Air force 17. 1 Small Business Innovation Research (sbir) Phase I proposal Submission Instructions

DESCRIPTION: Currently, missile warning/missile defense radar sub-systems suffer from diminishing sources of supply and support from OEMs. Some current radars, such as AN/FPS-108, rely on comparatively unreliable, inefficient, and outdated TWT amplifiers. Solid-state versions have demonstrated 10 times greater reliability with operational sustainment savings exceeding $100M over a 30-year lifetime for bomber radars. L-Band internally matched 250W to 1000W transistors are available from several sources. High power pulsed L-Band solid-state rack mounted power amplifiers, up to 800W power output, are commercially available. Development of higher pulse power solid-state L-Band power amplifier would be useful for military and commercial long range, search radar applications.

PHASE I: Conduct engineering study on solid state power amplifier replacement options. A systematic application of knowledge toward the production of useful materials, devices, and systems or methods, including design, development, and improvement of prototypes and new processes to meet missile warning/missile defense radar requirements. Complete system design for high power L-Band solid-state power amplifier (SSPA), and estimate performance characteristics, efficiency, and cost for 10 kW peak power L-Band SSPA.

PHASE II: Demonstrate solid state amplifiers can replace TWT amplifiers and their bulky, heavy, and expensive high voltage power supplies. Develop and demonstrate a prototype high pulse power solid-state L-Band power amplifier.

PHASE III DUAL USE APPLICATIONS: Integrate solid state amplifier into representative system to demonstrate capability.

REFERENCES:

1.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobra_Dane.

2.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AN/FPQ-16_PARCS.

3.http://www.integratech.com/LBandR.aspx

4.http://www.aethercomm.com/products/18

KEYWORDS: Solid State Radar Amplifiers, Traveling Wave Tube (TWT) replacements

TECHNOLOGY AREA(S): Battlespace, Electronics, Sensors

The technology within this topic is restricted under the International Traffic in Arms Regulation (ITAR), 22 CFR Parts 120-130, which controls the export and import of defense-related material and services, including export of sensitive technical data, or the Export Administration Regulation (EAR), 15 CFR Parts 730-774, which controls dual use items. Offerors must disclose any proposed use of foreign nationals (FNs), their country(ies) of origin, the type of visa or work permit possessed, and the statement of work (SOW) tasks intended for accomplishment by the FN(s) in accordance with section 5.4.c.(8) of the solicitation and within the AF Component-specific instructions. Offerors are advised foreign nationals proposed to perform on this topic may be restricted due to the technical data under US Export Control Laws. Please direct questions to the AF SBIR/STTR Contracting Officer, Ms. Gail Nyikon, gail.nyikon@us.af.mil.

OBJECTIVE: Develop integrated System-of-Systems design space to stitch design artifacts (e.g., electrical signals, digital logic, etc.) across individual systems into a System-of-Systems.

DESCRIPTION: This project addresses two aspects of the “Digital Thread & Digital Twin.” First, the ability to conduct Enterprise-Level System-of-Systems (SoS) engineering through a process/framework to transform capability gaps and Concept of Operations (CONOPS) into SoS capability requirements that can be allocated down to system level (e.g., platform, sensors, weapons, networks, etc.) programs. The second, is reduced acquisition process time associated with translation of capability documents into system requirements through improved decomposition, traceability, management of requirements provided by customers, and translation into technical requirements and acquisition documents. Complexity of integrated systems [2] (such as video surveillance, digital communications, and RADAR to name a few) necessitate new functional architectures, novel design tools, and innovative integrations technology to efficiently bring these complex components together. The challenge problem is exacerbated by industrial drive to leverage existing commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) technology by unbundling capabilities and reintegrating systems together to form SoS. SoS are large-scale distributed collaborative systems, which are created through the integration of complex systems. SoS integration has an added challenge [3], as often times the sub-systems being integrated were never intended to be interfaced or controlled through other systems. The substantial complexity of SoS regularly results in mismatch between design and implementation of the integrated SoS. This mismatch stems from operational independence, managerial independence, evolutionary development, emergent behavior, and geographic distribution of SoS subsystems, and results in variability between subsystem design and SoS implementation.

