Floating Vivado License for FPGA Work Purchased – Will be Available for Community Use

Thanks to the generous support of Yasme Foundation, ARRL Foundation, and many individual Open Research Institute supporters, ORI has purchased a full floating Vivado license for FPGA work. This includes the System Generator for DSP.

We are testing a setup that will make team and community use of this license possible. This is a big step forward from our current situation and will greatly accelerate FGPA design and test.

The first step was setting up a license server at a donated data center. Many thanks to Nick KN6NK for offering the time, resources, and expertise to get this working.

The second step, being tested right now, is using GitHub as a directory service for adding users and keys.

The goal is for users of the license to be able to add themselves with minimal admin overhead while asserting some reasonable control over access.

GitHub provides a way for users to get public keys. The work required of us is to script user management and periodically sync key management.

Thank you to EJ Kreiner for helping test and refine this community asset. We anticipate being able to support as many amateur technical communities and projects as possible, to get the greatest possible use from the license.

Special thanks to ARRL and Yasme. We would not be able to afford this investment without their support.

American Radio Relay League (ARRL) Awards Grant to ORI

Good news!

American Radio Relay League (ARRL) has Generously Awarded a $3,000 Grant to Support the Open Research Institute (ORI) Amateur Radio Satellite Service Research and Development Program

ORI, a 501(c)(3) dedicated to open source research and development in amateur radio, has been awarded a $3,000 grant from the ARRL Foundation. This grant, the maximum amount, will be immediately applied to Phase 1 of the Digital Multiplex Transponder research and development program. This grant allows hardware prototypes for broadband microwave digital payloads to proceed much more quickly. All work completed by ORI is made available to the general public at no cost.

A project that will directly and immediately benefit from this work is the Amateur Radio Exploration (AREx) project, brought to you by Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS). ARISS is a project sponsored by the Amateur Radio Satellite Corporation (AMSAT).

AREx is devoted to designing and building amateur radio equipment for the Lunar Orbiting Platform Gateway project. This lunar orbiting station will have open source broadband microwave amateur equipment and affordable open source ground stations. AREx is not limited to Gateway, as there are many other opportunities under consideration that can re-use what is designed and built.

Documentation about the transponder program that this award supports can be found on the ORI website at the following links.

Overview:
https://openresearch.institute/2019/09/27/open-research-institute-phase-4-space-grant-application-overview/

Technical proposal:
https://openresearch.institute/2020/01/10/p4xt-digital-multiplexing-transponder-project-program-proposal/

Phase 1 statement of work can be found at the summary document linked below.

Summary:
https://openresearch.institute/2020/02/21/summary-proposal-open-research-institute-phase-1-p4xt/

Established in 1973 by the American Radio Relay League, Inc. (ARRL) as an independent and separate 501(c)(3) organization, the ARRL Foundation administers programs to support the Amateur Radio community.

Funded entirely by the generous contributions of radio amateurs and friends, ARRL Foundation administers programs for Amateur Radio award scholarships for higher education, award grants for Amateur Radio projects, and award special Amateur Radio program grants for The Victor C. Clark Youth Incentive Program and The Jesse A. Bieberman Meritorious Membership Program.

Find out more about the ARRL Foundation here: http://www.arrl.org/the-arrl-foundation

Here are some of the organizations that will appreciate your time, energy, effort, and enthusiasm.

ARISS is the home for AREx. ARISS can be found on the web at
https://www.ariss.org/

AMSAT North American is the home for ARISS. AMSAT is active in AREx in multiple roles and can be found on the web at
https://amsat.org

JAMSAT supports AREx and has partnered with ORI to work on the Gateway Ground Station. JAMSAT can be found on the web at
https://www.jamsat.or.jp

Open Research Institute supports AREx and open source amateur radio research & development, primarily microwave.

Find ORI on the web at
https://openresearch.institute