BRINGING M2M + AI INTO HF & U/VHF SECTOR ACROSS EAST AFRICA

I have been working on a system that had me travel both in some parts of north coast and back again in eastern parts of Kenya. Long distance Beyond Line of Site (BLOS) radio channels have taught me that they are subjected to high levels of distortion and interference. The project involved learning and

collecting lots of data and is universally known, data applications often require reliable communications to assure that data is delivered if possible and to notify the sender if delivery is not possible. The first challenge I encountered was in my mother country, VHF spectrum is yet to be harmonized (I welcome any different opinion on this from CAK) for M2M applications. I however think access to VHF frequencies could help stimulate the right environment for innovation both in my country and across the East African region.

This impede made me revert to using one of the many MVA techniques and some bands which could use IoT services and M2M applications to enable reliable end-to-end data communication over HF and V/UHF radio. I also used IE on the other hand to effectively track data transferred between the five radio stations I was working on. The receiving station finally acknowledged all successfully received packets and requested the sender to repeat lost packets.

I first had to design my solution to be used in conjunction with RapidM high performance HF and V/UHF data modems. The automatic Data Rate Change (DRC) algorithm continuously assesses and adjust the modem data rate to optimize throughput in the current channel conditions. There is still a lot I need to do to have it run independently to support services and applications being engineered almost daily. With these covid19 restrictions, I suppose ill have all the time to delve deeper into more research and consult with my senior engineers for a final commercial solution in coming months.

IE and MVA can be integrated with a customer’s or system integrator’s own computer software. At the present moment, my solution is available for Windows and Linux to the mobile radio channel partners we have within the region and is suitable for strategic, military, naval and industrial applications requiring reliable data transfer via HF or V/UHF radio.

The solution offers the following application specific interface clients in addition to what the client’s software offers:

·         IP Data IP Client

·         HF Wireless Token Ring Protocol (WTRP)

Integration with existing management systems is simple using the status and statistics monitoring via the XML/TCP/IP interface. As I await AK and the ministry of IT to revise these evolving technologies, I wish to have achieved a better solution that what I currently have; a flexible, simple to apply for, relatively in-expensive solution that will be best suited to work with a wide range of narrow band, low data rate IoT services and M2M applications.

 

                                                                                                               Author:Samwel Kariuki

                                                                                                                     date:24th July 2020