Previous attempts to solve this problem [4, 5] have focused primarily on developing tools to address software application lifecycle management. These solutions are known as Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) tools, and include commercial examples, such as HP ALM, IBM Rational Team Concert, and Mylyn. The aim of ALM tools is to streamline the traceability of customer requirements all the way to test and release. ALM tools require significant human involvement to keep configurations up to date and manually make corrections when changes are flagged.

The envisioned solution for this research project could build upon technology developed for ALM, and extend it to system-level design. Some research has been conducted to extend ALM for use with system-level design [6], however does not scale to SoS-relevant problem sets. This effort seeks a SoS architecture design tool with the ability to describe both functional and integration artifacts (examples of these artifacts can be provided by the Government as needed) of systems through implementation of this Digital Thread. Solutions to this challenge are expected to dramatically decrease the time and effort required to design, integrate, and execute by providing a new mechanism to capture the totality of the SoS design in a unified digital form. This unified SoS design environment will provide a first-ever opportunity to conduct assessments of SoS performance in parallel with sub-system design, as opposed to the current approach which requires completed/executable sub-systems prior to SoS design in order to illicit performance information and make assessments.

PHASE I: 1) Broad Understanding of SoS architectural design tools.

PHASE II: Demonstrate ability to implement Digital Thread to realize a SoS architecture, and show how design changes within sub-systems impact SoS capability. Develop and demonstrate the utility of Digital Thread to realize a SoS architecture. Show scalability of the Digital Thread solution to realize SoS architectures of military relevance. The capability of this Digital Thread must extend to support most commercial digital artifacts.

PHASE III DUAL USE APPLICATIONS: Develop a mechanism to realize integrated SoSs with dual-use applications, such as surveillance systems and safety applications. A number of government agencies (military and civil) require this capability to protect facilities, operations, critical infrastructure and personnel.

REFERENCES:

1. Sage, A. P., & Cuppan, C. D. (2001). On the systems engineering and management of systems of systems and federations of systems. Information Knowledge Systems Management, 2(4), 325-345.

2. Jain, R., Chandrasekaran, A., Elias, G., & Cloutier, R. (2008). Exploring the impact of systems architecture and systems requirements on systems integration complexity. Systems Journal, IEEE, 2(2), 209-223.

3. Oberhauser, R., & Schmidt, R. (2007). Towards a Holistic Integration of Software Lifecycle Processes Using the Semantic Web. In ICSOFT (ISDM/WHAT/DC), 137-144.

4. Mihindukulasooriya, N., García-Castro, R., & Esteban-Gutiérrez, M. (2013, October). Linked data platform as a novel approach for enterprise application integration. In Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Consuming Linked Data-Volume 1

5. Balarin, F., Watanabe, Y., Hsieh, H., Lavagno, L., Passerone, C., & Sangiovanni-Vincentelli, A. (2003). Metropolis: An integrated electronic system design environment. Computer, 36(4), 45-52.

KEYWORDS: Digital Thread, system architecture, system(s)-of-systems, system integration, design tools

TECHNOLOGY AREA(S): Battlespace, Electronics, Sensors

The technology within this topic is restricted under the International Traffic in Arms Regulation (ITAR), 22 CFR Parts 120-130, which controls the export and import of defense-related material and services, including export of sensitive technical data, or the Export Administration Regulation (EAR), 15 CFR Parts 730-774, which controls dual use items. Offerors must disclose any proposed use of foreign nationals (FNs), their country(ies) of origin, the type of visa or work permit possessed, and the statement of work (SOW) tasks intended for accomplishment by the FN(s) in accordance with section 5.4.c.(8) of the solicitation and within the AF Component-specific instructions. Offerors are advised foreign nationals proposed to perform on this topic may be restricted due to the technical data under US Export Control Laws. Please direct questions to the AF SBIR/STTR Contracting Officer, Ms. Gail Nyikon, gail.nyikon@us.af.mil.

OBJECTIVE: Survey state-of-the-art technology for additively manufactured antennas to form a conformal active aperture with integral active components embedded in the phased array, and propose an innovative solution to implement it on an airborne platform.

