[aprssig] Future Concept for APRS

[Jeff Dugas]

It seems to me ...

I've been "playing" with APRS for the last 5-6 years now, and I have some thoughts that I wonder if anyone in the APRS community has considered. After 26+ years experience in the Air Force, working survillenace radar and advanced digital tracking systems, I've thought about some potential new concepts for the future of APRS. If someone somewhere has already thought of this, then please forgive my searching skills.

I propose conceptually that the next generation of APRS digipeater systems ought to include a level of intelligence that takes into consideration exactly where, geographically, the packet originated from, in real time. For instance, an advanced future digipeater could posses a modest internal processing power and memory to be aware of the surrounding geographic environment, and have its local area "mapped" in memory in a simple way whereby, in relation to its own geographic location, it "knows" the location of the transmitting station (from the packet), and also geographically knows the local digipeater network (other digipeaters). Then, theoretically, it would not be difficult to define spatial rules that would determine whether or not a packet is to be digipeated.

This 2-D spatial awareness (and maybe 3-D, for APRS packets from airborne objects?) would allow you to digitally define a geographic circle (or sphere), so to speak, around the digipeater, and precisely define the the radius of the cell in range. This may allow us to make the system more cellular, decreasing network congestion, collisions, and increase overall usability. Heck, rather than a circle, it could be any shape as required by the local environment. You could even designate separate multiple areas, to account for known blind spots that exist in a neighboring digipeater's coverage area. And if these smart digipeaters of tomorrow were linked together on another channel (using the Internet, or another RF link) they could talk with one another and make joint decisions in real time regarding who is going to digipeat what for the best benefit of the local RF community.

With this kind of processing, more of these next-generation digipeaters could be placed on towers, mountain tops, or at other long-distance line-of-sight locations. Although they could hear "everything", they would not digipeate everything like today, but rather use geographic processing/rules to determine what is appropriate to digipeat.

Something like this would complement, not replace, other APRS techniques in practice. And it would not be a cure all. But in could be another powerful tool for our tool box.

Submitted for your consideration.


Jeff
N5TEV

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