Implementation of an FPGA-based modem for UAV surveillance applications

Author

Rupar, Michael ; Glancy, John ; Egg, Benjamin

Author_Institution

Naval Res. Lab., Washington, DC, USA

fYear

2009

fDate

18-21 Oct. 2009

Firstpage

1

Lastpage

6

Abstract

Modern Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have the capability of carrying sensors that produce large amounts of data. A high speed wireless data link is required to transfer this data to other systems for processing. This paper presents an FPGA-based implementation of a high data-rate (350 Mbps) QPSK modulator and demodulator to support a high data rate relay from a UAV to a ground station. By using high speed ADCs and DACs in conjunction with state of the art FPGAs it is possible to implement all signal processing functions necessary in a modem. We will present the architecture and methodologies used for both the modulator and demodulator and discuss how these algorithms are implemented in an FPGA.

Keywords

analogue-digital conversion; avionics; digital-analogue conversion; field programmable gate arrays; modems; phase shift keying; radio links; remotely operated vehicles; surveillance; FPGA based implementation; FPGA based modem; UAV surveillance application; high data-rate QPSK demodulator; high data-rate QPSK modulator; high speed ADC; high speed DAC; high speed wireless data link; signal processing; unmanned aerial vehicles; Demodulation; Field programmable gate arrays; Ground support; Modems; Quadrature phase shift keying; Relays; Signal processing algorithms; Surveillance; Unmanned aerial vehicles; Wireless sensor networks;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Military Communications Conference, 2009. MILCOM 2009. IEEE

Conference_Location

Boston, MA

Print_ISBN

978-1-4244-5238-5

Electronic_ISBN

978-1-4244-5239-2

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/MILCOM.2009.5380033

Filename

5380033