Software Defined Radio (SDR) is an emerging wireless technology which allows an electronic device equipped with a radio chip to be remotely reconfigurable to perform new functions via software downloads. With SDR, instead of having an expensive multifunction device, your cheap cellphone would automatically morph into a camera or an MP3 player. NASA wants to use this technology to reconfigure its satellites on the fly to perform new tasks. And its engineers have already built an SDR testbed allowing the quick development of new navigation algorithms. These new communication scheme could be used within 3 to 5 years in SDR-enabled space missions. Read more.
For example, imagine the benefits for a mission such as NASA's A-Train: below is an illustration showing the satellites of NASA's A-Train formation.
A group of satellites could efficiently communicate directly with SDR, rather than using ground stations and uplinks. The A-train, shown above, is a constellation of 5 satellites that will collect complimentary data, and is an example of a network that would benefit from SDR technology. (Credit: Alex McClung, NASA).
[For more information about this 'train' of satellites and details about individual ones, you can read a previous story, "'Take the A-Train', from NASA."]
Please read the NASA's article if you want to know more about the technology and let's focus here about NASA's plans.
Researchers at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., are so enthusiastic about SDR that they have recently built an SDR test-bed — providing the necessary foundation for investigating SDR technologies and techniques. This test-bed allows for the rapid, low-cost development of communication and navigation algorithms that will be used in upcoming technology experiments, and eventually, in missions. engineers could reconfigure future SDR-enabled NASA missions at will, allowing formerly independent satellites to be linked and give a more complete picture of a unique scientific event. In other applications, two satellites could interact and share information, or an older satellite could be updated with a new function and mission, extending its life and usefulness.
If we did not have such a thing as an airplane today, we would probably create something the size of nasa to make one.
—H. Ross Perot (b. 1930)
And when will this happen? Surprisingly, in a very near future.
"Many of our current satellites were developed with a fixed set of data rates and modulations, so they can only talk to the ground or the space network," Jason Soloff, an SDR technologist. "SDR would allow us to switch between a ground network and a space network with simple uploads, making the satellite or instrument much more flexible."
"The first true SDR components should make spaceflights within the next 3 to 5 years," said Soloff — around the same time experts believe that everyday devices could start becoming SDR-enabled.
For more information about Software Defined Radio, you can visit these pages about SDR for NASA and a SDR definition.
Sources: Katie Lorentz, NASA's Langley Research Center, June 24, 2005; and various web sites
Related stories can be found in the following categories.
Chips
NASA
Software
Space
Wireless.