Multi-Function Highband Software Radio with Digital Transceivers

In this paper we describe modular hardware architecture for a mobile ad hoc networking software defined radio that is waveform protocol agnostic. The present plan for the current hardware is to host at least two different waveforms - terrestrial/airborne and SATCOM, but the architecture is extensible for many more waveforms. The waveforms are hosted on a Highband Digital Transceiver (HDT), which provides three processing engines. Two of the engines are Modified-Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (MOTS) compute engines. The remaining engine is a three field programmable gate array (FPGA) signal processor, one general purpose processor (GPP), 1 Gbps Ethernet input, 10 Gbps Ethernet output, reduced latency resident memory, fiber optic connected modular platform. All three engines are housed in a custom enclosure that inserts into a JTRS-like form factor vehicle adaptor. The HDT is a programmable device that can be configured through appropriate software loading to support the core waveforms such as the High-band Networking Waveform (HNW - terrestrial/airborne) and the Network Centric Waveform (NCW - SATCOM). An HDT's purpose is to provide part of the physical layer (PHY), media access control layer (MAC), and network layer (NET) processing for the terrestrial/airborne and SATCOM waveforms.