Narrowband radio systems with fast frequency hopping and high data rate

Frequency hopping is a classic form of jamming protection in military tactical radio systems. The frequency-hopping rate needs to be high to obtain a good protection against a follower jammer. This work investigates the conditions for frequency hopping radio systems with 50 kHz bandwidth and a hopping rate of 5 hops/ms on the VHF band. Such a frequency-hopping rate entails a significant cost compared to a non-hopping system in the form of a reduced data rate or range of the radio system. The research question of the work has been to investigate the data rates that are possible to achieve and the relationship between data rate and range. The spectrum requirement and the criterion for how the bandwidth is calculated become important and in the investigations, a 99%-bandwidth criterion has been used. Modulation types investigated are CPM (Continuous Phase Modulation) and QAM (Quadrature Amplitude Modulation). CPM is flexible and allows for many different data rates and ranges. QAM implemented as a single-carrier system does not work so well. The spectrum requirements imply that, in the best case, only a few information symbols can be accommodated within the hop time.