Chirp Spread Spectrum Signaling for Future Air-Ground Communications

TL;DR

This paper explores chirp spread spectrum signaling for air-ground communications, introducing a new multi-user chirp format that performs better than traditional linear chirp in realistic, quasi-synchronous conditions based on NASA channel models.

Contribution

The paper proposes a novel multi-user chirp signaling scheme that tolerates imperfect synchronization and demonstrates its superiority over classic linear chirp in air-ground channels.

Findings

New chirp format outperforms linear chirp in air-ground channels.

The scheme is practical for multi-user scenarios with imperfect synchronization.

Performance validated using NASA-based channel models.

Abstract

In this paper, we investigate the use of chirp spread spectrum signaling over air-ground channels. This includes evaluation of not only the traditional linear chirp, but also of a new chirp signal format we have devised for multiple access applications. This new format is more practical than prior multi-user chirp systems in the literature, because we allow for imperfect synchronism. Specifically we evaluate multi-user chirp signaling over air-ground channels in a quasi-synchronous condition. The air-ground channels we employ are models based upon an extensive NASA measurement campaign. We show that our new signaling scheme outperforms the classic linear chirp in these air-ground settings.