A direct-sequence spread-spectrum adaptive data-rate modem for meteor burst communication

A meteor burst communication channel can only be fully exploited when using an adaptive data-rate operation, so that the actual data-rate is matched to the instantaneous power received from a meteor trail. This paper investigates implementation issues of an adaptive data-rate modem for meteor burst communications. The modem uses direct-sequence spread-spectrum modulation and adapts the data-rate by changing number of chips in a bit, it thus uses only one bandpass filter in the receiver for all the data-rates whilst offering a wide range of data-rates. A theoretical analysis is also given to predict the benefit over fixed data-rate operation