Military Embedded Systems

DARPA SDR contract won by Rockwell Collins

News

January 30, 2012

John McHale

Editorial Director

Military Embedded Systems

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.

 

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