DESCRIPTION: Fabrication of printed circuit board (PCB) based antennas typically involves the patterning of dielectric substrates with conductive material. For predominantly 2-D applications, PCBs are the prototyping solution of choice, combining material removal through machining and etching with material addition by soldering and plating. Despite the use of vias and other multi-layering techniques, it is predominantly a planar process. Consequently, a large percentage of existing three dimensional electromagnetic designs have been assembled from multiple PCB layers to increase the dimensionality.

In the last decade, there has been a marked increase in the documented use of 3-D electromagnetic devices, including gradient index lenses at both microwave and optical frequencies, and radio frequency lenses that attain resolution beyond the diffraction limit. While these structures are more complex, making fabrication considerably more difficult, we are now able to realize them by taking advantage of advances in macroscopic layered prototyping, through technologies such as stereolithography, selective laser sintering, fused deposition modeling (FDM), and three-dimensional printing. These methods are capable of addressing the needs of 3-D electromagnetic designs which incorporate non-planar geometries and material inhomogeneity. The use of 3-D rapid manufacturing for functional electromagnetic devices, however, is still uncommon, as the simultaneous layering of conductive and insulating materials remains difficult.

While there is much published work related to 3-D printing and other rapid manufacturing, most deal with topics of strictly mechanical interest. The successful implementation of functioning antennas will benefit the customization of RF solutions greatly. Applications range from flexible RF devices that can be contoured to the shapes of various objects, to complicated systems such as a fully functioning doubly conformal active electronically scanned array (AESA).

This topic seeks to advance the state of the art on additively manufactured antennas (elements and active arrays) using specifically 3-D rapid additive manufacturing, including 3-D printing, stereo lithography, FDM, and other relevant methods. The geometrical focus is ultimately 3-D/non-planar devices and structures rather than those that can be designed and fabricated using conventional PCB methods.

In particular, the key objectives are:

1) Advancement of processing methods and available materials in terms of substrate loss (loss tangent less than 0.01), thermal and environmental stability (for soldering, autoclave, vacuum molding applications, and extreme environments), selective metallization (conductivity within a factor of 2 when compare with bulk metal of similar cross section at a given frequency, spatial resolution at better than 0.5% of the wavelength at the operating frequency)

2) Exploitation of concurrent 3-D elements (Non-planar broadband elements with full metal and/or mixed metalized and dielectric materials) and conformality (Conformal to doubly curved surface with varying curvature in different directions and small radius of curvature with respect to wavelength)

3) Multilayered conformal structures that incorporate vias and RF transmission lines (for example microstrip and waveguide structures) with good adhesion and mechanical stability

4) Incorporation of active and passive elements such as resistors, capacitors, inductors, transistors, and various integrated components in different packages within the multilayered conformal structure.

Transition of this technology will include the development of a broad band conformal antenna array with steering capability.

PHASE I: Design and model an 8x8 element X-band single polarization antenna array with>10% bandwidth on a truncated surface of an ellipsoid with radius of curvature less than 5 wavelengths. The design should be digitally steerable to at least +/-45 degrees in 1 direction (2 preferable), and incorporate one RF port. Key performance parameters must be analyzed and compared to a multilayered planar solution. Key fabrication methods should be identified and demonstrated.

PHASE II: Phase II shall mature the technology from Phase I and a multilayered conformal device as well as a planar version of the design should be delivered. The device should have one RF port and a control port. The programming language for the control should be MATLAB, with the appropriate hardware to control the beam steering included. The agility of the steering should correspond to a pointing accuracy within the 3 dB beamwidth for a slant range of 5 km at 150 m/s.

PHASE III DUAL USE APPLICATIONS: Industry partnership and transition of the technology for dual use in domestic commercial space, air, and/or ground sensing systems as well as DoD platforms is to be accomplished.

REFERENCES:

1. Adams, J. J., Duoss, E. B., Malkowski, T. F., Motala, M. J., Ahn, B. Y., Nuzzo, R. G., & Lewis, J. A. (2011). “Conformal Printing of Electrically Small Antennas on Three-Dimensional Surfaces.” Advanced Materials, 23(11), 1335-1340.

