SBIR-STTR Award

Silvus Technologies and Sparton Corporation will bring the power of multiple-antenna (MIMO) technology to improve the next generation of low-cost telemetry (TM) collection. We believe US Government TM collection will benefit from: 1) MIMO radio enhancements that increase radio range/robustness, thereby requiring dramatically fewer collect buoys than current practice; 2) a signal-agnostic approach enabling the same buoys to collect any in-band TM signal (e.g. PSK, FM, etc.) with no swapping-out of modems for each collect, 3) ad hoc networking to recover recorded TM data directly or routed through neighboring buoys, and 4) a low cost TM collection system employing buoys with unit cost similar to todays sonobuoys. This approach also makes maximum re-use of the US Governments existing investment in TM transceivers. Our vision for the program starts with MIMO algorithms and CONOPS cost analysis in Phase I, develops testable prototypes based on Silvus StreamCaster radios and Spartons A size buoys in Phase II, and ultimately creates a very low-cost, stripped-down radio and buoy for field deployment in Phase III.

Current open-ocean flight tests require large manned ships to support large telemetry collection arrays which are difficult to coordinate and expensive to operate. Testing, not including asset under test, can run upwards of $1Million. The logistics of managing dozens of surface vessels not only proves difficult, but can severely impede the ability to perform testing as desired. The joint team of Silvus and Sparton proposes a next-generation telemetry collection system that utilizes the state-of-the-art capabilities of both contractors to produce a low cost and high performance system. This proposed system will utilize 1) Two-stage beamforming to increase reconstructed SNR and effectively double the buoy deployment spacing 2) Multiple-Input-Multiple-Output (MIMO) Mobile ad-hoc networking (MANET) to enable a low-cost data exfiltration system that can be mounted in any aircraft. 3) Meta material antennas in the buoy float to optimize gain at low angles/long range through the ducting area, enabling increased buoy deployment spacing and shorter exfiltration flights. This low-cost system can be built and demonstrated during the Phase II program because Sparton and Silvus are combining expertise in buoy technology, buoy antennas, MIMO signal processing, MIMO-MANET and SDRs available in original equipment manufacturer (OEM) form factors for rapid buoy integration.