Design and demonstration of a very high data rate multimedia HF communication system

This paper presents and demonstrates a system for very high data rate (about 80 kbps) multimedia transmissions over HF channels. Optimizations are proposed at various levels of the OSI/ISO protocol stack, to enable efficient use of standard multimedia and data IPv6 applications in HF, in a way that is completely transparent for the end user. A demonstration test-bed was built, in order to evaluate the performance of the proposed system, through various scenarios derived from military requirements and operational needs. Experimental results obtained during laboratory tests and on-air demonstrations campaigns are reported in the final part of the present paper.