A Low-Cost Software-Defined Telemetry Receiver

The Army Research Laboratories has developed a PCM/FM telemetry receiver using a low-cost commercial software-defined radio (SDR). Whereas traditional radio systems are implemented in hardware, much of the functionality of software-defined radios is defined in software. This gives them the flexibility to accommodate military telemetry standards as well as other specialized functions. After a brief review of telecommunication theory, this paper describes the receiver implementation on a commercial SDR platform. Data rates up to 10 Mbs were obtained through the customization the SDR’s field programmable gate array.