Computational Leverage Against Surveillance Systems (CLASS)
Abstract
Commercial Test and Measurement equipment has advanced greatly with the emergence of sophisticated cellular and wireless local area network technology and can be used to intercept, analyze, and exploit our military communications signals. The Computational Leverage Against Surveillance Systems (CLASS) program worked to expand Low Probability of Detection/Anti-Jam (LPD)/(AJ) technologies, sought new ways to protect our signals from exploitation by increasingly sophisticated adversaries in ways that can be maintained as commercial technology advances. Three different techniques were developed: 1) Waveform Complexity uses advanced communications waveforms that are difficult to recover without knowledge and understanding of the signals itself; 2) Spatial Diversity uses distributed communications devices and the communication environment to disguise and dynamically vary the apparent location of the signal; and 3) Interference Exploitation makes use of the clutter in the signal environment to make it difficult for an adversary to isolate a particular signal. The program's objective was to make modular communications technology that was inexpensive to incorporate in existing and emerging radio systems (< $100 incremental cost) but pushed adversaries to need more than 1,000x our processing power - supercomputer-level processing power. Another track of the program extended the CLASS technology to provide LPD communications. These techniques drastically reduced the detectability of communications signals beyond current capabilities. Scalable performance allowed LPD techniques to better trade information rate for communications capacity. Technologies from this program will transition to the Services.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Accomplishment
- Publication Date
- Oct 01, 2017
- Source ID
- fce6e16abe577184aed53b43af78e306