Many industries are turning to wireless communication systems to track their assets. One example of such an industry is the shipping industry, where — under the growing emphasis on homeland security — tracking cargo containers and their contents has become a high priority. There are several beacons on the commercial market that will meet this need if the required beacon does not need to be independently powered or to have global coverage. This thesis attempts to find a design solution for a beacon that transmits location data, is battery powered, and has world-wide coverage. The beacon is intended to be a low power, transmit only device, and the receiver will not be designed to operate in real-time. Several communication systems were evaluated on these conditions, and the Globalstar Satellite System was selected to use as the communication system for the beacon. The Globalstar Satellite System is a low earth orbiting (LEO) satellite system and uses Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) to allocate system resources to the maximum number of users possible. Discussions of spread spectrum techniques and theory, Rake receivers, and error correction codes are included as a background for the design. This thesis examines the initial steps in the design of the transmitter beacon and aims to determine the minimum required beacon transmit power for good receiver performance. A portion of the correlator in the Globalstar receiver is simulated for several scenarios: a single user case with varying transmit power, and a multiple user case with fixed transmit power. Although not likely to occur, the single user case was used to baseline system performance and to verify the multi-user case results. The simulated correlator employed a parallel search strategy and used a truncated version of the Globalstar system code sequence. Finally, a threshold analysis was performed to determine if better receiver performance could be obtained. / Master of Science

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Atualmente tem aumentando o interesse na aplicação de sistemas caóticos no âmbito das telecomunicações. Esses sistemas apresentam certas peculiaridades, como geração de sinais com amplo espectro de freqüências e baixa correlação cruzada, o que os tornam altamente robustos para aplicação em esquemas de modulação caótica. Dentre tais esquemas, há aqueles em que a detecção é realizada utilizando alguma técnica de sincronismo. Neste trabalho, um circuito caótico é apresentado e sua performance é analisada. As técnicas de sincronismo Pecora-Carroll e sincronização por realimentação de erro são aplicadas ao circuito caótico apresentado. Utilizando este circuito caótico, são sugeridas as seguintes aplicações: um cifrador caótico e um sistema análogo ao spread spectrum. Os dois sistemas são implementados eletronicamente. Além disso, a avaliação da performance de cada sistema é realizada com o auxílio da técnica do diagrama de olho. / Nowadays it is increasing the interest in the application of the chaotic systems in the ambit of the telecommunications. These systems introduce some peculiarities, such as generation of wideband signals with low crosscorrelation, those characteristics make the systems strongly robust to application on chaotic modulation schemes. Among such schemes, there are ones where the detection is realized using techniques of synchronization. In this work, a chaotic circuit is introduced and its performance is evaluated. The Pecora-Carroll synchronization and error-feedback synchronization are applied on the chaotic circuit introduced. Using this chaotic circuit, the following applications are suggested: a chaotic cipher and a spread spectrum system. The two systems are implemented electronically. Besides, the performance of each system is evaluated using the eye pattern technique.

As the size and power consumption of microelectronic circuits continues to decrease, passively-powered sensors promise to come to the forefront of commercial electronics. One of the most promising technologies that could realize this goal is backscatter sensing. Backscatter sensors could harvest power from and modulate data onto an impinging carrier waveform. Currently radio frequency identification (RFID) technology passively powers itself and transmits statically stored data. However, this technology has two major weaknesses: lack of resiliency against narrowband interference and slow data rates. Both of these issues could be detrimental in sensing applications. This thesis will lay out a method for addressing both of these weaknesses through a unique application of spread spectrum encoding. Instead of spread spectrum being viewed as the multiplication of an already encoded data sequence with a periodic pseudorandom sequence, each sequence could be viewed in an aperiodic manner, where a single period of a pseudorandom sequence represents a data symbol. In this manner, backscatter sensors not only benefit from the increased resiliency that spread spectrum provides, but also can have higher data rates, since multiple bits can be encoded on a single symbol and multiple nodes can be read simultaneously, using spread spectrum multiple access techniques. In this thesis, 63-chip and 255-chip Kasami sequences, as well as 127-chip Gold sequences, will be analyzed for their use in various aperiodic direct sequence spread spectrum/multiple access system configurations (systems that have up to three nodes and use up to four different aperiodic sequences per node to represent different symbols). For each different configuration, near-"ideal" code configurations/rotations will be determined for use in the system.

