SBIR-STTR Award

The JTRS program is changing the future of radio communications by providing access to unprecedented spectral bandwidth and exploiting new developments in software-defined radio. To match these developments in radio technology, a significant improvement over the current state-of-the-art in antenna technology is required. Specific performance criteria that must be addressed include efficiency, gain, ease of integration, power handling, size, environmental durability, and user safety. While these objectives represent new challenges for antenna systems for communications, they must be satisfied without sacrificing affordability or practical operation. FIRST RF Corporation has evaluated these requirements and is proposing the use of two breakthrough antenna technologies that use innovative design techniques to meet the needs of the JTRS program. These concepts pair proven development approaches that have been demonstrated in FIRST RF’s antenna technologies with new antenna concepts from FIRST RF’s internal research and development (IR&D) efforts. Fundamentally, the volume required for a wideband antenna to maintain efficient performance across a desired band of interest is proportional to its gain and bandwidth. In order to accommodate real-world integration considerations, it is important to maximize the efficient use of this volume and provide a practical form-factor for the antenna.

Keywords:
High Gain, Jtrs, Broadband, Ground Mobile Radio (Gmr), Antenna, Communications, Vehicular, Wideband,

In this Phase II program, FIRST RF Corporation proposes technology which solves a technology gap which exists for the JTRS Ground Mobile Radio (GMR) segment; namely, a wideband/multi-band antenna covering the 30-88, 225 – 450, and 1200 – 2000 MHz bands. During Phase I, FIRST RF took an aggressive engineering approach which included antenna modeling, prototyping, and measurement in the installed environment. Phase I ended with a prototype tri-band antenna which meets nearly all the RF requirements of the program. Phase II is focused on optimizing the RF performance, shrinking the height of the antenna by combining apertures, and ruggedizing the antenna for the harsh ground operational environments. The technology is based on FIRST RF’s very successful line of ultra-wideband antennas used for ground-based electronic warfare (EW). By combining apertures, multiple antennas can be fit into the 82” height requirement. In addition to the RF performance of the antenna, the proposed design uses a custom-designed spring-base to dampen vehicle dynamics and a ruggedized radome. Lessons learned from delivering over 130,000 antennas to the field will be applied to this JTRS GMR program.

Keywords:
Sincgars, Sincgars, Jtrs Gmr Antenna, Uhf-Los, Multi-Band Antenna, Wideband Antenna, L-Band