This document summarizes the efforts performed in Phase I of a project to develop and demonstrate a radio which can operate in all bands and all modes relevant to public safety operations in the U.S., with a special emphasis on cost.
This technical report on the efforts performed in Phase I of the project, “A Low Cost All-Band All-Mode Radio for Public Safety” summarizes the work done to date and lays out the user-based approach to interoperability in public safety wireless communications. The overall goal of the project was to develop and demonstrate a radio that can operate in all bands and all modes relevant to public safety operations in the U.S., with a special emphasis on cost. In this first phase of the project, the researchers investigated the problem and developed some preliminary solutions with no special emphasis on cost, but will consider alternative approaches in subsequent stages of the project in order to identify and quantify cost-performance tradeoffs and to demonstrate a prototype. The report is organized into four sections, with the first section serving as the introduction; the second section describes the interoperability problem in public safety communications and describes the manner of solution that this work intends to provide; the third section summarizes the work accomplished to date; and the fourth section provides a “strawman” design, which represents the authors’ current preferences for the implementation of the radio.