TECHNOLOGY AREAS: Air Platform, Information Systems, Sensors, Electronics

ACQUISITION PROGRAM: PMA290

RESTRICTION ON PERFORMANCE BY FOREIGN CITIZENS (i.e., those holding non-U.S. Passports): This topic is "ITAR Restricted." The information and materials provided pursuant to or resulting from this topic are restricted under the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), 22 CFR Parts 120 - 130, which control the export of defense-related material and services, including the export of sensitive technical data. Foreign Citizens may perform work under an award resulting from this topic only if they hold the "Permanent Resident Card", or are designated as "Protected Individuals" as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3). If a proposal for this topic contains participation by a foreign citizen who is not in one of the above two categories, the proposal will be rejected.

OBJECTIVE: The objective is to construct a software defined receiver that coherently captures many simultaneous signals in 1 GHz of bandwidth around 20.7 GHz produced by as many as 8 separate but abutting transmit elements having noise floors potentially differing by >10 dB. DSP software provided must be able simultaneously to separate this IBW into software selectable depth FFT displays of the 8 transponders and into up to 100 arbitrarily centered signals having individual IBW of from 250 kHz to 500 MHz. Demodulation software for 10 commonly used waveforms should also be provided and selectable with minimum delay at the time of execution or via a canned script. In addition, the ability to record all the data in real time is desirable and to record the demodulated signal subsets is essential. All these features should be able to run in real time. The abilities to receive simultaneously other SatCom bands, e.g. 7.25-7.75GHz, and inclusion of compatible software to detect intruding users and adaptively remove interfering signals are desirable.

DESCRIPTION: The purpose of this topic is to construct a single software defined receiver system that can be used to monitor satellite operations and also act as a multi-band terminal and intruder detector. While the emphasis is on a versatile set of modem related software, it is essential that the entire effort also achieve functional connection between this back-end and the RF front end that can support the wideband and coherent reception requirements without disfunctional loss of SNR. Innovations that reduce system complexity are desirable. Experience with direct reception receivers and oversampled data, if any, should be mentioned.

PHASE I: The phase 1 proposal should clearly identify the notional system architecture to be pursued, describe the software to be provided by the end of phase 2, and provide evidence of the vendor�s ability to deliver the intended functionality, including definition of the RF front end to be used. During phase 1 this architecture will be further elaborated and a demonstration performed of processing and displaying example data from an existing vendor or government defined RF front end system

PHASE II: During base and first option periods of the phase 2 the vendor should finalize choice of a front end, construct a unified front and backend system and demonstrate the desired range of operations to a government audience. The second option should extend the operation to more simultaneous bands, more rapid identification of and functional alteration to changing waveforms, and/or better intrusion detection/removal software. Inclusion of the last would likely cause this option to be a classified effort.

PHASE III: During the phase 3 the combined system would be incorporated into government network management systems, SDR based communications systems, and collection systems.

PRIVATE SECTOR COMMERCIAL POTENTIAL/DUAL-USE APPLICATIONS: The need by the commercial SatCom industry to detect and defeat intruders was illustrated by the blatant pirating of satellite capacity in Asia and the need to balance traffic loads among the satellite amplifiers is also not unique to military systems. The provision of multiple waveforms will allow system customization to many different satellite bands. In addition, the intruder detection software could also be used by commercial wireless telecom companies to detect signals underlying the spectrum owner�s signals if they excessively raise the noise floor and in cognitive systems to detect the need to move to a different channel.

REFERENCES:
1. http://www.rdecom.army.mil/rdemagazine/200701/part_adr.html

2. http://www.glowlink.com/technologies.html

3. http://www.comtechefdata.com/ProductModems.asp

4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellite_modem

KEYWORDS: SatCom; Software Defined Receivers; GUI; wideband RF; intruder detection; Cognitive radio

** TOPIC AUTHOR (TPOC) **

DoD Notice:   Between November 10 and December 12, 2010, you may talk directly with the Topic Authors to ask technical questions about the topics. Their contact information is listed above. For reasons of competitive fairness, direct communication between proposers and topic authors is not allowed starting December 13, 2011, when DoD begins accepting proposals for this solicitation.

However, proposers may still submit written questions about solicitation topics through the DoD's SBIR/STTR Interactive Topic Information System (SITIS), in which the questioner and respondent remain anonymous and all questions and answers are posted electronically for general viewing until the solicitation closes. All proposers are advised to monitor SITIS (11.1 Q&A) during the solicitation period for questions and answers, and other significant information, relevant to the SBIR 11.1 topic under which they are proposing.

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