Physical Optics Corporation — Department of Defense SBIR Phase I: N171-051

Description

To address the Navy need for an advanced, affordable, and agile direct digital exciter technology for use with existing, rotating air surveillance radar systems, Physical Optics Corporation (POC) proposes to develop a new Streaming Arbitrary Waveform Direct Digital Exciter for Radar (SAWDER). SAWDER is based on POCs direct digital RF signal processing implemented on state-of-the-art digital-to-analog converter (DAC) and field programmable gate array (FPGA) hardware. Specifically, by implementing true streaming arbitrary waveform generation, SAWDER is able to provide continuously and instantly variable pulsewidths and nonperiodic pulse repetition, and modulation capabilities that include arbitrary user-defined intrapulse modulations, such as nonlinear frequency modulation. Use of POCs digital RF predistortion suppresses spur and harmonic generation, providing SAWDER with signal quality to achieve greater range and velocity accuracy with pulse-Doppler radar, which directly addresses Program Executive Office Integrated Warfare Systems (PEO IWS) 2.0 requirements for an advanced direct digital exciter. In Phase I, POC will demonstrate, through a combination of modeling, analysis, and measurements with in-house hardware and test setups, that SAWDER can be implemented, feasibly and affordably in legacy rotating radar reaching technology readiness level (TRL)-4. In Phase II, POC plans to develop and demonstrate a SAWDER prototype reaching TRL-6.