MDR/Omni-Band Reconfigurable Terminal: Data Packet Specification

摘要

In 1997, Defence Research Establishment Ottawa and Communications Research Centre started research into an omni-band reconfigurable terminal. Such a terminal will enable soldiers to use a single terminal to communicate over any satellite communications or terrestrial link. Each terminal will support multiple standards and the first one to be implemented will be extremely high frequency medium data rate communications. Development begins with two hardware simulators: the payload simulator and the ground terminal simulator. Each simulator has a PC-based host to run the simulator, a digital chassis containing several digital signal processor boards to run the payload or terminal, and a radio frequency chassis to interface to the digital boards. Within the simulators, specifically on the digital signal processor boards, it is desirable to have a common data format for interchange between modules to simplify interfacing and reconfiguration. This document contains the data packet format, data packet validation, description of the minimum implementation, expansion capabilities, coding excerpts and, the listing of necessary definitions for coding. The requirements of flexibility, simplicity and future expandability drove the design of the data packets. Since the data packet design precedes the detailed system design, future expandability was a key requirement. The data packet consists of a variable length header and a variable length data area. The header includes the details of the data storage as well as information about the data source and destination. There is sufficient versatility in the specification to allow the data packet to be used for all known intermodule data, and for new requirements.