Wide-Band Packet Radio Technology

Advances in signal processing and architectural design for highperformance packet radio are described. The scope of the work roughly encompasses the data-link and physical levels of standardized layered-network architectures. A hardware-function layering approach is used, including the purposeful design of an interface to provide a structured control environment for a demonstration packet radio. The advanced signal processing provides a robust, flexible data link to service demanding network environments, and uses 1OC-MHz-bandwidth surface-acoustic-wave (SAW) convolvers as large time-bandwidth product matched filters for communication with nonrepeating pseudonoise waveforms. The convolvers are combined with a binary-quantizedpostprocessor to implement a hybrid correlator which provides high processing gain for detection, demodulation, and ranging measurements. Data rates can be selected, in response to varying channel conditions, over a range from 1.45 Mbits/s down to 44 bit& with an almost ideal tradeoff in processing gain for interference rejection and privacy ranging from 1% dB up to 61 dB. Future enhancements are proposed that will advance both the signal processing and the architecture.