Description

Greetings from Open Research Institute!

We are a a non-profit research and development organization which provides all of its work to the general public under the principles of Open Source and Open Access to Research. We're primarily focused on digital communications work for the amateur satellite and terrestrial services.

We believe that the lack of accessibility and access is a threat to both critical infrastructure and our economy and we're doing our part where we can to address that. Our activities range from technical work to regulatory work to practical initiatives such as the Engineers General program, citizen science initiatives, and more.

We emphasize accessible, equitable, and open access to advanced technology for non-profit and educational purposes. Most modern communications technology is possible today from significant public support in the past. Someone has to close the loop and make sure we fully enable public and educational participation.

Directors decide things and set policy. Directors can be as hands on or as hands off in organizational activities as they prefer. Organizational structure is very flat. ORI consists of teams formed around projects and goals. We generally use Agile methods to organize work. Participants, once they agree to the developer and participant policies, which includes a code of conduct, then usually join a project. We publish work as it is created and give regular presentations at conferences throughout the year, like TAPR DCC.

So, what do we do?

FPGA design and development for microwave band multiple-access amateur communication systems. This work delivers a hardware prototype that can be integrated as a satellite payload or as a terrestrial central node. Work is carried out by an international open source team using resources like the ORI Remote Labs, and taking advantage of community assets like Vivado floating licenses, and more. The hardware prototype is on the microwave bands at 5 and 10 GHz. If you have the skills or interest, you are welcome to join.

ORI is the fiscal sponsor of the M17 Project. This exciting project offers an amateur open source VHF/UHF digital voice and data service that can be used today. Multiple hardware options are available or in rapid development.

AmbaSat Inspired Sensors. Taking the Ambasat open source satellite project, we add a microwave beacon to the sensor array, and develop a path forward for amateur deployment of the main board.

ORI does regulatory and legal work. On 2 September, we received the third and final, in a series, regulatory result from the US government on a year-long effort to free the amateur radio satellite service from ITAR and EAR. Open Source Satellite Work is Free of ITAR and EAR, and publication rules have been clarified. This is the best possible result. The entire body of work, from CJ request to advisory opinion, is donated to the amateur community at no charge.

https://github.com/phase4ground/documents/tree/master/Regulatory

Current regulatory and legal work concerns Debris Mitigation and open source.

The IEEE Space and Satellite Symposium is a half-day virtual event on 30 October 2021, and all recordings will be available. The theme emphasizes the intersection between amateur radio satellites and Information Theory, which involves the study of digital codes and modulation. IEEE Computer Society and Information Theory San Diego Chapters are co-sponsoring the event. Open Research Institute is the logistics sponsor.

Speakers so far will present work on QO-100 narrowband modulators, link budgets for a new approach to Ambasat, Information Theory with respect to music (!), and open source LDPC work targeting FPGAs.

Two pieces of space and satellite themed music will premier as part of the event, and there will be an Information Theory analysis of the work. If you have ever wondered what the connection between math and music looks like, then this is your chance.

Talks in development address the connection between amateur radio and the Mars helicopter team, the role of amateur activity in commercial work, and more.

Register at https://events.vtools.ieee.org/m/280774

Volunteer at https://forms.gle/4UXvYeszrU1rgJxH6

Event Page at https://www.openresearch.institute/space-and-satellite-symposium-the-role-of-information-theory-in-space-with-special-emphasis-on-amateur-radio-and-amateur-satellite/

ORI is funded by your donations, Conference Badge sales, Yasme Foundation, ARRL Foundation, and ARDC.

ORI works with TAPR in several areas, most visibly in support of DCC and at HamCation. TAPR is a wonderful organization to work with. We are looking forward to another joint forum in Florida. If it's in person then there might be a special event or contest. If it's online again, then you will find us there.

Want to get involved? Visit https://www.openresearch.institute/getting-started/

Thank you to TAPR DCC organizers for another great year of talks and open source amateur radio work.