DARPA asks OEwaves to develop optical receiver for signals intelligence and electronic warfare

PASADENA, Calif., 15 July 2008. Engineers from OEwaves Inc. in Pasadena, Calif., won a contract from the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to build a reduced-size-weight-and-power (SWAP) optical receiver for future signals intelligence (SIGINT) and electronic warfare (EW) applications.

OEwaves is developing the photonic receiver front-end in collaboration with ITT Corp. The device is intended to shrink the size and power requirements of conventional microwave receiver front ends by using ultra-high quality crystalline whispering gallery mode (WGM) optical resonators, company officials say.

"Such a receiver can also significantly expand the capability of future sensor suites for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and other small platforms," says Lute Maleki, president and chief executive officer of OEwaves. For more information contact OEwaves online at www.oewaves.com.