Practical Demonstration of a Low Cost - Long Range - Packet Radio over 700 MHz Spectral Region
Abstract
This report serves as the milestone nine as defined in the project: "Asymmetric Threat Mitigation in the Great Lakes, St. Lawrence Seaway and Maritime Ports and Inshore Waters." It documents practical field experimentation on the construction of a simple packet radio that operates over long distances and uses existing Wi-Fi technology. The work innovates by using Wi-Fi constrained to 5 MHz bandwidth over 700 MHz licensed spectral allocation, organized in a multi-hop mode as opposed to point-to-point or point-multipoint fashion. This allows for a possible expansion towards a true mesh network for long-distance packet radio. The system built connects CRC, via cameras, with two other sites: one 22 km to the east, and the other 7 km to the west. The radio is energy efficient and transmits around 1.5 Mbps with powers below 400 mW while consuming less than 7 W to operate each node. In remote locations it could operate with a solar panel. CRC's work is useful because it helps answer the question: what is the lowest price and simplest system one can possibly assemble for a certain minimum broadband performance? By modifying off-the-shelf Wi-Fi equipment this experiment was assembled for roughly $600. While this low-cost surveillance solution is not a production model, but a research model, it well serves as a platform for further research on many related topics such as: bit-rate performance of multi-hop systems versus number of hops; system capacity issues in multi-hop and mesh radio configurations; RF interference effects on the effective bit rate performance; multi-hop with frequency re-use; studies on the effect of antenna mutual coupling per hop node and antenna polarization diversity applied in the wireless access nodes.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Oct 01, 2012
- Accession Number
- ADA574201
Entities
People
- Andre L. Brandao
Organizations
- Communications Research Centre Canada