E-Lambda LLC — Department of Defense SBIR Phase I: N181-070

Description

Recent advances in free space optical (FSO) technologies promise a new way to provide energy efficient, high speed, and secure wireless communications. Vertical Cavity Surface Emitting Lasers (VCSELs) are now sufficiently mature that it is possible to transmit data at high bit rates reliably using simple energy efficient modulation schemes. Also, FSO and RF devices can operate in the same locations without interference. Importantly, FSO transmissions can be made to directly focus to a particular receiver. Consequently, information leak to the surrounding by FSO transmissions can be tightly controlled by adjusting the focus area which is not easily done with typical RF transmissions. FSO devices are also resilient to jamming attack since the attacker has to be in vicinity of the legitimate user and has sufficient power to direct its light to disrupt the receiver’s signal. This proposal aims to build the first high speed (Gbps), scalable, secure, wireless local area network (WLAN) for undersea platform using an innovative concept called “dynamic” FSO femtocell (DFF) architecture. DFF technologies provide the coverage area through a network of collaborative femtocells, each can be can be dynamically enlarged, reduced, and moved in such a way to optimize for throughput, energy, security, and mobility.