SBIR-STTR Award

AiRANACULUS, a Boston-based start-up working in the area of Intelligent RF and Networking solutions proposes Spectrum-aware Sensor Optimized Signaling (S2OS) System that will perform intentional overlapping of the transmit channels and leverage advances in Multi-User Detection, Co-channel Signal on Signal Interference Cancellation and Cognitive Spectrum Awareness technologies to provide significant (>2X) increase in capacity of the data uplinks from the sonobuoys. Our technology has been developed on wide variety of Navy (CAMICA, OSCAR), Army (WADER) and IARPA programs. Everyone wants more bandwidth, but radio spectrum is a precious limited resource. An obvious way to deal with bandwidth needs is to reduce the data size, whenever possible, especially if the application and nature of signal source allows it. Signal captured by sensors of Sonobuoy is not random information, in fact, can be compared to audio signal spread over range of frequency. It is common practice to compress audio signal for storage or transmission. Sonobuoy sensors capture these signals from different sources where the spectrum is often sparse with signal energies concentrated around several different frequencies, with large bandwidth occupied by mainly noise. To increase the uplink data throughput, we first reduce the signal size to be transmitted by filtering out non-signal-bearing frequency regions. This process can be efficiently implemented by spectral segmentation and energy based selection using polyphase filter banks. After the signal extraction, the data is further compressed and additional frame information to restore the signal at the receiver side is appended to generate the transmit frame. This sensor optimized signal is then transmitted using RF channels that are intentionally overlapping in frequency either partially or even fully, so that the overall required bandwidth that must be assigned to multiple users of the network decreases. In the aircraft, a special receiver with Multi-User Detection (MUD) capability can demodulate these signals with overlapping channels without suffering from adjacent or co-channel interferences. The MUD receiver is designed as an Appliqu such that capacity enhancements as a result of overlapped channels may be achieved with no modification to the generic demodulator. Generic nature of MUD receiver allows interference cancellation for wide variety of signals. In addition, we can improve the performance even further by using digital post processing with low complexity iterative MUD processing. Based on these technologies that we already have proven to work, our proposal aims to improve and expand the technologies to the sonobuoy sensor signal applications. By combining efficient spectrum-aware sensor signal processing and high-performing state-of-the art interference cancelling multi-user receiver, we can achieve the goal of data throughput increase that can be demonstrated not only in the lab but also in the realistic field trials.

Benefit:
We believe that S2OS holds tremendous promise for the Battlefield Internet of Things (BIoT), Critical Industrial Internet of Things (CIoT) and Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) Markets which, together are anticipated to reach $520 Billion Globally according to Bain. Other applications include homeland security, border protection, health, and human services and even space missions where NASA is concerned that their radios in space may face substantial interference from thousands of new payloads that are being deployed by various nation states and private entities. Our warfighters are constantly suffering from co-channel and adjacent channel interference which may rise from our adversaries or even from the Blue Force. S2OS has tremendous potential to overcome this interference and restore the communications throughput. This technology may be used in existing Wi-Fi systems to boost capacity in dense urban scenarios where many channels go wasted. The Wi-Fi system is currently (and always has been) based on CSMA MAC protocol to allow multiple stations to share the same channel. Multi-User Detection (MUD) technology in S2OS is a viable candidate to introduce next generation Wi-Fi system based on a much simpler MAC without CSMA protocol which is a major contributor of lower throughput due to deference of transmission when another station is transmitting Wi-Fi signal. The technology developed in S2OS would be especially applicable to the Wi-Fi access point as its computing power is much higher than that of the Wi-Fi station. In conclusion, work toward MUD receiver design with various types of modulations to be experimented in S2OS has potential to replace Wi-Fi MAC protocol in the future, which would be considered a breakthrough, since it impacts not only throughput of the Wi-Fi system but reduces latency to facilitate real-time applications that were considered unsuitable before. This technology may even be used for Cognitive Bi-directional Spectrum Sharing between Federal and Commercial Systems. Recently, AMBIT auctions (3.45 3.55 GHz) fetched nearly $22.5B and C-Band Auctions Fetched upwards of $80B since there is an interest from the enterprises and utility industries to deploy private 5G networks. This will be a shared spectrum which means that multiple networks may operate on the same channel or the adjacent channel causing mutual interference. A variant of S2OS can significantly help this Multi Billion $ industry to do spectrum management and interference mitigation. Another application is to use this technology for TV WhiteSpaces where the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced that signals may be offset by half the channel. This will result in partial overlap of the channels. Finally, a generic version of S2OS may be used for unintentional interference cancellation to 4G/ 5G systems which is a $500M market.

