SOME INITIAL RESULTS FOR DATA-AIDED EQUALIZER EXPERIMENTS AT EDWARDS AFB

Abstract

This paper describes the results of flight tests designed to compare data-aided equalization to blind, adaptive equalization using SOQPSK-TG in aeronautical telemetry. The flight tests were conducted on 3 June 2016 at the Air Force Flight Test Center, Edwards AFB, at upper L band (1801.5 MHz) and at C band (4711.5 MHz). Five data-aided equalizers were implemented and compared to a commercially available blind equalizer. In addition, all equalized bit streams were compared to an unequalized reference. The results show that the blind equalizer tends to be either really good or really bad. In contrast, the data-aided equalizers tend to exhibit more graceful degradation. Which equalization method is “best” is not clear as of this writing. The answer depends on a number factors that will become clear as more data from the experiments is analyzed.