Accurate timing and synchronization, typically enabled by GPS, are essential for modern wireless communication systems. However, many emerging applications must operate in GPS-denied environments where signals are unreliable or disrupted, resulting in oscillator drift and carrier frequency impairments. To address these challenges, we present BenchLink, a System-on-Chip (SoC)-based benchmark for resilient communication links that functions without GPS and supports adaptive pilot density and modulation. Unlike traditional General Purpose Processor (GPP)-based software-defined radios (e.g. USRPs), the SoC-based design allows for more precise latency control. We implement and evaluate BenchLink on Zynq UltraScale+ MPSoCs, and demonstrate its effectiveness in both ground and aerial environments. A comprehensive dataset has also been collected under various conditions. We will make both the SoC-based link design and dataset available to the wireless community. BenchLink is expected to facilitate future research on data-driven link adaptation, resilient synchronization in GPS-denied scenarios, and emerging applications that require precise latency control, such as integrated radar sensing and communication.
@article{arxiv.2512.20942,
title = {BenchLink: An SoC-Based Benchmark for Resilient Communication Links in GPS-Denied Environments},
author = {Sidharth Santhi Nivas and Prem Sagar Pattanshetty Vasanth Kumar and Zhaoxi Zhang and Chenzhi Zhao and Maxwell McManus and Nicholas Mastronarde and Elizabeth Serena Bentley and George Sklivanitis and Dimitris A. Pados and Zhangyu Guan},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2512.20942},
year = {2026}
}