Saturday, March 14, 2015

DARPA wants Shared Spectrum Access for Radar and Communications - Phase 2

Shared Spectrum Access for Radar and Communications Phase 2 - Federal Business Opportunities: Opportunities
: DARPA-BAA-15-24
: Presolicitation
: Added: Mar 13, 2015 2:44 pm
DARPA is soliciting innovative research proposals in the area of spectrum sharing between radar and communications systems, following on prior work carried out in the coexistence thrust of Phase 1 of the Shared Spectrum Access for Radar and Communications (SSPARC) program. Proposed research should investigate innovative approaches that enable revolutionary advances in science, devices, or systems. 

Background/ Related Links

DARPA Starts to Tackle Radar/Comm Sharing |
cognitive radio, TDWR interference, spectrum sharing |
Marcus Spectrum Solutions LLC
Latest contract brings to four the number of contractors
for DARPA RF spectrum sharing - Military & Aerospace Electronics

Shared Spectrum Access for Radar and Communications

Shared Spectrum Access for Radar and Communications (SSPARC)
Although SSPARC technology is expected to be widely applicable, the research focus of the program is on the following spectrum sharing challenge.
  • S-band, 2 GHz – 4 GHz
  • Radar
    • Ground or naval-surface
    • Electronically steered phased array
    • Multifunction – combines air surveillance, air tracking, non-cooperative target identification, and optionally, weather monitoring  
  • Communications system
    • Ground or naval-surface
    • Military system type: MANET
    • Commercial system type: Small-cell broadband
SSPARC treats spectrum sharing as a cooperative problem. Prior work on radar/communications spectrum sharing assumes that one of the two systems ignores the other. In cooperative spectrum sharing, information is shared between the systems in near real time. The shared information enables the systems to be kept separated (i.e., noninterfering) based on how they actually use the spectrum, not based on how they might potentially use or are predicted to use the spectrum.

2014 IEEE International Symposium on Dynamic Spectrum Access Networks (DYSPAN)

Fitz, M.P.; Halford, T.R.; Hossain, I.; Enserink, S.W., "Towards simultaneous radar and spectral sensing," Dynamic Spectrum Access Networks (DYSPAN), 2014 IEEE International Symposium on , vol., no., pp.15,19, 1-4 April 2014
doi: 10.1109/DySPAN.2014.6817774
Abstract: DARPA's Shared Spectrum Access for Radar and Communications (SSPARC) program seeks to improve radar and communications capabilities through spectrum sharing. Spectrum sensing is an integral component of this vision. For example, a spectrally-agile military radar system could adapt the frequency bands it uses according to the sensed spectrum. Currently, radar transmission and spectrum sensing must be multiplexed in time. That is to say, sensing the use of a particular frequency band is only possible during time slices where the radar is inactive in that band. In this paper, we describe how emerging Simultaneous Transmit and Receive (STAR) technology could be evolved to support simultaneous radar and spectrum sensing. We review the state-of-the-art in STAR technology and identify the key challenges associated with achieving contemporaneous radar operation and spectrum sensing on the same platform.
keywords: {radar signal processing;radio spectrum management;spectral analysis;DARPA SSPARC program;STAR technology;radar sensing;radar transmission;shared spectrum access for radar and communication;simultaneous transmit and receive;spectral sensing;spectrum sensing;Conferences;Decision support systems;Dynamic spectrum access;Full-duplex wireless;interference cancellation;simultaneous transmit and receive;spectrum sensing},
URL: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=6817774&isnumber=6817768


Lockheed Martin and SAIC join DARPA SSPARC program to enable radar and communications to share RF spectrum - Intelligent Aerospace
ARLINGTON, Va., 29 Sept. 2013. U.S. military researchers have chosen two companies to develop technology for radio frequency spectrum sharing among radar and communications systems with the goal of improving overall radar and communications capability.
Officials of the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in Arlington, Va., have awarded contracts to the Lockheed Martin Corp. Advanced Technology Laboratories in Cherry Hill, N.J., and Science Applications International Corp. (SAIC) in McLean, Va., for the Shared Spectrum Access for Radar and Communications (SSPARC) program.

SAZE Technologies joins program to share RF spectrum among radar and communications - Military & Aerospace Electronics
Officials of the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in Arlington, Va., awarded a $747,471 to SAZE Technologies for the Shared Spectrum Access for Radar and Communications (SSPARC) program.
SAZE Technologies joins the Lockheed Martin Corp. Advanced Technology Laboratories in Cherry Hill, N.J., and Science Applications International Corp. (SAIC) in McLean, Va., on the DARPA SSPARC program, which seeks to develop technology applicable to spectrum sharing among military radars and military communications systems, as well as among military radars and commercial communications systems.
DARPA has awarded a $2.6 million contract to Lockheed Martin, and a $2.1 million contract to SAIC for the SSPARC program, which will focus on spectrum sharing systems and separation mechanisms, supporting technologies that improve performance when sharing spectrum, theoretical performance limits and grounded design techniques, and relevant regulatory topics, DARPA officials say.
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2 comments:

  1. JudexMarch 21, 2015 at 4:11 AM

    UThe topic of co-existence of radar, comm. and nav. equipment will be more end more important in the future. Until now, only one of the four signal domains has been fully exploited, i.e. Frequency, by ITU bands assignment. The remaining domains are of course Time, Code and Polarization. New radar could exploit the Code domain by using Noise-like , or Tailored, Orthogonal waveforms, a type of Spread Spectrum widely used in Radio Communications.

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  2. UnknownMarch 21, 2015 at 3:55 PM

    Hi Judex

    Actually, those other parameters are not as exploitable as one might initially think. For example, in terms of time, the radar back scattering return can occur at any time. So TDMA idea will not really work except maybe when the radar is really not transmitting in the directions of the comms and its backlobe does not pickup strong comm signals. However, this is not really "bandwidth sharing" in the true sense. In terms of polarization, the radar can transmit V but then have a H component return. Also all sorts of atmospheric effects will affect polarization. Code is also tricky to some extent, as orthogonality or psuedo-orthogonality needs be maintained in the presence of both timing off-set (again the targets position is unknown) and Doppler shifts (specially for radars such as FMCW which rely on Doppler).

    Dr. Masoud Farshchian, CTO of RadComm Inc.

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