ARLINGTON, Va. - Military researchers are asking for industry's help in developing a combination hybrid analog, digital, photonic, and electronic processor to help analyze radio-frequency (RF) and optical signals for situational awareness.
Officials of the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in Arlington, Va., have issued a solicitation (HR001117S0044) for the All-Signal Tactical Real-time Analyser (ASTRAL) program.
The future ASTRAL hybrid analog/digital photonic/electronic processor is to demonstrate real-time nonlinear cyclostationary and convolutional processing, as well as low-probability-of-intercept signal processing gain over input electromagnetic signals filling a bandwidth of 1 to 10 GHz.
The project also seeks to identify architectures and algorithms for military applications that are well-suited to real-time wideband hybrid analog, digital photonic/electronic use. DARPA briefed industry on the program on 18 July 2017.
The program seeks to develop and demonstrate a system for RF and optical electromagnetic signal surveillance, situational awareness, and understanding that improves current signal awareness speed and spectrum coverage by 1,000 times. This technology also should be suitable for mobile tactical operations.
The project seeks to plug technology gaps in the U.S. military's ability to counter ever-increasing electronic attack and cyber technology threats from potential enemies.
The ASTRAL program seeks to ensure U.S. military access to the congested and contested electromagnetic environment of the battlefield by using hybrid analog/digital photonic/electronic processor technologies of wideband real-time signal processing to detect hidden electromagnetic signals in real time and to perform high-value military signals intelligence (SIGINT), surveillance, and reconnaissance.
The electromagnetic signal environment contains valuable information about the enemy's order of battle, their maneuvers and actions, and early indications of potential threats, DARPA researchers point out.
The electromagnetic signal environment, however, is crowded and cluttered, and DARPA experts say they expect it to grow exponentially more so as new technologies enter service, like 5G wireless communications, unmanned vehicles, and millimeter wave radar.
The project seeks to enable U.S. and allied warfighters to understand in near-real-time all the waveform details, source type and class, signal format, and geolocation of detected RF signals, as well as the information these signals carry and whether or not the information is encrypted.
The ASTRAL program will enable superior electromagnetic signal awareness at the tactical edge with new technology suitable for tactical mobile units. ASTRAL technology will enable U.S. tactical forces fighting in all kinds of conditions to understand what adversaries are doing around them, anticipate adversaries' future actions, and recognize potential threats.
ASTRAL seeks to combine new analog photonic technology with state-of-the-art digital electronics in a hybrid photonic/electronic processing system. The analog photonic elements could take advantage of the wide bandwidth, wide optical dynamic range, ease of parrelization, and ability to implement multiplications by square-law detection that photonic technology offers. the digital elements, meanwhile, could implement general algorithms, low costs, and programming flexibility of electronics.
Some spectrum awareness applications of interest to DARPA include: optical communication real-time internet protocol (IP) packet identification and exploitation for physical layer network defense; city-wide wireless device geolocation; X-Ku-Ka band low probability of intercept radar warning; and theater-wide spread-spectrum radio geolocation.
DARPA officials expect to award several contracts in each of the two technical areas.Companies interested should submit proposals no later than 5 Sept. 2017 at https://baa.darpa.mil. E-mail questions to DARPA at [email protected].
More information is online at www.fbo.gov/spg/ODA/DARPA/CMO/HR001117S0044/listing.html.
