Half way through the year but I thought I better write down some plans anyway! Helps me organise my thoughts and minimise the tangential work. The main goal for 2017 is a FreeDV mode that is competitive with SSB at low SNRs on HF channels. But first, lets see what happened in 2016….
Achievements in 2016
Here is the 2016 Roadmap. Reviewing it, we actually made good progress on a bunch of the planned activities:
- Brady O’Brien (KC9TPA) worked with me to develop the FreeDV 2400A and 2400B modes.
- Fine progress on the SM2000 project, summarised nicely in my Gippstech 2016 SM2000 talk. Thanks in particular to Brady, Rick (KA8BMA) and Neil (VK5KA).
- The open telemetry work provided some key components for the Wenet system for high speed SSDV images from High Altitude Balloons. This work spun out of FSK modem development by Brady and myself, combined with powerful LDPC FEC codes from VK5DSP, with lots of work by Mark VK5QI, and AREG club members. It operates close to the limits of physics: with a 100mW signals we transmit HD images over 100km at 100 kbit/s using a $20 SDR and a good LNA. Many AREG members have set up Wenet receive stations using $100 roadkill laptops refurbished with Linux. It leaves commercial telemetry chips-sets in the dust, about 10dB behind us in terms of performance.
- Ongoing FreeDV outreach via AREG FreeDV broadcasts, attending conferences and Hamfests. Thank you to all those who promote and use FreeDV.
FreeDV 2017 Roadmap
Codec 2 700C is the breakthrough I have been waiting for. Communications quality, conversational speech at just 700 bit/s, and even on a rough first pass it outperforms MELPe at 600 bit/s. Having a viable codec at 700 bit/s lets us consider powerful LDPC FEC codes in the 2000Hz SSB type bandwidths I’m targeting, which has led to a new OFDM modem and the emerging FreeDV 700D mode. I now feel comfortable that I can reach the goal of sub zero dB SNR digital speech that exceeds SSB in quality.
So here is the 2017 roadmap. Partially shaded work packages are partially complete. The pink work packages are ongoing activities rather than project based:
Rather than push FreeDV 700D straight out, I have decided to have another iteration at Codec 2 quality, using the Codec 700C algorithms as a starting point. The FreeDV 700D work has suggested we can use latency to overcome the HF channel, which means frames of several hundred ms to several seconds. By exploring correlation over longer Codec 2 frames we can achieve lower bit rates (e.g. sub 400 bit/s) or get better voice quality at 700 bit/s and above.
I’ve been knocking myself out to get good results at low SNRs. However many HF and indeed VHF/UHF PTT radio conversions take place at SNRs of greater than 10dB. This allows us to support higher bit rate codecs, and achieve better speech quality. For example moving from 0dB to 10dB means 10 times the bit rate at the same Bit Error Rate (BER). The OFDM modem will allow us to pack up to 4000 bit/s into a 2000 Hz SSB channel.
The algorithms that work so well for Codec 2 700C can be used to increase the quality at higher bit rates. So the goal of the “Codec 2 Quality” work package is to (i) improve the quality at 700-ish bit/s, and (ii) come up with a Codec 2 mode that improves on the speech quality of Codec 2 1300 (as used in the FreeDV 1600 mode) at 2000-ish bit/s.
After the Codec 2 quality improvement I will port the new algorithms to C, release and tune on the FreeDV GUI program, then port to the SM1000. Fortunately the new OFDM modem is simpler in terms of memory and computation that the COHPSK modem used for FreeDV 700C. We have an option to use a short LDPC code (224 bits) which with a little work will run OK on the SM1000.
Putting it all Together
The outputs will be a low SNR mode competitive with SSB at low SNR, and (hopefully) a high SNR mode that sounds better than SSB at medium to high SNRs. It will be available as a free software download (FreeDV GUI program), an embedded stand-alone product (the SM1000), and as a gcc library (FreeDV API)
Then we can get back to VHF/UHF work and the SM2000 project.
Help Wanted
When will this all happen? Much sooner if you help!
I’m a busy guy, making steady progress in the field of open source digital radio. While I appreciate your ideas, and enjoy brainstorming as much as the next person, what I really want are your patches, and consistent week in/week out effort. If you can code in C and/or have/are willing to learn a little GNU Octave, there is plenty of work to be done in SM1000 maintenance, a port of the OFDM modem to C, SM1000 hardware/software maintenance, and FreeDV GUI program refactoring and maintenance. Email me.
Links
FreeDV 2016 Roadmap. Promises, promises……
FreeDV 2400A and 2400B modes
SM2000 – First post introducing the SM2000 project
Gippstech 2016 SM2000 talk – Good summary of SM2000 project to date
LowSNR site – from Bill (VK5DSP) modem guru and LDPC code-smith
Horus 39 – Fantastic High Speed SSDV Images – Good summary of Wenet blog posts and modem technology
SM1000 Digital Voice Adaptor
AREG FreeDV broadcasts