2. I. M. Ehrenberg, S. E. Sarma, and B.-I. Wu, “A three-dimensional self-supporting low loss microwave lens with a negative refractive index,” J. Appl. Phys., vol. 112, art. no. 073114, Oct. 2012.

3. Isaac M. Ehrenberg, Sanjay E. Sarma, and Bae-Ian Wu, “Fabrication of an X-band conformal antenna array on an additively manufactured substrate” 2015 IEEE APS/URSI International Symposium, Vancouver, Canada, July 19–25, 2015.

4. Jeffery W. Allen and Bae-Ian Wu, “Design and fabrication of an RF GRIN lens using 3D printing technology,” SPIE Photonics West 2013, San Francisco, CA, Feb. 2–7, 2013.

KEYWORDS: 3D printing, antennas, array

AF171-116

TITLE: Scalable Coherent Photonic Array on a Silicon Platform

TECHNOLOGY AREA(S): Battlespace, Electronics, Sensors

OBJECTIVE: Design and fabricate a scalable, coherent photonic array on a silicon platform.

DESCRIPTION: Once considered inexhaustible, fiber channel capacity is presently limited by the bandwidth of erbium-doped amplifiers (~10THz). While amplification over wider bands is possible, at least in principle, by using a Raman or parametric process, deployable communication infrastructure is likely to remain bound to the conventional C and L bands in the foreseeable future. Consequently, to increase spectral efficiency while transmitting in a strictly limited spectral range, coherent transceivers will be exclusively used in all practical cases of interest to the DoD. Indeed, coherent signal processing already dominates advanced wireless, fiber communication [1], and other sensing [2] applications. Coherent systems are also of particular interest to other DoD applications such as free-space communications [3] and sensing links where an optical signal cannot be amplified mid-span. This limitation greatly reduces the utility of incoherent (On-Off) schemes except for very low bandwidth and/or very high-power applications. For example, coherent receivers play a central role in modern LIDAR/LADAR systems [4] which strive for high sensitivity, wavelength agility, and jamming resistance.

Although a coherent communication link can be terminated by a single coherent receiver, this is not an acceptable option when bandwidth or wavelength diversity is required. For example, in LIDAR/LADAR systems, the ability to launch and simultaneously receive multiple, mutually coherent carriers can be leveraged to offset the deleterious effects of atmospheric scintillation and prevent band-specific jammers. Likewise, in multi-path-interference (fading) communication links, wavelength multiplexing can maintain channel capacity even under adverse conditions. More importantly, when signal processing diversity requires deserialization of high-bandwidth signals and full access to both quadratures, multiple coherent receivers must be used in a synchronized array structure.

With the recent progress made in integrated photonics and optoelectronic packaging, it is now possible to combine sources, arrayed waveguide routers, and even digitizers (ADC) on a single silicon platform (albeit heterogeneously). While these technologies can be easily used to realize a single-channel coherent transceiver, a scalable coherent receiver array is still a challenge. If scalable coherent receivers can be built to co-exist with complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) blocks, not only would conventional LIDAR/LADAR and communication links be greatly improved, but a number of other DoD-relevant capabilities would also be enabled including a new class of robust/compact channelizers. This initiative seeks the proof-of-principle design and fabrication of a highly scalable coherent array on a silicon platform and is expected to develop in following Phases.

PHASE I: Design and model an integrated silicon photonics based coherent array with a minimum of 60 emitters. Each emitter should have a side-mode suppression ratio greater than 45 dB, an emitter-to-emitter spacing greater than 100 GHz, and a per-emitter optical power of at least 200 microWatts. Preference will be given to designs of reduced complexity and footprint, to those with higher degrees of coherence within and across the emitters, and to systems with higher wall-plug efficiencies. Any electronic control required for array power and noise stabilization must be based on clear technical assumptions, factored into the design, and modeled.

