DARPA SDR contract won by Rockwell Collins
NewsJanuary 30, 2012
CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa. Officials at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) selected Rockwell Collins for a $5.3 million Phase 2 research contract to increase digital software defined radios (SDRs) capability by a factor of ten over existing technology.
The Remote Analog to Digital Converter with Deserialization and Reconstruction (RADER) program requires Rockwell Collins engineers to design power-efficient high-speed photonic analog to digital (A/D) converters with the capability for remote operation. Research has begun and will conclude at the end of this year, according to Rockwell Collins.
The Phase 2 contract is the second RADER contract awarded to the Rockwell Collins. In Phase 1, Rockwell Collins was the only company, out of three selected, to successfully demonstrate an A/D Converter with a minimum of 8 Effective Number of Bits (ENOB) operating at 10GHz, company officials say in a public release.
“In this stage of the RADER program, we’ll be working to shrink the A/D technology that we developed in Phase 1 onto a single silicon device,” says John Borghese, vice president, Advanced Technology Center for Rockwell Collins. “The miniaturization of the technology we’ve already proven will enable integration into next generation radio devices.”
A goal with Phase 2 is to significantly improve electronic countermeasure capabilities, the RADER research could also be applied across other military and commercial communication systems.
