Three companies pursue RF technologies for persistent surveillance radar and electronic warfare (EW)

Summary points:

• $95 million Air Force STARS program will prototype advanced RF technologies for spectrum operations, EW, communications, and surveillance.
• Three Ohio-based companies — Defense Engineering Corp., Radial Research and Development, and Matrix Research Inc. — will share the money.
• The goal is to bridge research to fielded systems to enhance RF countermeasures, resilient communications, and multifunction sensing for future persistent surveillance.

WRIGHT-PATTERSON AFB, Ohio – U.S. Air Force researchers are looking to three defense technology companies to advance radio frequency (RF) technologies to support military spectrum operations; electronic warfare (EW); communications; sensing and surveillance; and multifunction systems.

Officials of the Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, announced contracts in August collectively worth $95 million for the Science and Technology Applied Radio Frequency (RF) Systems (STARS) program.

STARS will prototype RF systems for realistic environments to help the U.S. military keep pace with rapidly changing enemy electronic jamming, spoofing, and spectrum denial, while maintaining the U.S. military's secure access to the electromagnetic spectrum.

The companies that will share $95 million in the STARS program are Defense Engineering Corp. in Beavercreek, Ohio; Radial Research and Development in Fairborn Ohio; and Matrix Research Inc. in Dayton, Ohio.

Bridging research and operational systems

STARS is intended to support warfighter training, testing, and operational exercises, and help bridge the gap between basic research and fielded systems that ensure that advanced RF technologies do not remain stuck in research laboratories.

The program seeks to enhance situational awareness, management, and RF spectrum use; develop advanced RF countermeasures, jamming, and deception technologies; improve resilience, security, and efficiency of tactical RF communications in congested and contested environments; capitalize on RF technologies for radar, passive detection, and long-range sensing; and pursue converged RF architectures that can perform communications, radar, and EW functions on the same hardware.

The idea is to provide sensing for all-weather intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capability during the day and at night using new kinds of radar for persistent surveillance in the air, on land, at sea, in space, and in cyber warfare operations.

STARS involves algorithm and software design for RF and digital signal processing; creating simulation for technology testing and refinement; laboratory and flight demonstration of prototypes and operational systems; and to plan for integrating new technologies into existing and future military persistent surveillance systems.

Tell me more about military airborne persistent surveillance ...

• It is the continuous monitoring of areas or targets using aircraft equipped with advanced radar and other kinds of sensors to detect, track, and analyze threats over extended periods for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance. It can involved crewed and uncrewed fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters, and aerostats, which can be fitted with wide-area motion imagery (WAMI) sensors, infrared cameras, signals intelligence (SIGINT) payloads, and synthetic aperture radars.

Intended applications include passive source localization, synthetic aperture radar, moving target indication, tracking, automatic target recognition, interference suppression, and simulation and analysis.

It's been speculated that enabling technologies developed under the STARS program will help the Air Force replace aging systems such as the Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System (Joint STARS) and the Airborne Early Warning And Control (AWACS) surveillance aircraft.

On these contracts, the companies will do the work at their own facilities, and should be finished by August 2031. For more information contact the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory online at www.afrl.af.mil.