Implementation of Lunar Surface Video Transmission System with RaptorQ Codes over the USRP Platform

Reliable and efficient video transmission is crucial for lunar surface communications in both manned and unmanned exploration missions. This paper proposes an implementation of Universal Software Radio Peripheral-based video transmission system (USRP-VTS), which is designed to emulate lunar communication attenuation and verify the video reconstruction quality under lunar surface conditions. For accurate lunar channel attenuation emulation, we develop a programmable attenuator (PA) that enables real-time 0-90 dB attenuation control through integration of lunar terrain parameters into the ITU-R P. 526 model, achieving less than 1 dB deviation between theoretical and measured results. To address packet loss problem in video transmission, we design a RaptorQ-UDP protocol combining modified UDP packetization, RaptorQ fountain codes, and CRC16 checksums, which can show 8-10 dB peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) improvement under 70 dB path loss for key frames compared to unprotected transmission, while maintaining 18 Mbps throughput without retransmission.