[amsat-bb] FPGA iCEBreaker Workshop - digital communications for amateur satellites

[Michelle Thompson]

Thank you so much to all that have written me with enthusiasm, questions,
offers, and advice!

The level of interest in an online course is very high. This project was
made possible by a generous donation to Open Research Institute. ORI was
founded to be a Member Society of AMSAT, asked for this status over a year
ago, and is completely devoted to boosting AMSAT's open source efforts. If
you would like to see ORI become a Member Society of AMSAT, write the
current leadership and let them know.

Everyone involved with this effort is fully committed to publishing all the
course materials, but it looks like videos, online-friendly coursework, and
a mailing list would be very popular. We are going to have some meetings
over the next few weeks about how to accomplish this in addition to the
longer in-person classes and the shorter workshops at conferences.

The focus is firmly on open source digital space communications on the
amateur bands. There is plenty to work with here, and a lot of unrealized
potential. This makes this coursework very different from the other FPGA
courses and classes and training out there, which are in general very
expensive, aimed at proprietary industry solutions, and use proprietary and
expensive toolchains.

The action in the FPGA is at the baseband. Getting the symbols that are
produced by the FPGA up to the right frequency is outside the scope, or
"left to the reader as an exercise". There is a lot going on with
transversion, conversion, filtering, amplification, and antenna design.
While those techniques won't be covered, they are very important. Channel
sounding and the characteristics of space links directly inform what the
baseband needs to accomplish.

I was asked why I would do this. It is a lot of work, provided for free.

It goes back to the justification for each and every amateur radio license
granted in the United States.

The basis and purpose are:

(a) Recognition and enhancement of the value of the amateur service to the
public as a voluntary noncommercial communication service, particularly
with respect to providing emergency communications.

(b) Continuation and extension of the amateur's proven ability to
contribute to the advancement of the radio art.

(c) Encouragement and improvement of the amateur service through rules
which provide for advancing skills in both the communication and technical
phases of the art.

(d) Expansion of the existing reservoir within the amateur radio service of
trained operators, technicians, and electronics experts.

(e) Continuation and extension of the amateur's unique ability to enhance
international goodwill.

Open source nails (e) because the open source carve out in ITAR/EAR is the
only legal way to collaborate internationally in amateur satellites. Being
conversant in modern engineering techniques in digital communications nails
(d). Knowing how to do things like tune an adaptive modcod link is exactly
what (c) is about. Mastering hardware description language for digital
communications is what (b) is about. Anything that puts more information
through limited bandwidth? Skills that put a satellite in orbit, available
for emergency use, than can't be trivially chunked to death by trolls?
That's (a).

That's why I and many others, are doing this.

More soon!
-Michelle W5NYV

On Sat, Aug 3, 2019 at 2:11 PM Michelle Thompson <
mountain.michelle at gmail.com> wrote:

> Greetings all!
>
> Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) are one of three fundamental types
> of digital architectures used for communications R&D.
>
> The others are general purpose processors and graphical processing units
> (GPUs).
>
> This fall, in San Diego, California, there will be an FPGA course
> sponsored by Open Research Institute. There are 10 spots with amateur space
> communications as the focus of the work.
>
> FPGAs are a primary technology in modern satellite communications. They're
> used in R&D and in deployment.
>
> It is difficult to get started with FPGA design for several reasons. The
> tools have traditionally been proprietary. The companies that make the
> tools price them for large corporations to buy. Coursework for FPGA design
> is rare.
>
> This is where iCEBreaker makes a difference.
>
> An iCEBreaker Workshop 10 pack has been made available, and arrived today.
> This kit is described at this link
> https://www.crowdsupply.com/1bitsquared/icebreaker-fpga
>
> We (me and a few other local volunteers) will use this hardware to put on
> a course for anyone interested in amateur radio satellite and terrestrial
> development. All course materials will be published.
>
> The first course will be in San Diego. If you're in the area, please get
> in touch! MakerPlace and CoLab are the likely sites.
>
> Later workshops could be at places like Symposium, Xenia, or Hamcation.
> The full course cannot be accomplished in a day, but a workshop could get
> the basics across and provide a substantial boost to motivated amateur
> satellite engineering volunteers.
>
> Let me know what you think!
>
> more soon,
> -Michelle W5NYV
>