The Protected Tactical Waveform (PTW) promises low-cost communications for dismounted forces who have a critical need for secure, anti-jam (AJ), and low-probability-of-intercept (LPI) satellite communications (SATCOM). To allow dismounted forces to leverage the benefit of PTW requires very low size, weight, and power (SWaP) PTW modems capable of operating at up to 256 kbps. Unfortunately, current protected SATCOM modems use power hungry Digital Signal Processors (DSPs) and Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs). As a result, modems are heavy and consume several Watts. ORB Analytics proposes the use of an Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) for modem processing to provide an order of magnitude reduction in modem weight and power. ORB Analytics? Phase I work yielded a PTW modem design with low implementation loss. The company quantified the complexity of this design and identified a low-cost path to an ASIC that can achieve the 1W PTW modem power consumption target. In collaboration with Raytheon, we propose to leverage this Phase I foundation in Phase II to develop and demonstrate a PTW modem prototype. This work will then well-position ORB Analytics with Phase III funding to migrate the design to an ASIC and integrate the ASIC into protected SATCOM terminals.
Benefit: The AEHF constellation has cost more than expected and the program has incurred significant schedule delays. This coupled with the declining defense budget and limited AEHF capacity makes it highly likely that the DoD will elect to offload most tactical communications to a lower-cost, next generation, protected SATCOM system making use of PTW. The proposed research promises PTW terminal designs with low SWaP as needed in many applications such as manpack terminals. The developed technology also has application in DVB-S2 and wireless backhaul designs.
Keywords: Protected Tactical Waveform, Aehf Satcom, Aj, Lpi, Asic
