Technological competition Radiofest-2020

The global pandemic came unexpectedly and made its own adjustments to the plans. Many events were canceled, even more postponed, and we also had to monitor the situation with alarm. Being in uncertainty and constant expectation is very difficult.



It was a difficult period for all of us, Covid-19 literally took away from us everything that would seem to be forever with us, familiar communication with colleagues at work, meeting friends in a cafe, walking in the park with family and much more from ours Everyday life. And finally, life is gradually returning to its usual course. And we are glad to inform you that "Radiofest-2020" will take place! Yes, of course, there have been many changes and many restrictions. But, as they say, nothing is impossible. We will make every effort to ensure that the event is comfortable and safe.



Let's start with the organizational part. So, from October 7 to October 9, 2020, everything is in the same wonderful place, Technopolis Moscow (Alabushevo site) will host the second All-Russian technological competition in the promising areas of radio communications development - “Radiofest-2020”. The competition is organized by the Advanced Research Foundation and the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation. The order of the competition also remains unchanged, the first two days will be a hackathon, where the teams will be provided with equipment for debugging the software, the third day is the grand opening, the competition in the directions and the award ceremony for the winners.



Now about the technical aspect of the competition. Directly the direction of the competition remains unchanged, it is still radio navigation, radio interception and radio communication / electronic warfare. But, already having experience in holding the first competitions, we made some changes to the new Regulations, aimed, first of all, at expanding the audience of potential participants in the competition. The SDR platform LimeSDR, which we have chosen for holding the first radio fest, is an excellent RF front-end, but still quite expensive and difficult to get a thing, you can't go to ampere or chip-dip, you can't buy. Accordingly, not everyone has the opportunity to purchase the necessary set of equipment and prepare for the competition. What puts the same amateur radio enthusiasts in unequal conditions with teams,which is supported by an educational institution or, especially, a commercial organization. In this regard, in the "catch the wave" competition, we are switching to using the well-proven RTL-SDR Blog V3 receiver as radio equipment. Simple, cheap, easily accessible, with a sufficient frequency range, there would still be a transmission channel, in general, there would be no price for this dongle. In the computing part of the equipment set, everything remains unchanged, we use the Raspberry Pi 4 4GB.In the computing part of the equipment set, everything remains unchanged, we use the Raspberry Pi 4 4GB.In the computing part of the equipment set, everything remains unchanged, we use the Raspberry Pi 4 4GB.



Another innovation is the Super Games, in case the teams achieve the same result when completing the competition task, a Super Game is held between the teams to identify the winner with the complication of the competition conditions.



In total, the following competition tasks will be at the "Radiofest-2020"



The competition in the direction of radio interception "catch the wave" does not change its essence - the competition task is to automatically determine the type of signal modulation. But instead of LimeSDR, RTL SDR is provided to the teams. If the teams show the same result, then a Supr-Game is held to determine the winner. During the Super Game, the signal-to-noise ratio for the emitted signal decreases and pseudo-random tuning of the operating frequency is added.



The competition in the direction of radio communication / electronic warfare "capture the flag" is completely inherited from last year's radio fest. Teams compete with each other, each team has two full-featured LimeSDR sets, the task is to organize radio exchange between their sets of equipment in the conditions of electronic countermeasures of the opposing team. The team that transmitted the most information wins.



The radio navigation competition, despite the renaming from “fox hunting” to “geo-battle”, does not change its essence and consists in determining the coordinates of several radio emission sources using LimeSDR kits. But now the number of receivers available to teams is fixed - two sets, plus sets of equipment can exchange data over a wired Ethernet network. If the teams show the same result, then a Supr-Game is held to determine the winner. During the Super-Game, one of the sets of equipment is equipped with an additional transmitting antenna; teams can use the transmitting channel to jam the opposing team.



A dedicated website is dedicated to the event .... In the very near future, the Regulation "Radiofest-2020" will be published on it. Also, taking into account the experience of previous competitions, a section with code examples will be available on the site. In particular, examples of C and python code will be available for interacting with the Organizing Committee server, in terms of connecting and uploading / downloading files.



To participate in "Radiofest-2020", you must fill out an application for participation, which will also be published soon on the website http: //radiofest.rf



See you at "Radiofest-2020"!