TECHNOLOGY AREAS: Air Platform, Information Systems, Ground/Sea Vehicles

ACQUISITION PROGRAM: Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS) Network Enterprise Domain (NED) ACAT I

The technology within this topic is restricted under the International Traffic in Arms Regulation (ITAR), which controls the export and import of defense-related material and services. Offerors must disclose any proposed use of foreign nationals, their country of origin, and what tasks each would accomplish in the statement of work in accordance with section 3.5.b.(7) of the solicitation.

OBJECTIVE: Develop a broadband, networking communications waveform that enables robust high-speed communications among air, maritime, ground, and disadvantaged users.

DESCRIPTION: Current military communications "waveforms," which is defined here as all aspects of a radio communications implementation from the user�s data to the radio frequency spectrum, have historically been designed by a single service for a specific operational need. Until recently, there has not been a Joint focus upon in-theater tactical communications among all service platforms; consequently, no communications waveform has been designed for this purpose. Partner foreign services are also important players in current and future warfare, and therefore this waveform would be shared with our international partners.

In emergency services, communications links specifically designed for aircraft-to-ground use have not been developed; conventional terrestrial waveforms are used. As a consequence, the bandwidth capabilities and robustness of these communications links is not adequate to support the high bandwidth connectivity needed to leverage the full capabilities of the aircraft platforms such as high-resolution surveillance and reliable IP connectivity.

There is a significant technical challenge to developing such a waveforms, because the dynamics of an air platform impose a certain set of requirements upon the waveform while the multipath and fading environment of ground communications imposes others. The characteristics of each are well understood, but there has not been a 21st Century effort to develop an optimal universal waveform that achieves high performance capabilities using high power DSP and Software Defined Radios. Our international partners are also developing SDR products, which will enable the distribution of this new waveform as a software upgrade to their fielded systems.

PHASE I: Document the performance requirements for this new waveform. Perform basic modeling and simulation to validate that the proposed waveform could feasibly meet the requirements when fully developed.

PHASE II: Create a highly accurate software simulation of the approach derived in Phase I that is capable of stressing key performance requirements in the required environments. Demonstrate performance capabilities and validate that the required digital processing requirements are feasible using available Software Defined Radios (SDRs). Create a partial implementation of the waveform that can be loaded into available SDRs to enable field-testing. The Government�s repository of communications software source code and available modeling and simulation resources will be made available to the vendor.

PHASE III: Refine the waveform based upon Phase II results. Complete the implementation of the waveform and support porting to Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS) radio sets. Support formal Development testing.

PRIVATE SECTOR COMMERCIAL POTENTIAL: Homeland Security is working towards the use of Unmanned Air Vehicles (UAVs) and other airborne assets to monitor the border and other high priority locations such as harbors and the coastline. There is a need for reliable communication of information such as real-time video and real-time control between these airborne assets and border patrol or other homeland security personnel. In addition law enforcement often uses airborne assets for surveillance and fire fighters for coordinating efforts against large wildfires. The technology developed from this topic is directly applicable to these non-DOD air-to-ground communications applications.

REFERENCES:
1. Paul Sass, Perry Hugo, LTC Kenneth Evensen, "Emergence of Soldier Radio Waveform (SRW)," MILCOM 2003, Oct. 2003.

2. W.G. Newhall, R. Mostafa, C. Dietrich, C.R. Anderson, K. Dietze, G. Joshi, J.H. Reed, "Wideband air-to-ground radio channel measurements using an antenna array at 2 GHz for low-altitude operations", MILCOM 2003 Vol.2, pp. 1422 - 1427, Oct 2003.

3. Software Communications Architecture, JTRS Standards, JPEO JTRS, http://jtrs.spawar.navy.mil/sca/home.asp

KEYWORDS: Air-to-ground; waveform; communications; software defined radio; JTRS; data link

TPOC: Ben Pour
Phone: (619)524-7709
Fax:
Email: [email protected]
2nd TPOC: Carlos Alvarado
Phone: (619)524-3451
Fax:
Email: [email protected]

** TOPIC AUTHOR (TPOC) **

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