| Abstract: | This paper describes the development of a laboratory test unit that implements a new Type I/II ARQ scheme for use on a land mobile forward satellite link. Investigation of channel characteristics showed that it was possible to use convolutional coding to combat random errors, but it was also necessary to employ an ARQ scheme in order to overcome fades due to signal blockage. The hardware development used commercial 68000-based VME cards as well as special-purpose cards to perform the functions of Viterbi decoding and packet synchronization. Results are presented for the hardware operating with Gaussian noise as time limitations excluded the use of satellite fading simulation. In order to ensure a high degree of data integrity error detection was applied to the data packets such that a residual error rate of less than 10?11 should result. This was not able to be verified due to the limited time. However, long term tests did indicate that an error rate less than 10?8 was achieved. |
