ADVANCES IN A LOW-COST SOFTWARE-DEFINED TELEMETRY SYSTEM

Abstract

The United States Army Research Laboratory (ARL) has developed a Pulse Code Modulated (PCM)/Binary Frequency Shift Key (BFSK) telemetry system using a low-cost commercial Software Defined Radio (SDR). Where as traditional radio systems are implemented in hardware,much of the functionality of SDR is defined in software. This gives them the flexibility to accommodate military telemetry standards as well as other specialized functions. After a summary of previous development, new telemetry advances are described, focusing on telemetry transmitter, Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) encryption, and layered protocol design. Many of these functions were proven in a field experiment at Yuma Proving Ground, AZ in March of 2017 where data was successfully encrypted, transmitted, decoded, and processed in real-time.