INESC TEC makes communications in Space more efficient

Cognitive radio is a wireless form of communication where the transceiver can detect, in an intelligent way. The channels that are being used and those that are not, making it possible to immediately use the vacant channels. Involving INESC TEC’s Telecommunications and Multimedia Centre (CTM), the project will analyse, develop, implement and test cognitive radio algorithms. The innovative element in SCREEN is, however, the implementation and testing component. Even though some of the basic technologies for the project’s initial elements are not new, incorporating all the stages of a radio transmitter in a radio transceiver has never been done to the full extent of a cognitive and not adaptive system.

The key-enabling technology for cognitive radio is Software-Defined Radio (SDR) and provides the necessary flexibility to reconfigure the communication parameters in an autonomous way and without having to change the transmitter’s hardware. Other than INESC TEC, the consortium, which includes Tekever ASDS (coordinator, Portugal), Munich Innovation Group GmbH (Germany) and Avanti Communications Ltd (United Kingdom), will be using SDR technology for implementation and testing.

Ultimately, the project approach will use the research results which have been achieved so far with cognitive radio in the terrestrial component at all levels (technological, market and regulatory, and capitalise the work done in previous projects, avoiding unnecessary duplication of efforts. The target spectrum band for this project is S-band, which is unexplored and has a strong potential for future niche applications in multi-satellite missions. The goal is to improve the performance, efficiency and versatility of space communications.

INESC TEC will be responsible for developing spectrum analysis techniques, simulating and implementing cognitive radio algorithms, conducting laboratory tests, and disseminating the project. The CTM team involved in the project is composed of Henrique Salgado, Luís Pessoa, João Canas Ferreira and José Machado da Silva.

The INESC TEC researchers mentioned in this article are associated with the following partner institutions: INESC Porto and FEUP.