Pascal Prost, Director of Sales and Business Development at Simpulse, gives an exclusive UST interview diving into the benefits of Software Defined Radio (SDR). Prost explores how Simpulse’s SDR solutions, long-range datalinks designed for UAVs and UGVs, overcome various challenges and enhance the performance of a range of vehicles.
Thank you for agreeing to talk to us today. Simpulse is widely known for its SDR technology — what are the key advantages of using SDR data links over traditional communication systems in UAS operations?
Traditional transmission technologies like 5G or WiFi are not designed for use cases without infrastructure, with very long range transmissions, or in harsh environments as we find in many UAS operations. Simpulse SDR, on the other hand, is not constrained by a compliance with a standard, giving the necessary freedom to use software to implement the solutions for best performance, coping with challenging environmental conditions.
The software on our SDR platform is quick and easy to update, meaning users can benefit from the latest enhancements and achieve the best data link performance.
Some further advantages include flexibility in term of frequency bands and interfaces, as well as reliability, resilience against interference or jammers, and improved transmission range. New features can be added throughout the life of the product, and there’s no need to modify installed hardware to get improvements and up-to-date features. What’s more, specific on-demand data link features can be implemented to meet particular needs simply by releasing particular software.
How do your SDR solutions contribute to the performance and reliability of UAS operating BVLOS and/or in challenging environments?
Our algorithms and signal processing are inherently designed for long distance applications and harsh environments. For example, our modem can measure the signal quality even in the presence of strong noise and adapt the waveform, or choose the best frequency to transmit.
Our radio software is tested in the field with logged files before being re-enhanced and re-tested during numerous software update loops. For UAS with our solution on board, this greatly improves the performance and reliability when compared to fixed hardware solutions, which are less efficient and flexible when it comes to fine-tuning and improving performance.
The same radio link can be reconfigured several times on site to adapt to new or difficult environments.
Can you talk us through the main challenges faced when integrating SDR technology into unmanned aerial vehicles and how can you assist clients in overcoming specific technical challenges during the integration process?
The SDR solution provided by Simpulse is actually an IP modem, including hardware with embedded software, as easy to integrate as any other modem.
Our Simpulse SDR technology achieves high-level performance, particularly in terms of sensitivity. This high sensitivity allows lower transmit power to be used, which means a smaller footprint with smaller heat sinks, lower power consumption, less heat to dissipate, and a much simpler device to integrate into small UAS.
However, high sensitivity can be affected by radio interference generated by the drone itself, or its equipment. Our advanced analysis tools running within the SDR modem can accurately detect and monitor this interference, tracking its level and frequencies in real time. This tool greatly helps in finding solutions to minimize interference during the integration process.
In the same way, the Simpulse advanced analysis tool allows to find the best position of the antennas on the drone, and measure their effectiveness during the reception/transmission phases, taking into account the orientation of the drone.
Do you have any success stories or case studies you could share with our readers, where Simpulse’s SDR technology has improved UAS performance or solved critical challenges?
One of our customers in the field of ground robotics showed that the distance range of their UGV was doubled by switching their radio data link to our Simpulse SDR solution, with high sensitivity and efficient signal processing being mainly responsible for this improvement.
On top of that, the real-time variable datarate — which adapts the transmitted bitrate to the transmission conditions — made it possible to go beyond the nominal range with a lower flow rate.
Another one of our customers, this time in the UAS sector, used just 0.6W of transmit power to fly their drone 110km in line of sight while transmitting HD video.
What trends do you foresee in the development of SDR technology for unmanned systems over the next few years?
Since last year and in the years to come, the war between Ukraine and Russia has raised a major demand: the ability for radio to continue transmitting despite strong interference.
Our belief is that an effective anti-jamming functionality must take into account the last jamming strategy observed in the field to propose a relevant counter-strategy. This is particularly possible with SDR because any last-minute adaptations can be quickly implemented in the drone with a simple software update.
For drones, longer ranges are still in demand, knowing that increasing the transmission power with its many disadvantages is not the solution. Improving signal processing efficiency and sensitivity in an SDR solution like ours is a smarter way to achieve better performance.
Thank you so much for sharing your insight, it’s been a pleasure speaking with you.
