Cargo Business Techwire

Friday, February 6, 2015

Naval researchers in tests to extend ship-to-shore communications

Engineers from the Naval Research Laboratory recently tested a ship-to-shore communication device, Tactical Reachback Extended Communications (TREC), in an effort to extend the reach of voice communications beyond 20 miles.

TREC requires a high transmission rate in harbor to sustain data transmission as the boat travels out to sea. For the test, TREC sent a message from a cruise ship to a 760-foot-tall building. The data transmission rate started at 720 Mbps. The test

showed that at 16 miles from shore, the ship maintained a data rate of 100 Mbps. The ship kept constant communications out to 22 miles, although there were multipath effects.

Testing was conducted by the NRL with Mercury Continuity and Intelligent Designs at the Port of Miami.

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