Doodle Labs partners with a leading defense contractor to provide secure, long-range, ship to shore extension of Coast Guard terrestrial voice & video communication network.

Onur Ship to Shore

A customer (name withheld by request) chose Doodle Labs 4.7 GHz Smart Radios to design a secure, long range (47km) ship to shore extension of the Coast Guard’s terrestrial Voice over Internet Protocol (V.O.I.P), + real-time video streaming network. 

Business Challenge

Provide a cost effective, and secure wireless maritime communication link from a terrestrial ground station to a ship at sea at a distance of up to 47km.  The wireless link must be able to concurrently support low-latency V.O.I.P., and H.264 real-time video streaming.  Various wireless communication networks were evaluated, including satellite, and legacy Ultra-High-Frequency (UHF), and Very-High-Frequency (VHF) systems.  Satcom systems were determined not to be viable due to : 

  • Excessive residual service fee cost, combined with the requirement of high-cost on-board antenna tracking and stabilization equipment. 
  • The high satellite link latency of > 500 milliseconds does not support the requirements for low latency V.O.I.P. communications.  

Alternatively, legacy VHF, and UHF marine communications equipment does not support the data bandwidth requirement of real-time streaming video. 

Solution

The customer determined that Doodle Labs cost-effective, long range Smart Radio operating at 4.7GHz was the optimal solution to their requirements.  Doodle Labs Smart radio offered features key to project success: 

  • Unique PRISM frequency shifting technology – providing a low-cost, off the shelf radio operating at 4.7 GHz frequency band.  
  • Traffic Prioritization – over a single link, the Smart radio provides a separate in-band Ultra Reliable Low Latency Channel (URLCC) which allocates the highest priority, lowest latency data transmission cue for latency sensitive V.O.I.P., along with a second dedicated in-band channel for real-time streaming video traffic 
  • Secured Communications – AES 256-bit encryption, preventing the interception of the wireless data communication, thereby, ensuring the confidentiality of the data transmission. 
 

Key factors in the selection of the 4.7GHz frequency band for this project: 

  • Ability to meet the RF Fresnel Zone requirements for a ship to shore link distance of up to 47km, with the available antenna mounting structures (See Figure Below) 
ONUR Fresnel Zone
  • Ability of this frequency band to support both the low-latency, and data bandwidth requirements of their applications. 
  • Ability to support the enhanced transmit power levels required to meet the system link budget at 47km. 
  • 7 dBi external Bi-Directional Amplifiers were used at both ends of the link to compensate for the low gain (6dBi) omni directional antenna on-board ship (which accounts for continually changing ship orientation, list, and yaw.) 
  • The restricted use regulation of the 4.7Ghz frequency band, provides an additional layer of security to the wireless link. 
 
Results
 
Doodle Labs Smart Radio provides a full featured, yet cost effective wireless network that meets our client’s challenging ship to shore communication network requirements.  With a form-factor compatible hardware platform, supporting frequencies ranging from 100Mhz to 6Ghz, they we able to plug-in the frequency best suited to meet the challenges of this particular path profile.  Combining this with the Smart Radio’s ability to provide in-band packet prioritization of voice and video streaming, over a secure communication link, yielded an on-time, on-budget solution that exceeded their clients expectations. 

 

For more information on the Smart Radio and how it can help your system, please contact us.

Doodle Labs

Doodle Labs is a global leader in long-range broadband communication used by the Industrial Internet of Things. Our products have been deployed by Fortune 100 companies in the most demanding environments on earth. Doodle Labs’ design philosophy is focused on achieving best-in-class performance while requiring minimal integration effort, thereby allowing customers to go to market faster with better performing products at a lower overall cost. www.doodlelabs.com

 

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