Keywords:
Sonobuoy, Sonobuoy, Filter Banks, signaling, Spectrum-aware, RF propagation, Modulation, Sonar, Channelizer

AiRANACULUS in association with Sparton DeLeon Springs (Transition Partner) proposes an innovative Spectrum-aware Sensor Optimized Signaling (S2OS) for data uplink information transfer improvements that can double, triple, and quadruple the current uplink data throughput from sonobuoys with minimal increase in channel bandwidth by using Multi-User Detection (MUD) technology at the Receiver with Partially Overlapped Transmit Channels that maximizes uplink data transfer speeds. The objective of this project is to develop a solution that enables large amounts of data to be transferred or uplinked from Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) sensors systems, including sonobuoy sensor systems, to airborne platform receivers. The Navy is transitioning to digital communication links for all its ASW sonobuoy sensors to aircraft information transfer. Currently, transition to digital communication links for data transfer from airborne ASW sensors, including sonobuoys, is limited by the combination of limited Radio Frequency (RF) bandwidth available to use, and the need to sample and analyze large acoustic bandwidths greater than 40 kHz for transfer over the data link. The current maximum data rate to the aircraft is 320 Kbps in one channel located in the 136 MHz-170 MHz VHF band. If the Navy wanted to get multiple hydrophones and/or wide acoustic bandwidth data from the buoy, then this narrow pipe is a constraint. We focus on selecting modulation and demodulation schemes that provide higher spectral efficiency by increasing raw data rate per given channel bandwidth while considering hardware limitations, most notably the transmit Power Amplifier (PA) efficiency. Several different modulation schemes to improve the uplink data throughput were evaluated by examining three metrics, namely, performance (BER), spectral efficiency (bits/s/Hz), and required power amplifier rating (Watts). BER performance of each modulation scheme was verified by Monte Carlo simulations. After extensive analysis and simulations, we propose the improved sonobuoy uplink radio communication system with flexible channel configuration options for deployment of sonobuoys with increased and mixed data rate capability using partially overlapped channels using Gaussian Minimum Shift Keying (GMSK) modulation and MUD receiver. Exemplary deployment scenarios show that with 2 Watt and 3 Watt PAs, data throughputs of 640 kbps over 320 kHz channel and 960 kbps over 750 kHz channel can be achieved with the same radio coverage area as the legacy 320 kbps GMSK system with 1 Watt PA. Based on these technologies that we already have proven to work, our proposal aims to improve and expand the technologies to the sonobuoy sensor signal applications. By combining efficient spectrum-aware sensor signal processing and state-of-the art interference cancelling multi-user receiver, we can achieve the goal of data throughput increase that can be demonstrated not only in the lab but also in the realistic field trials.

Benefit:
We believe that S2OS holds tremendous promise for the Battlefield Internet of Things (BIoT), Critical Industrial Internet of Things (CIoT) and Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) Markets which, together are anticipated to reach $520 Billion Globally according to Bain. Other applications include homeland security, border protection, health, and human services and even space missions where Navy is concerned that their radios in space may face substantial interference from thousands of new payloads that are being deployed by various nation states and private entities. Our warfighters are constantly suffering from co-channel and adjacent channel interference which may rise from our adversaries or even from the Blue Force. S2OS has tremendous potential to overcome this interference and restore the communications throughput. This technology may be used in existing Wi-Fi systems to boost capacity in dense urban scenarios where many channels go wasted. The Wi-Fi system is currently (and always has been) based on CSMA MAC protocol to allow multiple stations to share the same channel. Multi-User Detection (MUD) technology in S2OS is a viable candidate to introduce next generation Wi-Fi system based on a much simpler MAC without CSMA protocol which is a major contributor of lower throughput due to back-off in transmission when another station is transmitting Wi-Fi signal. The technology developed in S2OS would be especially applicable to the Wi-Fi access point as its computing power is much higher than that of the Wi-Fi station. In conclusion, work toward MUD receiver design with various types of modulations to be experimented in S2OS has potential to replace Wi-Fi MAC protocol in the future, which would be considered a breakthrough, since it impacts not only throughput of the Wi-Fi system but reduces latency to facilitate real-time applications that were considered unsuitable before. This technology may even be used for Cognitive Bi-directional Spectrum Sharing between Federal and Commercial Systems. Recently, AMBIT auctions (3.45 3.55 GHz) fetched nearly $22.5B and C-Band Auctions Fetched upwards of $80B since there is an interest from the enterprises and utility industries to deploy private 5G networks. This will be a shared spectrum which means that multiple networks may operate on the same channel or the adjacent channel causing mutual interference. A variant of S2OS can significantly help this Multi Billion $ industry to do spectrum management and interference mitigation. Another application is to use this technology for TV WhiteSpaces where the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced that signals may be offset by half the channel. This will result in partial overlap of the channels. Finally, a generic version of S2OS may be used for unintentional interference cancellation to 4G/ 5G systems which is a $500M market.

Keywords:
interference cancellation, Multi-User Detection, anti-submarine warfare (ASW), Enhanced Uplink Data Rate, GMSK Modulation, Sonobuoy, spectrum awareness, Ultrasonic sensor