How Rapid is Rapid Prototyping? Analysis of ESPADON Programme Results

New methodologies, engineering processes, and support environments are beginning to emerge for embedded signal processing systems. The main objectives are to enable defence industry to field state-of-the-art products in less time and with lower costs, including retrofits and upgrades, based predominately on commercial off the shelf (COTS) components and the model-year concept. One of the cornerstones of the new methodologies is the concept of rapid prototyping. This is the ability to rapidly and seamlessly move from functional design to the architectural design to the implementation, through automatic code generation tools, onto real-time COTS test beds. In this paper, we try to quantify the term “rapid†and provide results, the metrics, from two independent benchmarks, a radar and sonar beamforming application subset. The metrics show that the rapid prototyping process may be sixteen times faster than a conventional process

Millimeter-wave soldier-to-soldier communications for covert battlefield operations

Mobile ad hoc networking of dismounted combat personnel is expected to play an important role in the future of network-centric operations. High-speed, short-range, soldier-to-soldier wireless communications will be required to relay information on situational awareness, tactical instructions, and covert surveillance related data during special operations reconnaissance and other missions. This article presents some of the work commissioned by the U.K. Ministry of Defence to assess the feasibility of using 60 GHz millimeter-wave smart antenna technology to provide covert communications capable of meeting these stringent networking needs. Recent advances in RF front-end technology, alongside physical layer transmission schemes that could be employed in millimeter-wave soldier- mounted radio, are discussed. The introduction of covert communications between soldiers will require the development of a bespoke directive medium access layer. A number of adjustments to the IEEE 802.11 distribution coordination function that will enable directional communications are suggested. The successful implementation of future smart antenna technologies and direction of arrivalbased protocols will be highly dependent on thorough knowledge of transmission channel characteristics prior to deployment. A novel approach to simulating dynamic soldier-to-soldier signal propagation using state-of-the-art animation-based technology developed for computer game design is described, and important channel metrics such as root mean square angle and delay spread for a team of four networked infantry soldiers over a range of indoor and outdoor environments is reported

Simulation of Millimetre-Wave Channels for Short-Range Body to Body Communications

Operating short-range body centric communications at millimetre-wave frequencies will offer a number of key benefits, most notably high data rates potentially in excess of 2 Gb/s. However, development of compact, portable, bodyworn channel sounding equipment presents significant challenges at these frequencies. As an alternative method to characterizing channel conditions for millimetre-wave applications, we present the steps taken to simulate body centric channels using animation software and a ray tracing algorithm. Using soldierto- soldier communications as an example, a number of important channel metrics such as root mean square angle and delay spread are investigated

Design Space Exploration Approach for Reconfigurable Platforms

Computing technology is quickly becoming a fundamental part of many commodity goods. While the demands for bigger and faster machines continue, a new wave of computing revolution is emerging: embedded computing. Previously, industry tailored applications to meet the capabilities of technologies, but now the time has come that technologies need to be tailored for applications. At the same time, the range of demands (e.g. power, dependability, cost etc.) have continued to grow. To best support these demands requires technologies that work across and correctly balance the different demands. A perceived weakness in the embedded real-time systems community is a shortage of events that cover multi-disciplinary topics such as control and scheduling, and hardware software co-design. The aims of this workshop are to: • identify other relevant cross-disciplinary topics to embedde