The thesis deal with possibility of localization of avalanche victims. Main focus is for RF avalanche beacons. The major objects of this thesis are design and construction of this device. A large part of thesis describes design of avalanche beacon and particular steps of realization. The design take into account the compatibility with commercial beacons. The paramters of designed device are verified by testing and measurement.

Classical Molecular Dynamics simulation (MD) models the interactions of thousands to millions of particles through the iterative application of basic Physics. MD is one of the core methods in High Performance Computing (HPC). While MD is critical to many high-profile applications, e.g. drug discovery and design, it suffers from the strong scaling problem, that is, while large computer systems can efficiently model large ensembles of particles, it is extremely challenging for {\it any} computer system to increase the timescale, even for small ensembles. This strong scaling problem can be mitigated with low-latency, direct communication. Of all Commercial Off the Shelf (COTS) Integrated Circuits (ICs), Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) are the computational component uniquely applicable here: they have unmatched parallel communication capability both within the chip and externally to couple clusters of FPGAs. This thesis focuses on the acceleration of the long range (LR) force, the part of MD most difficult to scale, by using FPGAs. This thesis first optimizes LR acceleration on a single-FPGA to eliminate the amount of on-chip communication required to complete a single LR computation iteration while maintaining as much parallelism as possible. This is achieved by designing around application specific memory architectures. Doing so introduces data movement issues overcome by pipelined, toroidal-shift multiplexing (MUXing) and pipelined staggering of memory access subsets. This design is then evaluated comprehensively and comparatively, deriving equations for performance and resource consumption and drawing metrics from previously developed LR hardware designs. Using this single-FPGA LR architecture as a base, FPGA network strategies to compute the LR portion of larger sized MD problems are then theorized and analyzed.

In this thesis, we present the design and implementation of a CubeSat receiver system using the Universal Software Radio Peripheral (USRP) and GNU Radio. The goal of this project is to develop a low-cost and flexible ground station capable of receiving telemetry and payload data from CubeSats in real time. The CubeSat receiver operates in the UHF frequency range with a center frequency of 435 MHz and uses a software-defined radio (SDR) approach to provide wideband signal processing and demodulation capabilities. The satellite transceiver transmits an Ax.25 Transciever packet every 1 second using the Pumpkin CubeSat kit programmed in MPLab. To achieve this goal, we discuss the design considerations for the receiver system, including the selection of suitable hardware components and the development of custom software blocks in GNU Radio. We also developed the GFSK-based transmitter and receiver in GNU Radio, as well as a tracking system for the satellite. To decode the Ax.25 radio packet transmitted by the Pumpkin CubeSat kit, we developed an Ax.25 deframer in GNU Radio to decode the received signal. Our results demonstrate that the CubeSat receiver is capable of receiving and demodulating AX.25 formatted radio signals from Transciever. Additionally, we show that the receiver system is scalable and can be easily adapted for use with other CubeSat missions. Overall, our work provides a practical solution for CubeSat communication and lays the groundwork for future developments in low-cost CubeSat ground station technology.

