BOSTON —
The U.S. Defense Advanced Projects Agency (DARPA) and an industry partner are preparing for what is being touted as the largest test yet of technology that would greatly expand the radio spectrum available to military users by rapidly identifying and switching to temporarily idle frequencies.
Radios featuring this technology could begin to appear in military operations later this year, according to Marc McHenry, founder and chief executive officer of
Shared Spectrum Co. of Vienna, Va.
The technology to make better use of radio frequency spectrum is being developed under
DARPA’s
Next
Generation, or XG,
communications program. DARPA chose Shared Spectrum in 2005 over Raytheon Co. and Lockheed Martin Corp. to continue working on
the technology under a $19 million contract that wraps up in April.
DARPA Director Tony Tether told the House Armed Services terrorism, unconventional threats and capabilities subcommittee
March 21 that while the radio frequency spectrum is generally cluttered, large swaths of bandwidth
often go unused at different times and places.
The XG effort is intended to take
advantage of that unused spectrum, which could lead to a 10-fold increase in spectrum availability, Tether said.
The program features software
that analyzes spectrum and uses
algorithms to determine if troops can broadcast in frequencies
in a particular area without interfering with those
already assigned to the band. The radios can sense interference and then leap to
a new frequency, where they will communicate for as long as it is
available,
according to McHenry, who
led DARPA’s research in this area prior to founding Shared Spectrum.
In addition to making more spectrum available, the XG effort could help address the problem of enemy jamming, Tether said in his testimony. The radios’ ability to determine which frequencies are
in use and hop
to unused bands also could cut down on what some Pentagon officials say is the bigger problem of
unintentional interference by
friendly forces
,
McHenry said.
Details
still are being developed, but the upcoming test
likely will involve
up to 25 radios, McHenry said during a Dec. 20 interview. Prior demonstrations
include
transmissions from an unmanned aerial vehicle to the ground this past fall at the Loring Commerce Center, a former U.S. Air Force
base in Maine, and from a U.S. Navy ship to shore during the Trident Warrior exercise off
Virginia this past March, he said.
As part of the DARPA contract, Shared Spectrum is
working to incorporate its technology into radios supplied by
Harris Corp. of Melbourne, Fla., and Thales Communications
Inc. of Clarksburg, Md., for the experiment.
The company envisions
licensing its technology to those firms and other radio manufacturers, McHenry said.
Shared Spectrum also is
talking with
the U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps about the possibility of a follow-on contract to equip Thales and Harris radios with the software for operational use, according to Sal D’Itri, director of sales and marketing for Shared Spectrum.
Shared Spectrum might build radios in-house for niche applications like small unmanned aerial vehicles and ground-based robots used
for purposes including bomb inspection and disposal
, D’Itri said. Operators of these vehicles are struggling to get the necessary radio frequency assignments, he said.
For hazardous missions such as bomb disposal, overcoming jamming is especially critical because the inability to communicate with robotic vehicles would force people to put themselves in harm’s way, D’Itri said.
Though
currently focused on the
military market
, Shared Spectrum
believes
the XG technology could have civil or commercial
uses as well, McHenry said. The company
already is working with the National Institute of Justice, the research and development arm of the U.S. Justice Department, on applying the technology to radios used by public safety officials, he said.
Satellite applications also are envisioned for the technology. McHenry said
Shared Spectrum is
working with another company, which he declined to identify, that has offered to host its technology on a satellite
. Space-based applications include expanding the frequencies available for satellite-to-ground communications as well as identifying zones of available spectrum for radio operators on the ground, he said.
