100 Gb/s RF Backbone
Abstract
The increasing proliferation of video, voice, chat, and other important data-streams on the battlefield is driving a need for higher capacity, reliable, assured, and all-weather communications that are deployable on a wide range of air, ground, and maritime platforms. The goal of this program is to demonstrate a 100 Gigabit-per-second (Gb/s) radio frequency (RF) backbone that will meet the anticipated mid-term (within 3-10 years) wireless networking requirements of deployed military forces. DARPA's hybrid Free Space Optical Experimental Network Experiment (FOENEX) system has broken the 10 Gb/s wireless network boundary using free-space optical links, but all-weather Ku band components are currently limited to much less than 1Gb/s capacity. Furthermore, the hybrid optical/RF system exhibits size, weight, and power consumption (SWaP) characteristics that preclude deployment on many SWaP-limited platforms. Moving to a millimeter-wave (mmW) solution will provide high capacity as well as all-weather resiliency, yet presents technical challenges that include the generation of higher-order waveforms (beyond common data link), efficient power transmission, high-speed routing, and low-noise receivers. This program will develop the constituent subsystems (waveform generation, efficient power amplifiers, and receivers) and spatial multiplexing architectures to construct an all-weather mmW 100 Gbps backbone at half the size, weight and power consumption of the current FOENEX system. The 100 Gbps RF Backbone program is intended for transition to multiple Services.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Accomplishment
- Publication Date
- Oct 01, 2014
- Source ID
- 0337b30ef5f4ffe4b2244c45c08b1c7b