Due to the advancement in technology and the increase in the amount of data beingtransferred through wireless channels, many developments in the techniques and speedof data transfer have been observed in the past few decades. The current trend incellular technology is transforming from 4G to 5G. So, to meet future requirements,it is highly necessary to have further improvements in technology like modulationtechniques, Channel access methods, etc. Many top research institutes around the worldare investing heavily in research and development of 5G.Radio waves have been used for a very long time in mobile phone communication,but providers are experimenting with broadcasting on millimeter waves which usehigher frequencies ranging from 6GHz to 300GHz. Data characteristics like power,SNR, interference, etc. need to be evaluated for these high frequencies. As 5G is still ininitial phases of development, there are not many testing tools to check and evaluateits performance. A testbed is a testing tool which is used for conducting rigorous,transparent, and replicable testing, experimenting and evaluating the performance ofthese propagated data at these high frequencies.The thesis work evaluates the implementation structures of the 5G testbed @15GHzand its performance in indoor and outdoor scenarios. It also talks about the methods ofsignal generation through Matlab and it’s transmission at 15GHz using Xilinx FPGAand Analog devices’ FMCOMMS5 transceiver. This data is then transmitted andreceived by patch antennas provided by Ericsson AB. Various techniques were used inorder to improve the signal, like using RF hardware components and software modules.Different channel sounding techniques were used in order to achieve the synchronizationbetween the transmitter and the receiver node in order to measure the properties ofthe channel. All of the experiments were performed by implementing a single-inputsingle-output system (SISO) module of the 5G testbed. This SISO system can be easilytransformed into a multiple-input-multiple-output system (MIMO) by replicating theoriginal SISO system.The result shares some interesting findings on the readiness of the 5G testbed for aiiiivbetter understanding of the future technology. It is concluded that this testbed providessomewhat a reliable platform to test the performance of the 5G technology. / Tack vare teknikutveckling och ökning i mängden data som sänds trådlöst, hardatatakterna ökat enormt under de senaste decennierna. Den senaste trended inomtrådlös kommunikationärövergången från 4G till 5G. För att möte framtida krav,finns det därför behov av ytterligare teknologiutveckling, t ex i modulationstekniker och kanalaccessmetoder. Många forskningsinstitut runt om i världen investerar därför i forskning och utveckling av 5G.Radiovågor har använts under väldigt lång tid för mobil kommunikation, men tillverkare och operatörer experimenterar med sändningar i millimetervågsområdet, som använder högre frekvenser i området från 6GHz till 300GHz. Egenskaper såsom effektdämpning, SNR, interferens, osv, behöver utvärderas för dessa högre frekvenser. Eftersom utvecklingen av 5G fortfarande är i en tidig fas, finns inte så många testverktygtillgängliga för prestandautvärdering. En testbädd är ett testverktyg som användsför att utföra rigorös, transparent och upprepningsbar testning, experimentering och prestandautvärdering av data som har sänts vid dessa höga frekvenser.Denna rapport utvärderar implementationsstrukturer för en 5G-testbädd vid 15GHz,och dess prestanda i inomoch utomhusscenarier. Den beskriver även metoder försignalgenerering via Matlab och sändning vid 15GHz mha Xilinx FPGA och Analog devices’ FMCOMMS5 radiomoduler. Signalen sänds sedan via patch-antenner från Ericsson AB. Olika metoder användes för att förbättra signalen, både med radiofrekvens hårdvara och mjukvarumoduler. Olika kanalmätningsmetoder har använts för att nå synkronisering mellan sändaroch mottagarnoderna, för att mäta kanalegenskaper. Alla experimenten utfördes genom att implementera en SISO-modul (en sändarresp. mottagarantenn) av 5G-testbädden. Detta SISO-system kan enkelt utökas till ett MIMO system (flera sändaroch mottagarantenner) genom att replikera SISO-systemet.Resultaten visar att 5G-testbädden är redo att användas för att nå bättre förståelse av framtida teknologin. Slutsatsen är att testbädden erbjuder en tämligen påliglig plattformför att utvärdera prestanda för 5G-teknologi.

