McQ Inc. — Department of Defense SBIR Phase I: N162-075

Description

The purpose of this SBIR is to develop an extremely low SWaP-C (size, weight, and power; and cost), yet high performance sensor capable of detecting personnel to at least 50m in both rural and urban settings. This rugged all-terrain miniature sensor (RAMS) system must be covert and easy to setup not providing any audio/visual indication of it operating (beyond a brief indication during emplacement), and will transmit data to a user with a very low probability of intercept. The sensor must weigh 500g or less, operate for 7 days continuously, and use a standard COTS battery. The sensors will communicate with a COTS smart phone/tablet, located approximately 50m away, via an encrypted communications link using AES-256, with minimal latency. McQ will leverage its 30 years of sensor system development experience to select the appropriate hardware platform, detection algorithms, and communication design to solve the unique requirements of this system. McQ will develop a multi channel and multi modal algorithm which utilize multiple small and low cost transducers in a single sensor, to provide enhanced processing gain to detect personnel at extended ranges in both rural and noisy environments all while maintaining an extremely low false alarm rate.