be at Monroe, Louisiana on 736-746 MHz.
- Inmarsat Hawaii filed an application (with supporting exhibit) for special temporary authority to initiate a program of experimentation designed to facilitate the introduction of a new Broadband Global Area Network (BGAN) user terminal type. The testing would attempt to gain knowledge with respect to link quality and to validate Inmarsat’s theoretical approach. Testing also would evaluate the interaction of the new terminal type with Inmarsat’s ground infrastructure. Inmarsat proposes to test the terminal type in the 1626.5- 1660.5 MHz transmit band and 1525.0-1559.0 MHz receive band.
- Cobham Defense Electronic Systems filed an application (with supporting exhibit) for experimental license to operate in Lowell, Massachusetts on various frequencies between 902 and 5925 MHz. Apparently, this is to be experimentation in support of the DARPA program Wireless Network after Next (WNaN). As the exhibit explains, the WNaN “program goal is to develop and demonstrate technologies and system concepts enabling densely deployed networks in which distributed and adaptive network operations compensate for limitations of the physical layer of the low-cost wireless nodes that comprise these networks. WNaN networks will manage node configurations and the topology of the network to reduce the demands on the physical and link layers of the nodes. The technology created by the WNaN effort will provide reliable and highly- available battlefield communications at low system cost.”
- Radio Design Group filed an application (with supporting exhibit) for experimental license to test a wireless intercom system that will utilize an Amplitude Companded Side Band (ACSB) RF platform. The applicant expects this to provide a stable and robust signal that is efficient in terms of transmission bandwidth and power. The applicant also expects this system to allow for an occupied bandwidth of 15 kHz per audio path including guard band. The system will be tested on 174-216 MHz and 470-512 MHz in the vicinity of Grants Pass, Oregon.
Experimental Radio Applications at the FCC
This summarizes a selection of applications for the Experimental Radio Service received by the FCC during February 27 – March 14. These are related to smart grid, antennas, radar, military, satellite, data links, roaming services, maritime communications, WiMAX, network protocols, and UAVs.
- Sensus Spectrum filed an application (with supporting exhibit) for special temporary authority to test European Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) equipment on 412-424 MHz.
- The University of Colorado filed an application (with supporting exhibit) for special temporary authority to test the feasibility of synthetic aperture radar in an end-fire configuration. This configuration will output short (50ns) bursts of approximately 10W at 500-530 MHz in order to construct an image of objects in an adjacent parking lot. This is an attempt to prove the feasibility of a new radar configuration for a proposal to NASA.
- Oceanit filed an application for special temporary authority for a Ku-band SATCOM transmission test with an experimental ground-based phased-array antenna. Operation is to be on 13.75-14.50 GHz.
- Northrop Grumman filed an application (with supporting exhibit) for special temporary authority to test an electronically-scanned-array radar system intended to act as part of a missile interceptor system to protect against rocket, artillery and mortar threats. Operation is to be on 16.2-17.3 GHz.
Experimental Radio Applications at the FCC
This summarizes a selection of applications for the Experimental Radio Service received by the FCC during February 21-26: radar, WiMAX, MVDDS, aeronautical communications, private mobile data, millimeter wave, high-frequency data, space communications, and radiolocation.
- The Maryland Department of the Environment filed an application (with supporting exhibits) to operate a wind-profiling radar on 915 MHz. The equipment was developed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and fabricated by Radian International. The antenna is to consist of one steerable four-panel micro-patch phased array.
- DTV Norwich filed an application (with supporting exhibit) for special temporary authority to conduct propagation tests prior to potential full-scale deployment of Multichannel Video and Data Distribution Service (“MVDDS”) at 12.2 to 12.7 GHz in the Miami area. This is to determine the suitability of potential transmitter sites for full-scale operation, for which DTV Norwich has a license.
Experimental Radio Applications at the FCC
This summarizes a selection of applications for the Experimental Radio Service received by the FCC during February 13-20: landslide monitoring, WiMAX, earth-station antennas, radar, military mobile data, automatic aircraft landing, psyops transmission.
- Skyport Global Communications filed an application (with supporting exhibits) to test a 55cm slot-array X-band antenna manufactured by EMS Technologies on 8218-8400 MHz. The test will be done using a satellite link between the 55cm antenna in Atlanta, Georgia and a hub in Houston, Texas using the XTAR LANT X-band satellite.
Experimental Radio Applications at the FCC
This summarizes a selection of applications for Experimental Radio license, and for Special Temporary Authority, received by the FCC during January 14-20: VSAT for Haiti, helicopter surveillance in Chicago, WiMAX, wideband at high frequencies, avionics, cell phone jamming, and radar.
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University of Massachusetts applies to use WiMAX with virtual network lab
The University of Massachusetts has filed an application and supporting exhibit with the FCC for an experimental license to use WiMAX as part of the Global Environment for Network Innovations (GENI) project.
Operation will be at 2590-2600 MHz and use NEC’s WiMAX base-station hardware supporting a maximum of three sectors, a coverage radius of 3-5 km, and peak data rates of 15-30 Mbps. The base station uses an external PC controller that interfaces the base station to other parts of the GENI infrastructure.
GENI plans to support experimentation on shared heterogeneous infrastucture with programmability throughout the network, including wireless aspects. It is intended to promote innovations in network science, security, technologies, services, and applications. At this time, GENI plans to use WiMAX at 8 universities. Some sites will also use the OpenFlow standard, which allows researchers to run experimental protocols on production networks.
ADC applies to test WiMAX in Colorado
ADC Telecommunications has filed an application and supporting exhibit with the FCC requesting Special Temporary Authority to test a WiMAX (802.16e) pico base station in the 2.5 GHz range. Tested will be coverage, uplink communication, and throughput in the Greely, Colorado area. Testing is in conjunction with WiMAX operator Open Range Communications. ADC partnered with WiNetworks to design the base station.