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Advanced achievements in the area of RF circuit design led to a significant increase in availability of wireless communications in everyday life. However, the rapid growth in utilizing the RF equipment has brought several challenges in different aspects of RF circuit design. This has been motivating researchers to introduce solution to cope with these challenges and further improve the performance of the RF circuits. In this dissertation, we focus on the improvements in three aspects of the circuit design. High temperature and temperature compensated transmitter design, ultra-low phase noise signal generators, and compact and low complexity polar transmitter design. Increase in the ambient temperature can impact the performance of the entire communication system. However, the RF hardware is main part of the system that is under the impact of the temperature variations in which it can change the characteristics of the individual building blocks of the RF chain. Moreover, transistors are the main elements in the circuit whose performance variation must be consider when the design target is compensating the temperature effects. The influence of the temperature variation is studied on the transistors and the building blocks in order to find the most effective approaches to compensate these variations and stabilize the performance of the RF chain at temperatures up to 220 C. A temperature sensor is designed to sense these variations and adjust the characteristics of the circuit components (e.g. bias voltages), accordingly. Further, a new variable gain phase shifter (VGPS) architecture is introduced toward minimizing the temperature impact on its performance in a phased-array transmitter architecture. Finally, a power amplifier as the last stage in a transmitter chain is designed and the variation in its performance with temperature is compensated through the VGPS stage. The transmitter is prototyped to evaluate its performance in practice. Another contribution of this dissertation is to introduce a novel voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO) structure to reduce the phase noise level below state-of-the-art. The noise to phase noise mechanism in the introduced doubly tuned oscillator is studied using linear time-variant (LTV) theory to identify the dominant noise sources and either eliminate or suppress these noise sources by introducing effective mechanism such as impedance scaling. The designed VCO is fabricated and measurement results are carried out that justified the accuracy of the analyses and effectiveness of the introduced design approach. Lastly, we introduce a compact and simple polar transmitter architecture. This type of transmitters was firstly proposed to overcome the serious shortcomings in the IQ transmitters, such as IQ imbalance and carrier leakage. However, there is still several challenges in their design. We introduce a transmitter architecture that operates based on charge to phase translation mechanism in the oscillator. This leads to significantly reduction in the design complexity, die area, and power dissipation. Further, it eliminates a number of serious issues in the design such as sampling rate of the DACs. comprehensive post-layout simulations were also performed to evaluate its performance. / Doctor of Philosophy / To keep up with the ever-growing demand for exchanging information through a radio frequency (RF) wireless network, the specification of the communication hardware (i.e. transmitter and receiver) must be improved as the bottleneck of the system. This has been motivating engineers to introduce new and efficient approaches toward this goal. In this dissertation however, we study three aspects of the circuit design. First, variation in the ambient temperature can significantly degrade the performance of the communication system. Therefore, we study these variations on the performance of the transmitter at high temperature (i.e. above 200 C). Then, the temperature compensation approaches are introduced to minimize the impact of the temperature changes. The effectiveness of the introduced techniques are validated through measurements of the prototyped transmitter. Second, signal generators (i.e. oscillators) are the inseparable blocks of the transmitters. Phase noise is one of the most important specifications of the oscillators that can directly be translated to the quality and data rate of the communication. A new oscillator structure targeting ultra-low phase noise is introduced in the second part of this dissertation. The designed oscillator is fabricated and measured to evaluate its performance. Finally, a new polar transmitter architecture for low power applications is introduced. The transmitter offers design simplicity and compact size compared to other polar transmitter architectures while high performance.

Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) networks are receiving increasing attention in the open-source community. Open-source software allows for deployment of a mobile cellular network with lower costs, more customization, and scalable control. Two popular projects have emerged that offer varying network architectures and allow users to implement a GSM network in different capacities depending on individual needs. Osmocom provides more network control and scalability but requires commercial Base Transceiver Station (BTS) hardware with limited availability and closed source code. OpenBTS provides minimal GSM network functionality with more easily available and open-source hardware; however, it does not allow multi-cellular network configuration. This thesis offers a significant contribution towards a fully open-source GSM network by integrating the two major open-source communities, Osmocom and OpenBTS. Specifically, the Osmo-USRP program provides an inter-layer interface between the different network architectures of two GSM base station projects. Inter-layer primitive messages are processed in a thread multiplexer that manages logical channels across the interface. Downstream flow control is implemented in order to receive data frames on time for transmitting at the appropriate GSM frame number (FN). Uplink measurements, which are necessary for decision making in the Base Station Controller (BSC), are also gathered in the physical layer of Osmo-USRP and reported to Osmocom. Osmo-USRP operation is tested using a Universal Software Radio Peripheral (USRP), a relatively inexpensive and accessible Software-Defined Radio (SDR). Standard GSM events are investigated for single cell and multi-cellular network configurations. These tests include subscriber authentication and encryption, location updating, International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMSI) attach and detach, Short Message Service (SMS) storage and delivery, voice calls with the full-rate audio codec, and uplink and downlink measurement reporting. While most functionality is successfully tested, inter-cell handover is not currently implemented. Further details on the proposed implementation of program limitations, especially inter-cell handover, are also discussed. / Master of Science

