SFU Wireless Communications Standards and Systems R&D

1. SFU Wireless Communications Standards and Systems R&D Results from a Decade of Planetary Analogue Exploration Studies and Ongoing R&D with Partners Steve Braham, Director, PolyLAB, Simon Fraser University Telematics Research Laboratory Contact: sbraham@sfu.ca

2. SFU Study-Derived Surface Exploration Communications Requirements • Meeting the communications and data requirements for exploration missions will not be simple; • Complex topography on planetary surfaces, physics-driven • Non-line of Sight required on surface and on spacecraft • Multipath environment, inside and outside habitat and spacecraft • Complex On-board Spacecraft data requirements, during transit and on surface • Quality of Service requirements with integrated, layered, systems • Require appropriate protocols, computing, and communications solutions, lots of them, with well-understood behaviour • Multi-layered Systems architecture needed • Believe that must meet requirements using COTS technologies

3. Haughton-Mars Project • One of the two largest terrestrial planetary analogue research project (other is Desert RATS); • Project Leader/US PI: Pascal Lee (NASA/SETI Institute/Mars Institute); • Chief Field Engineer and Associate Director: Steve Braham (SFU); • HSF and Robotics work in an analogue environment; • NASA cooperative agreement (SETI Institute & Mars Institute) • http://www.marsonearth.org/

4. Moon, Mars, NEOs, on Devon Island • Canadian High Arctic • Twenty km Crater– CLOSE ANALOGUE TO SHACKLETON CRATER • Moon-like, Mars-like, NEO areas, Phobos and Deimos analogue – any short-term HSF destination; • Decade of Operations • Exploration technology studies - Spacesuits, robotic rovers, human rovers, greenhouses / autonomous life-support, mission operations comms and more – mission ops to NASA JSC, CSA PTOC, NASA Ames, ISU • End-to-End emulated network delays, using COTS protocols and applications to handle disconnections, reliability, etc • Copper, Fiber, Wireless, Satcom, all fully integrated

5. Moonbase-like Configuration driven by Arctic Exploration Needs (not “simulation”)

6. Complex Desert Terrain on Devon Island

7. Large Reflectors in a Moon-like (and Mars-like) environment – Multipath!

8. Results • 1999: Demonstrated multipath (ISI) dominant problem for high-speed planetary comms, deployed COTS (DSSS-based) solution for up to 20 km coverage; • ISI and FSF important: Deep Doppler fades critical for Narrowband Comms; • 2000: Tested use of deterministic wireless vs. non-deterministic; • 2000-onwards: deployment of standard IP protocols capable of handling long-latency and disconnection – using delay emulator up to Jovian delays; • 2001: Tests of spacesuit comms (heads-up notes/procedures, nav) via layered wireless networking, including WiFi to suit – end to end comms; • 2001-onwards: Deployed OFDM-based solutions for long-range comms (Wi-LAN solutions close to IEEE 802.16/WiMAX PHY); • 2001-onwards: ZigBee (mainly interference); • 2004-onwards: Tests using large rovers (HMMWV); • 2004-onwards: Full VOIP of VHF comms back to Mission Control Centers • 2000-onwards: Robotics comms tests; • 2009-onwards: WiMAX; • 2010: Observed problems caused by lack of traffic shaping from bursty protocols from robotic rover work.

9. Exploration Networking for Traverses: Layered Networking Concept • Communication system for traverse-capable planetary operations; • Resulted from HMP learning experience; • Concept of layered exploration networking based on COTS technologies; • Same concepts entered ESA Wireless Dossier and Constellation

10. Next-Generation Comms • “As part of the Canadian Government 2009 Economic Action Plan, an investment of 110MS is being done in space exploration to develop terrestrial prototypes of rovers for Moon and Mars and of other advanced technologies required for space exploration. Around 45% of this investment is being used to develop a new generation of the Canadarm while the rest will push forward mobility and associated technologies”; • Next-Generation Comms: MDA and SFU building prototype based on SFU general architecture concepts; • Also been modeling propagation problems for extreme high-speed comms via SUI and SUIT models.

11. MDAMontreal 2005 RCA Limited Govt & Commercial Systems Division 1928 Spar Aerospace Limited 1977 EMS Technologies Inc. 1999 Northern Telecom Satellite Division 1977 Radarsat I - 1995 Anik A - 1972 MSAT - 1995 Inmarsat Feeds - 2005 NASA Relay 1962 Anik C - 1983 Int’l Space Station - 2002 Radarsat 2 - 2006 Alouette 1962

12. PROJECT OBJECTIVES

13. Project Objectives • Develop and test a terrestrial prototype of a surface communication network in support of the CSA Exploration Surface Mobility Projects • Retire the risks associated with the development of a surface communication network by integrating terrestrial equipment • Integrate and test a complete prototype communications network that will ultimately support relevant analogue deployment scenarios corresponding to future potential space exploration missions • Bring terrestrial WIFI/WIMAX technologies from TRL-3 to TRL-4.

14. Technical Overview/Requirements • Lunar Network Elements • 802.16e Base Station and CPE (Caveat: fully compliant 802.16e matching requirements not available yet) • 802.11n Routers and Terminals Mimo Antenna • 802.15 PANs Stations • Desired Achievement • Provide Network Elements

15. Technical Description

16. Similar to NASA Scenario • Local Network (Short Term solution) • 802.11 WLan network • NASA Lunar Surface Requirements (L.Foore and Al., 2009) • 802.16e with future amendments (802.16j etc…) • UDP/IPv6 • EVA needs: 4 (sorties missions) to 6 (outposts) Assets with Real-Time, Voice, Data Video, Telemetry and HDTV • Direct Suite-to-Suite Intercommunication capability (multicast) • Data rates (Biomed, 37kbps,Voice channels 1.3Mbps, 4 Standard Video 5.6Mbit) aggregate of 6.9Mbps • QoS • 1W Human isotropic Radio Maximum • PAN • 802.15 Based PAN (TBD) • UHF/VHF Backup • Radio Voice Communication

17. Pressing Critical Issues for Wireless Comms • Increasing data rates for return-links cannot easily be matched on surface; • Next-surface links (1m) often 300 times slower than high links (100m knife-edge), another factor of 10 worse if mobile. Hard to achieve 10 Mbps on surface mobile wireless links (IMT-Advanced targets) but more than 600 Mbps possible in special long-range links at tall-building altitude; • Network protocols used must be amenable to traffic-shaping; • Network management for complex emerging networks? • WiMAX R6 protocols a problem in repeaters (fixed in next version of WiMAX); • Internet protocol implementations can be an issue at extreme high-speed (small packet buffers, etc), especially with bursty systems (now applying this to suborbital science mission concepts); • WiMAX or LTE? • Wideband or Narrowband at low data-rates (FSF)? • Field Test Concepts (but infrastructure goes as multipath^4)!