PHASE II: Prove the fabrication viability of the proposed solution using a silicon foundry to generate prototypes. The Phase II work is also expected to improve upon the Phase I design with the goal of scaling beyond 100 channels, increasing power, and increasing the emitter-to-emitter spacing. To ensure this technology can be developed into a commercial product, Phase II is expected to use commercially available lithography tools (not e-beam) through a foundry such as AIM Photonics. The resulting system must be tested against the criteria noted in Phase I including the relevant coherence measurements.

PHASE III DUAL USE APPLICATIONS: Two separate applications for this technology (commercial/military) should be targeted by designing and demonstrating ruggedized/fieldable prototype units that include any/all electronic control(s). Specifically, the unit should suffer minimal performance degradation when subjected to temperature fluctuations, shock, and vibration.

REFERENCES:

1.  Toyoda, et al., "Marked Performance Improvement of 256 QAM Transmission Using a Digital Back-propagation Method," Opt. Express 20, 19815-19821 (2012).

2.  M. Ghavami, L. B. Michael, and R. Kohno, “Ultra Wideband: Signals and Systems in Communication Engineering,” (Willey, 2007).

3.  A. Kordts, et al., “Higher order mode suppression in high-Q anomalous dispersion SiN microresonators for temporal dissipative Kerr soliton formation,” Opt. Lett. 41, 452-455 (2016).

4.  See for example:http://www.menlosystems.com/products/optical-frequency-combs/fc1500-250-uln/

5.  V.W.S. Chan, "Free-space Optical Communications," J. Lightwave Technol. 24, 4750-4762 (2006).

6.  S. C. Weitkamp (Ed.), “Lidar: Range-Resolved Optical Remote Sensing of the Atmosphere,” (Springer, 2005).

KEYWORDS: Coherent Communications, Electronic Warfare, Optoelectronic Integration, Channelization, LIDAR/LADAR

AF171-117

TITLE: Multi-Sensor/Multi-Platform Integration and Sensor Resource Management

TECHNOLOGY AREA(S): Battlespace, Electronics, Sensors

The technology within this topic is restricted under the International Traffic in Arms Regulation (ITAR), 22 CFR Parts 120-130, which controls the export and import of defense-related material and services, including export of sensitive technical data, or the Export Administration Regulation (EAR), 15 CFR Parts 730-774, which controls dual use items. Offerors must disclose any proposed use of foreign nationals (FNs), their country(ies) of origin, the type of visa or work permit possessed, and the statement of work (SOW) tasks intended for accomplishment by the FN(s) in accordance with section 5.4.c.(8) of the solicitation and within the AF Component-specific instructions. Offerors are advised foreign nationals proposed to perform on this topic may be restricted due to the technical data under US Export Control Laws. Please direct questions to the AF SBIR/STTR Contracting Officer, Ms. Gail Nyikon, gail.nyikon@us.af.mil.

OBJECTIVE: To create algorithms to support distributed unmanned air vehicle (UAV) swarm sensing management via an Autonomous Resource Manager (ARM) to plan the sensing operations of many multi-spectral sensors across many platforms to meet pre-defined mission objectives.

DESCRIPTION: There are several operational concepts where a large aircraft deploys smaller UAV’s to provide sensing capability in A2/AD environments including clearing paths for high value assets (HVA) by coordinated suppression of enemy air defenses (SEAD) and destruction of enemy defenses (DEAD). Groups of UAVs that can be deployed from carrier and other platforms to perform missions in Anti-Access/Area Denied (A2/AD) environments is an emerging area of research. These groups of UAVs need to be controlled with minimal impact to the current mission and workload of the crews of the HVAs that deploy them and, if required, be able to carry out pre-defined mission objectives without contact with the HVAs in the area. There is ongoing research in autonomous control swarming UAVs from a collision avoidance perspective, but very little in sensor control. As far as resource management, the state of the art is single ship man-in/man-on-the-loop. There has been little to no work in the area of sensor resource management coordinated across multiple platforms. The objective of this topic is to address the control of UAV platforms in a swarm from a sensing perspective. The goal is to put the appropriate sensors in the correct locations to complete pre-defined mission objectives. This objective is to be completed assuming working collision avoidance, appropriate sensors, appropriate data links, and integrated auto-pilot. The ARM will utilize and augment the capability of these existing systems.