Low-Power Radio Frequency Distributed Agents Rami Abielmona Prof. Maitham Shams April 3, 2002 Project Presentation

Main Objectives The main objectives of this project are Building a low-power, high-speed network of agents capable of processing a proprietary algorithm used to locate each other in the shortest amount of time, and with acceptable accuracy; Verifying the functionality of the distributed network through simulation and system testing; Studying the integration of the system onto working prototypes, with specific investigations of the major architectures; Investigating the use of the agents in a parallel architecture for faster tracking purposes.

System Architecture Figure 1

System Tasks (1) System Architecture Delineation Work on the system architecture in order to iron out any of the major design decisions, that would prevent the realization of the on-board ASIC; Module Selection Select the different modules that are to be utilized in both components, basing the decision on several factors, such as time, money and complexity; Tool Selection Select the tools that are to be used in the design of both the ASIC and the board itself; System Operation Definition Define the system operation as will be seen in the prototype;

System Tasks (2) Module/System Simulation (Currently) Simulate both the modules and the overall system in order to guarantee functional and timing adherence before realization; Module/System Realization Implement and integrate the various modules together to realize the entire system; Verification Test and verify the various modules. This step is actually done after every module realization or integration, but is grouped here for simplicity; Prototype Configuration Build the working prototype and test it to ensure correct functionality

Project Schedule

Sample Open Question Figure 2 A sample economical decision that has to be made involves the sensors and actuators on the board, and their interfacing with the ASIC. Refer to figure 2 for a sample decision that has to be made.

Discussion of Techniques Currently investigating the use of a radar scheme, a patch antenna scheme or a rectangular sweeping scheme for wireless communication Came up with a simple geolocational algorithm to measure the distances between the agents Studying architectural level low-power design techniques such as parallelism and pipelining Came up with an encryption/decryption scheme in order to correctly identify each agent, filtering out noise and unwanted bounce-back signals

Radar Scheme Figure 3

RF Transceiver Architecture Figure 4

References [1] C. Andren, “A Brief Tutorial on Spread Spectrum and Packet Radio,” Technical Brief, May [2] J. Israelsohn, “On the edge of geolocation,” EDN, March, [3] Texas Instruments, “Single-chip RF Transceiver,” SLAS213G, May [4] K. Hwang, “Advanced Computer Architecture: Parallelism, Scalability, Programmability,” McGrawHill: New York, [5] M.K. Simon, J. Omura, R. Scholtz, and K. Levitt, “Spread Spectrum Communications Vol. I, II, III,” Rockville, MD. Computer Science Press, [6] R. H. Katz, “CS 294-7: Digital Modulation,” University of California, Berkeley, 1996.

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