Atualmente tem aumentando o interesse na aplicação de sistemas caóticos no âmbito das telecomunicações. Esses sistemas apresentam certas peculiaridades, como geração de sinais com amplo espectro de freqüências e baixa correlação cruzada, o que os tornam altamente robustos para aplicação em esquemas de modulação caótica. Dentre tais esquemas, há aqueles em que a detecção é realizada utilizando alguma técnica de sincronismo. Neste trabalho, um circuito caótico é apresentado e sua performance é analisada. As técnicas de sincronismo Pecora-Carroll e sincronização por realimentação de erro são aplicadas ao circuito caótico apresentado. Utilizando este circuito caótico, são sugeridas as seguintes aplicações: um cifrador caótico e um sistema análogo ao spread spectrum. Os dois sistemas são implementados eletronicamente. Além disso, a avaliação da performance de cada sistema é realizada com o auxílio da técnica do diagrama de olho. / Nowadays it is increasing the interest in the application of the chaotic systems in the ambit of the telecommunications. These systems introduce some peculiarities, such as generation of wideband signals with low crosscorrelation, those characteristics make the systems strongly robust to application on chaotic modulation schemes. Among such schemes, there are ones where the detection is realized using techniques of synchronization. In this work, a chaotic circuit is introduced and its performance is evaluated. The Pecora-Carroll synchronization and error-feedback synchronization are applied on the chaotic circuit introduced. Using this chaotic circuit, the following applications are suggested: a chaotic cipher and a spread spectrum system. The two systems are implemented electronically. Besides, the performance of each system is evaluated using the eye pattern technique.

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 26-29, 1998 / Town & Country Resort Hotel and Convention Center, San Diego, California / This paper analyzes the pseudo-random characteristic of m-sequence and proposes a spread spectrum communication scheme in which the phase-shifting sequences of msequence can be used as the spread spectrum code under given condition. Therefore, the available spread spectrum code set is expanded. It is theoretically proved that there are some advantages in using phase-shifting sequences instead of the conventional msequences or GOLD-sequences in spread spectrum communication system.

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 27-30, 1997 / Riviera Hotel and Convention Center, Las Vegas, Nevada / A parallel multi-channel receiver for binary phase shift keyed (BPSK) direct-sequence (DS) spread-spectrum (SS) is introduced in this paper. It adopts a Costas carrier frequency-tracking loop which maintains frequency lock rather than phase lock, and the delay-lock error can be noncoherently obtained to track the PN code. For airborne applications, this method will extend effectively the receiver’s tracking dynamics range for the carrier Doppler shift. A erasable programmable logic device (EPLD) is applied to get the advantage of smaller size and higher flexibility. A high speed microprocessor (TMS320C30) which acts as the processing unit of the receiver is used for acquiring and tracking of the carrier and PN code by digital signal processing algorithms. This receiver is more flexible and is easily improved by reconfiguring the EPLD and modifying the software algorithms. Its fundamental principle is described in the paper.

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 27-30, 1997 / Riviera Hotel and Convention Center, Las Vegas, Nevada / This paper analyzes the performance of an M-ary spread spectrum system with orthogonal codes. A new scheme of M-ary spread spectrum communication with phase shifted msequence is proposed, and the method to implement code synchronization in the scheme is given. The performance of the new scheme is analyzed, and compared to conventional spread spectrum systems and orthogonal code M-ary systems. The results show that stronger anti-interference ability, and better data transmission efficiency, and lower complexity is achieved in the system employing phase shifted m-sequence.

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 23-26, 2000 / Town & Country Hotel and Conference Center, San Diego, California / The Advanced SubMiniature Telemetry System (ASMT) with Wireless Sensor extension is an ambitious program aimed at incorporating modern wireless system and electronic design methods into a two way, miniature, low cost, modular, and completely software controlled wireless data acquisition system. The program was conceived and is sponsored by the U.S. Air Force SEEK EAGLE Office as a means of both lowering test cost and increasing test effectiveness. This article shall present the fundamental system design challenges of the program and how modern design methods can provide a new standard of cost effectiveness, mission capability, and high spectral efficiency.

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 23-26, 2000 / Town & Country Hotel and Conference Center, San Diego, California / In performing its mission, the Air Force SEEK EAGLE Office (AFSEO) conducts a wide variety of tests with heavy emphasis on open-air flight tests. As budget pressures drive a reduction in the number of test sorties, maximizing the amount of quality data from each flight test is of paramount importance. This paper describes an AFSEO effort to develop a low cost, intelligent, subminiature telemetry and sensor system based on modern commercial wireless technologies. The instrumentation system is completely self-contained and can be externally mounted, thus eliminating the requirement for extensive aircraft modifications and minimizing the need for specially instrumented test aircraft. The system will make maximum use of Commercial Off The Shelf (COTS) components to reduce cost and insure availability. MicroElectroMechanical Systems (MEMS) technology will be incorporated as the technology matures.