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Software Radio Platform That Fit Your Workflow Through Plugins

James Smith
21 hours ago
2 min read
AI generated image for illustration
AI generated image for illustration

Radio shouldn't force you to change how your team works

Field teams already have workflows. They have trust lists, dispatch tools, and procedures for what happens when a link degrades. A communications system that ignores those forces people to adapt to the tool.

I've been building a software-defined radio stack that carries voice, text, and live image streaming over the same radio link. It has no cell network, internet, cloud, or subscription. Any node can act as an endpoint or a repeater. The plugin system is how it fits into the way a team already operates.

Same software, different hardware


The software is hardware-agnostic. It runs on a laptop, desktop, or single-board computer with a compatible SDR. Radio hardware is not included.

In the demo, three radio nodes, each with its own RF device, run the same software and the same control interface. Two are laptops and one is the MC-V12, a purpose-built demonstrator. The MC-V12 is a single-board computer and a transceiver in an 11" × 4.5" × 3" enclosure. The demo covers broadcast text, voice push-to-talk, key exchange, selective decryption, Push-to-Video, and RoIP, and communication channels. 

Plugins

Plugins run at runtime through a small, versioned interface. Adding one is pretty trivial. Three examples:


  • Peer verification: check a peer's public key against a local or remote list, so trust works the way your organization already manages it.

  • RoIP audio bridging: connect radio audio to the systems you already use.

  • Event reactions: trigger actions when messages arrive or link quality changes.


For remote expeditions, plugins let you apply your own trust and verification procedures, such as checking peer keys against your own list.

The core protocol performs the key exchange but doesn't authenticate who you're exchanging with. Trust models vary a lot between deployments, so peer verification is a plugin. Packets carry a device identifier, but that isn't authentication.

Where it stands


  • Crypto roadmap: add a key derivation function, use AES-256 on higher-end SBCs with hardware AES modules, consider AES-GCM, and plan post-quantum key exchange for a future release.

  • SDK: planned for a public Git repo.

  • Add-ons: a weatherproof enclosure and integration help are available separately.

  • Distribution: subject to US export regulations. Users are responsible for local radio and encryption laws.


What would you want to plug in?


Which integrations would make this useful for your team? I'm especially interested in dispatch systems, trust and key management, and what you'd want to trigger on link-quality changes. Tell me in the comments or message me directly.



 
 
 

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