LOW BIT RATE DATA COMMUNICATION IN TACTICAL RADIO

Abstract

Tactical communication forms the part of Military Communications which only
concerns the front end soldiers operating in a theatre environment (formations of division,
brigade and below). Mobility is one of the keys to success on the modern battlefield. All
communications must be geared to support a combat force that must repeatedly move to survive
and fight the enemy. Radio is essential for communications over large bodies of water, territory
controlled by enemy forces, and terrain where the construction of wire lines is impossible or
impractical. It is also required for air assault operations. As a consequence advance tactical
decision support that noe is limited is to advance platforms will become available at much lower
level, ranging from different type of vehicles, down to the individual soldier by means of ultra
light weight “wearable ” equipment. Tactical communication system of today are geared to
rather wide area coverage and moderate bandwidth demands providing services like voice
communication and low data rate application mainly on point to-point basis. Low-bit-rate speech
coding, at rates below 4 kb/s, is needed for both communication and voice storage applications.
The basic properties of the speech signal and of human speech perception can explain the
principles of parametric speech coding as applied in early vocoders.