SBIR-STTR Award

Situational awareness is critical to the transformation of the Army into an Objective Force. The Objective Force soldier will be operating in extreme conditions and must possess a secure and reliable means to assess his environment and initiate combat on his terms. Ultra-wideband communication networks can provide the Objective Force with a vehicle to see, understand, and act first resulting in ultimate victory on the field of battle. The UWB sensor network will provide rapidly deployed, LPI/LPD access to an integrated picture of the Objective Force area of operation. The network will have reach-back capabilities such that decisions and command flow can be achieved seamlessly and quickly to the units in the field. Innovative Wireless Technologies has partnered with Time Domain Corporation to provide the Objective Force with a UWB sensor network communications platform it requires for the next generation battlefield. Our team will offer an innovative system solution to the UWB Sensor Network via advanced propagation simulation, verification, and novel random walk based routing algorithms. Commercial applications of IWT and Time Domain's research can be applied to a wide variety of sensor network needs such as surveillance for much needed Homeland Defense initiatives, law enforcement, and asset protection.

Keywords:
Uwb, Ultra Wideband, Sensor Network, Ad Hoc Network, Wireless Lan, Routing, Lpi/Lpd, Anti-Jam

Situational awareness and communications are critical to achieving today's mission of the Objective Force. Objective Force warfighters must possess a secure and reliable means to rapidly assess their environment, react quickly, and initiate combat on their terms. Failure to do so jeopardizes the safety of the soldier and potentially the safety of innocent civilians. A key aspect of improved situational awareness and communications is ad-hoc sensor networks which provide warfighters and commanders with timely integrated intelligence. During Phase I, Innovative Wireless Technologies (IWT) and our partner Time Domain Corporation (TDC) successfully demonstrated the feasibility of an ultra wideband ad-hoc sensor network. IWT''s advanced UWB simulation models allowed us to effectively characterize the anticipated propagation response, LPI/LPD, and anti-jam capabilities of UWB waveforms. These models were successfully verified on TDC hardware using embedded spatially diverse antennas. IWT identified a suitable commercial ad-hoc networking protocol and coupled this protocol with a highly redundant and energy efficient routing protocol. Phase II will demonstrate the validity of the feasibility analysis with the development of a multi-node UWB ad-hoc network. Range, LPI/LPD, and anti-jam capabilities will be demonstrated as well as small size and low power consumption achievable with UWB. A successful Phase II program has potential for future application to military sensor initiatives such as Soldier Level Integrated Communications and Micro-Internetted Unattended Ground Sensors. As history has shown, many commercial applications are developed from advancements in military technology. IWT has existing relationships with key players in both the military and commercial sectors. Commercial markets that are targets for UWB technology include high speed communications, security networks, and imaging. IWT has targeted the utility industry as a potential commercial path, in particular automated meter reading where the networking and reachback capability of a system will have significant cost savings to the utility provider.

Keywords:
ULTRA WIDEBAND, SENSOR NETWORKS, LPI/LPD, ANTI-JAM, AD HOC NETWORKING, WIRELESS NETWORKING, ENERGY EFFICIENT ROUTING, DISTRIBUTED ROUTING