Wireless body area networks (WBANs) have tremendous potential to benefit from wireless communication technology and are expected to make sweeping changes in the future human health care and medical fields. While the prospects for WBAN products are high, meeting required device performance with a meager amount of power consumption poses significant design challenges. In order to address these issues, IEEE has recently developed a draft of IEEE 802.15.6 standard dedicated to low bit-rate short-range wireless communications on, in, or around the human body. Commercially available SoC (System-on-Chip) devices targeted for WBAN applications typically embed proprietary wireless transceivers. However, those devices usually do not meet the quality of service (QoS), low power, and/or noninterference necessary for WBAN applications, nor meet the IEEE standard specifications. This dissertation presents a design of low-power RF front-end conforming to the IEEE standard in Medical Communication Service (MICS) band of 402-405 MHz. First, we investigated IEEE 802.15.6 PHY specifications for narrow band WBAN applications. System performance analysis and simulation for an AWGN (additive white Gaussian noise) channel was conducted to obtain the BER (bit error rate) and the PER (packet error rate) as the figure of merit. Based on the system performance study, the link budget was derived as a groundwork for our RF front-end design. Next, we examined candidate RF front-end architectures suitable for MICS applications. Based on our study, we proposed to adopt a direct conversion transmitter and a low-IF receiver architecture for the RF front-end. An asynchronous wake-up receiver was also proposed, which is composed of a carrier sensing circuit and a serial code detector. Third, we proposed and implemented low-power building blocks of the proposed RF front-end. Two quadrature signal generation techniques were proposed and implemented for generation of quadrature frequency sources. The two quadrature voltage controlled oscillators (QVCOs) were designed using our proposed current-reuse VCO with two damping resistors. A stacked LNA and a down-conversion mixer were proposed for low supply and low power operation for the receiver front-end. A driver amplifier and an up-conversion mixer for the transmitter front-end were implemented. The proposed driver amplifier uses cascaded PMOS transistors to minimize the Miller effect and enhance the input/output isolation. The up-conversion mixer is based on a Gilbert cell with resistive loads. Simulation results and performance comparisons for each designed building block are presented. Finally, we present a case study on a direct VCO modulation transmitter and a super-regenerative receiver, which can also be suitable for an MICS transceiver. Several crucial building blocks including a digitally-controlled oscillator (DCO) and quench signal generators are proposed and implemented with a small number of external components. / Ph. D.

Robust communication is required to provide a safe airspace for the large numbers of unmanned aerial systems that are coming to the National Airspace System (NAS). This thesis explores methods for providing robust communication to large numbers of vehicles in the NAS. Automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast (ASD-B) is a transmission system that can transmit to and is currently required on all manned aircraft. Unfortunately, ADS-B suffers connectivity problems when supporting large numbers of unmanned aerial systems (UAS). The 5G Cellular protocol can support large numbers of UAS, but connectivity suffers with an increase in distance and interference. Using a 5G cellular and an ADS-B simulator we evaluate the advantages of a combined ADS-B and 5G Cellular transmission system compared to a 5G or ADS-B exclusive system. We also offer hybrid system recommendations that clarify the appropriate operation strategies or triggers that should prompt transitions between transmission systems in different environmental situations. The simulation results show message success and vehicle collision rates, with each messaging method investigated to show the case for a combined communication system. This study shows that a hybrid transmission system is a possible communication solution for UAS operating in beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) environments.

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 21, 2002 / Town & Country Hotel and Conference Center, San Diego, California / This paper presents work being done at NASA/GSFC by the Operating Missions as Nodes on the Internet (OMNI) project to demonstrate the application of Internet communication technologies to space communication. The goal is to provide global addressability and standard network protocols and applications for future space missions. It describes the communication architecture and operations concepts that will be deployed and tested on a Space Shuttle flight in July 2002. This is a NASA Hitchhiker mission called Communication and Navigation Demonstration On Shuttle (CANDOS). The mission will be using a small programmable transceiver mounted in the Shuttle bay that can communicate through NASA’s ground tracking stations as well as NASA’s space relay satellite system. The transceiver includes a processor running the Linux operating system and a standard synchronous serial interface that supports the High-level Data Link Control (HDLC) framing protocol. One of the main goals will be to test the operation of the Mobile IP protocol (RFC 2002) for automatic routing of data as the Shuttle passes from one contact to another. Other protocols to be utilized onboard CANDOS include secure login (SSH), UDP-based reliable file transfer (MDP), and blind commanding using UDP. The paper describes how each of these standard protocols available in the Linux operating system can be used to support communication with a space vehicle. It will discuss how each protocol is suited to support the range of special communication needs of space missions.