SWIFT Software-Defined Radio Family
Tethers Unlimited, Inc. (AMERGINT)
Modular, flight-proven software-defined radio platform from Tethers Unlimited (TUI), configurable across UHF, L, S, X and Ka bands for small-satellite telemetry, tracking and command.
Technical specifications
- Networks
- NEN/DSN: CCSDS TC/TM, Raw bit-sync; USN: SLGS, CCSDS; AFSCN: SGLS, USB; RBC, Atlas, SFN; Custom/commercial/private; Crypto units such as KI-55 and GNOME
- Electrical Interfaces
- RS-232/422/485; LVDS; 3.3v CMOS/TTL; CAN/SPI/I2C; Ethernet 10/100; MIL-STD-1553
- Modulations
- TX: BPSK, QPSK, OQPSK, 8PSK, 16APSK; RX: BPSK, QPSK, OQPSK; PM, CPM; SGLS-Ternary
- FEC
- Reed-Solomon w/ interleaving; Convolutional w/ puncturing; Soft-Viterbi; BCH; Turbo/LDPC; CRC
- Protocols
- Sync. Clock+Data (200 Mbps); Dual SpaceWire (100 Mbps); Dual UART (10 Mbps); HDLC Framing; UDP/TCP/IP; GPIO for Rx IRQ/Tx Enable
- Support
- Idle/pilot insertion; Randomization; Bit-diff., Bi-Phase; NRZ-L/M/S; Coherent tone ranging; PN Ranging
- SWIFT-HB core
- Xilinx Zynq 7030 FPGA with dual ARM-9 Cortex processor access
- SWIFT-HB data rate
- > 1 GB per second
About
The SWIFT SDR family is TUI’s flight-heritage line of software-defined radios for small-satellite communications. All variants share a common modular SDR architecture that provides diverse software control of any RF parameter, letting operators reconfigure waveforms, modulation and protocol behavior without new hardware. Members of the family include SWIFT-SLX (L- and S-band transceiver), SWIFT-XTX (X-band transmitter), SWIFT-XTRX (X-band transceiver), SWIFT-XTS (L- and S-band transceiver with X-band transmitter), SWIFT-KTX (K-band transmitter), SWIFT-KTRX (K-band transceiver), SWIFT-UTX (UHF-band transmitter) and SWIFT-UTRX (UHF-band transceiver), plus the high-bandwidth SWIFT-HB variant (Zynq 7030 FPGA core, >1 Gbps). SWIFT radios are compatible with Type-1 encryption modules such as the KI-55 and GNOME, support native AES-256 encryption, have passed compatibility testing with multiple ground stations, and support IP-protocol mesh-network inter-satellite links via the SWIFT-LINQ software module.
Documentation
- SLX.pdf web.archive.org ↗
- XTX.pdf web.archive.org ↗
- XTRX.pdf web.archive.org ↗
- XTS.pdf web.archive.org ↗
- SWIFT-KTX.pdf web.archive.org ↗
- SWIFT-X-KTRX.pdf web.archive.org ↗
- SWIFT-UTX.pdf web.archive.org ↗
- SWIFT-UTRX.pdf web.archive.org ↗
Need the full ICD, test reports or a specific revision? Ask the supplier directly.
