SBIR-STTR Award

We will show how smaller SWaP variants of our Switchblade Digital Tuner architecture can be developed and fielded within the specified SWaP constraints. This miniaturization of the Switchblade processing board to a smaller but as capable processing capability is possible due to leaps in FPGA and 3D integrated circuit technology. More importantly, the processor boards that will be discussed in more detail in this proposal have the same software APIs as existing Switchblade tuners, allowing for software application re-use. The proposed 1U (module sized) and 3U processing boards will accept the family of existing and planned Switchblade digital tuner modules due to physical and electrical commonality. Specifically, the two-channel 80MHz instantaneous bandwidth 1.5MHz to 6GHz tuner module, the single channel 500MHz instantaneous bandwidth 100MHz to 6GHz tuner module and the single channel 500MHz instantaneous bandwidth 18GHz frequency range extended tuner module. All of these digital tuner modules were developed or are being developed under various SBIR efforts.

Benefit:
This effort capitalizes on millions of dollars of previous government and private investment to enable a family of modular tuners and processing boards all interchangeable from module sized (1.6

Keywords:
MMIC, MMIC, modularity, software definable radio, Microwave, small SWaP, FPGA MPSoC, Communications, Radar

The focus of this Phase II SBIR topic is to develop an extremely small SWaP ISR/EW capability. There is a need and associated requirements within the Navy and other Department of Defense (DOD) agencies to detect, geo-locate, and discriminate emitters of interest in littoral and open ocean environments. Larger intelligence data demand and fewer manned intelligence platforms make it difficult to meet all intelligence requirements. Additionally, scenario characteristics such as geometry, obscuration, clutter, multi-path, signal detection, and signal type may limit the performance of large standoff intelligence gathering systems. Thus, the need for small, distributed intelligence gathering capability is clear. Our design will provide an extremely small SWaP scalable ISR/EW solution that allows the tuner and processing to all be housed in a very package and provides low bandwidth results as a data product.

Benefit:
The anticipated benefits and potential applications are significant as this effort will result in a high-performance ISR/EW system capable of being deployed from something as small as a submarine 3-inch launcher. Other applications include autonomous undersea vehicles as well as small UAS platforms.

Keywords:
FPGA, Software Defined Radio (SDR), Signal processing, SIGINT, Radio Frequency, MMIC, direction finding, small SWaP