Design of Sliding Correlator Channel Sounder for Ionospheric Channel Probing Based on Software Define Radio

Abstract

Observations of Ionosphere as a wireless channel using channel sounder method is needed to obtain the channel parameters characteristic. The Sliding Correlator Channel Sounder is known as a popular technique with low complexity and relatively low cost. Similar to the sliding correlator, Software Define Radio (SDR) device is one of the popular inexpensive platforms for implementing the system into the real world. Implementation of the sliding correlator channel sounder technique in the SDR platform will increase the ionosphere channel measurement system's advantages as an effort to obtain the dynamic of ionospheric channel characteristics. However, to guarantee the designed system able to works according to the SDR device specifications and meet the system performance targets, the optimization should be done. This paper discusses the design of a sliding correlator channel sounder system to observe the characteristics of ionosphere channels using SDR with consideration to the limitation of the hardware specification and the system performance target based on the recommendation of ionospheric channel characteristics ITU-R F.1487. Simulation and over-the-air test from the design results show that the expected system performance can be met and realized in a real-world implementation.

Compact Coplanar Waveguide Antenna Using Arm Patch for Software Defined Radio

“…One type of SDR called HackRF has an operating frequency of up to 6 GHz. SDR requires an omnidirectional antenna with a frequency of up to 6 GHz to transmit or receive signals, so the antenna frequency and specification must be appropriate for the SDR [16].…”