Making its debut on the Selex Communications stand was a new 10-watt TETRA vehicle radio, the ElettraSuite VS4000. “This is TEDS-ready, so as soon as we will have finalized the development of the software, which is due in October, more or less, it will support TEDS”, explained Francesco Pasquale. “What is new is that this has been directly derived from a software-defined radio concept. So, basically, 95 per cent of the components are totally frequency-independent.

“This is the first TETRA radio that can go, without changing anything, from 380 up to 470 MHz. Usually you have two sub-bands, but it can cover all of this. And then, by changing the power amplifier, you can go also up to the 800 MHz band.”

Accompanying the radio is the new FPG3E front panel, which is rugged enough (it is IP54-rated) for fitting to motorcycles and patrol boats. It includes a colour display and – a novel feature – an integrated Wi-Fi access point. “So you can realize, for example, in the immediate boundaries of a police car, a Wi-Fi hotspot, transferring images, pictures and so on to the mobile radio, and then through TEDS to the control room”, Mr Pasquale added.

The control head can even be installed at a remote location, controlling the radio over a long-distance digital link.

Peer-to-peer TETRA

On the infrastructure side, Selex introduced its TETRA IP node module, a cost-saving building block for new systems. This, too, is TEDS-ready. “Our new network solution is a full IP solution”, Francesco Pasquale continued. “Up to 30 base stations, it allows you to build a network without any switches – just peer-to-peer networking, and every station is an IP node.

“Above 30 base stations, for medium-large systems, where you need usually to have a centralized call controller, we use this, which is basically an industrial PC on which we run the centralized call control. But it is not actually a switch in the traditional form because it doesn’t have any switching matrix for the audio. The audio is routed directly from one base station to another in a VoIP way.”

Train radio

Also shown by Selex was another TETRA-enabled radio terminal, the Perseus WiNN Mobile V2. “This is basically a radio controller for on-board installation on Metro trains or other trains, buses and even police cars”, Mr Pasquale explained. “It has a TETRA radio embedded in the motherboard and then it has an additional board for various types of connections. It can support up to five other radio modules, such as Wi-Fi, UMTS, HSPA, WiMAX and so on. This can actually realize a multitechnology system. It supports ‘vertical’ handover: that means that it automatically chooses the best radio connection. It has LAN ports, USB ports, for integration with other on-board systems such as passenger information systems, video surveillance and so on.”