N221-012 TITLE: Advanced Jam-Resistant Radar Waveforms

OUSD (R&E) MODERNIZATION PRIORITY: General Warfighting Requirements (GWR)

TECHNOLOGY AREA(S): Electronics

The technology within this topic is restricted under the International Traffic in Arms Regulation (ITAR), 22 CFR Parts 120-130, which controls the export and import of defense-related material and services, including export of sensitive technical data, or the Export Administration Regulation (EAR), 15 CFR Parts 730-774, which controls dual use items. Offerors must disclose any proposed use of foreign nationals (FNs), their country(ies) of origin, the type of visa or work permit possessed, and the statement of work (SOW) tasks intended for accomplishment by the FN(s) in accordance with the Announcement. Offerors are advised foreign nationals proposed to perform on this topic may be restricted due to the technical data under US Export Control Laws.

OBJECTIVE: Develop radar waveform design approaches that are robust in the presence of barrage noise and deceptive jamming techniques.

DESCRIPTION: Radar electronic protection systems employing traditional static, table-based threat recognition have increasingly limited efficacy against modern electronic warfare systems. However, the software control of many modern radar systems enables dynamic waveform generation and scheduling that significantly expands the available signal use and processing domain. Here we seek to take advantage of that flexibility to design a class of jam-resistant waveforms suitable for surface and air target detection, tracking, and imaging from an airborne radar system. The selection of a particular waveform would be determined by a cognitive, engine-based, radar resource manager and counter electronic attack system using knowledge gained from its perception-action, real-time feedback loop. Among the candidate approaches to be considered are coded waveforms, chaotic waveforms, and noise waveforms. Other techniques optimizing the waveform for target, clutter, and jamming conditions should be considered.

The cognitive control element in this approach should assess the efficacy of waveform choices and capture this information as part of a data record agent that leverages that information to support a jammer technique recognition and inference process. This also should serve as the means of accumulating new knowledge for future model aggregation. The streaming record is envisioned as an object database/ontology that maintains a signal record and linkage-based affiliation of signals and their inferred emitter attributes. The layers should leverage a common data structure to define and maintain a model of each unique jammer response as an evolving knowledge base, support relational assessment of them and their behaviors, support model extensions to accommodate new and anomalous signals, and support constrained collection and dissemination of this information.

Work produced in Phase II may be classified. Note: The prospective contractor(s) must be U.S. owned and operated with no foreign influence as defined by DoD 5220.22-M, National Industrial Security Program Operating Manual, unless acceptable mitigating procedures can and have been implemented and approved by the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency (DCSA) formerly Defense Security Service (DSS). The selected contractor must be able to acquire and maintain a secret level facility and Personnel Security Clearances, in order to perform on advanced phases of this project as set forth by DCSA and NAVAIR in order to gain access to classified information pertaining to the national defense of the United States and its allies; this will be an inherent requirement. The selected company will be required to safeguard classified material IAW DoD 5220.22-M during the advanced phases of this contract.

PHASE I: Develop approaches and demonstrate feasibility of multiple jam-resistant radar waveforms for maritime surveillance and imaging modes, and/or airborne all-aspect search or airborne early warning horizon search. Assess performance impacts of use of these waveforms relative to traditional waveforms in both quiescent and jamming environments. Identify the critical cognitive control elements including the nature of efficacy metrics to be collected and models generated. The Phase I effort will include prototype plans to be developed under Phase II.

PHASE II: Develop prototype modes for demonstration on a Navy test asset. Based on these results, select and further mature the most promising approaches. Significantly increase the fidelity of the cognitive control element by fully identifying end-to-end functions, and develop a prototype implementation.

It is probable that the work under this effort will be classified under Phase II (see Description section for details).

PHASE III DUAL USE APPLICATIONS: Complete development, perform final testing, integrate, and transition the final solution to naval airborne radar system.

Civilian uses for both radar and communication system in the presence of unintentional and intentional jamming is possible with this technology. Those potential applications include law enforcement and emergency services communication systems as well as civil aviation communication and radar systems.

REFERENCES:

1. Akbarpour, A., & Mirzahosseini, D. (2011, September). The anti-jamming capability of phase coded waveform with limited side-lobe level in correlation function. In 2011 12th International Radar Symposium (IRS) (pp. 835-840). IEEE. https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/6042205.
2. Lukin, K., Vyplavin, P., Yarovoy, S., Kudriashov, V., Palamarchuk, V., Lee, J.-M., Kang, Y.-S., Cho, K.-G., Ha, J.-S., Sun, S.-G., & Cho, B.-L. (2011, September). 2D and 3D imaging using S-band noise waveform SAR. In 2011 3rd International Asia-Pacific Conference on Synthetic Aperture Radar (APSAR) (pp. 1-4). IEEE. https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/6087063.
3. Akbarpour, A., & Mirzahosseini, D. (2011, October). Improving range resolution in jammed environment by phase coded waveform. In Proceedings of 2011 IEEE CIE International Conference on Radar (Vol. 1, pp. 226-229). IEEE. https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/6159517.
4. Lukin, K., Vyplavin, P., Palamarchuk, V., Zemlyaniy, O., Kudriashov, V., & Lukin, S. (2012, September). Capabilities of noise radar in remote sensing applications. In 2012 Tyrrhenian Workshop on Advances in Radar and Remote Sensing (TyWRRS) (pp. 10-17). IEEE. https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/6381095.
5. Picciolo, M. L., Goldstein, J. S., Settle, T. F., Tinston, M. A., & Schoenig, G. N. (2006, January). Ambiguity function analysis of adaptive colored-noise radar waveforms. In 2006 International Waveform Diversity & Design Conference (pp. 1-6). IEEE. https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=8321423.
6. Lukin, K. A. (2006, January). Radar design using chaotic and noise waveforms. In 2006 International Waveform Diversity & Design Conference (pp. 1-5). IEEE. https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8321486.

KEYWORDS: Radar; Waveforms; Anti-Jam; Adaptive; Coding; Interference