| Acquisition Program: | Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS) Ground Mobile Radio (GMR) ACAT I |
Objective: | Develop and demonstrate a prototype broadband Universal Transceiver (UT) for use with Software Defined Radios that substantially reduces the size and power consumption of a UT compared with conventional designs.. Use innovative components and techniques (e.g, high-performance semiconductors (SOS, GaAs, GaN), direct conversion, tunable filters, multi-core DSPs, etc.) to simplify the design, increase linearity and power efficiency, reduce manufacturing costs, and enable a more compact implementation. The focus of this task is an innovative radio frequency subassembly, which can be implemented with high-performance linear RF components and/or high-speed digital components. Interface functionality may be implemented using conventional technology.
| Description: | This Universal Transceiver device is a software-configured and digitally controlled radio frequency transmitter and receiver capable of operating over the spectrum of 2 MHz to at least 2 GHz with a variable simultaneous bandwidth of 5 kHz (narrowband voice) up to 30 MHz or more for spread spectrum applications. A radio frequency receiver includes functional blocks such as a low-noise amplifier, mixer, tunable oscillator, filtering, and A/D conversion. Transmitter functionality includes D/A conversion, tunable oscillator, mixer, and RF linear amplification up to a variable output level of -20 to 20 dBm (or greater range).
Conventional UTs face performance compromises in their RF components such as linearity, parasitic capacitance, and power consumption due to leakage currents. Manufacturing complexity of discrete RF assemblies leads to additional performance shortfalls, manufacturing defects, and reliability vulnerabilities. The application of more advanced semiconductor materials and a greater degree of integration is essential to meeting the combination of performance, reliability, and cost objectives.
Phase I will be a proof-of-concept design for the highest-risk aspect of this innovation. A complete prototype transceiver will be built in Phase II. Transition into a production-ready design will be the focus of Phase III.
| | PHASE I: Identify the highest risk segment of the proposed design. For example: A broadband direct conversion receiver; a high-linearity amplifier; or a a new integrated assembly. Design a prototype of this segment and demonstrate that it meets requirements through modeling and simulation or fabrication of an actual physical prototype. Compare results to those of a conventional baseline design to demonstrate the performance improvements of the new innovative design. Develop a plan to design a complete prototype transceiver in Phase II.
| | PHASE II: Design and fabricate a complete Universal Transceiver. The form-factor and interfaces provided need to be adequate for laboratory testing. Validate spectrum coverage, linearity, noise figure, sensitivity, power output, and other standard parameters that characterize universal transceiver performance. Identify the design changes required to produce a production-ready universal transceiver.
| | PHASE III: To transition into a complete product, package the UT into a stand-alone enclosure or a standard bus card (e.g., CompactPCI, VME) or sell complete product with required software for use as a test or development platform. Alternatively, the UT could be used as the basis for a complete radio system. To transition as a supplier, sell the newly developed component/assembly or design to a manufacturer that builds UTs or radio systems. A successful UT design could also be packaged to be a drop-in replacement for the UTs in the JTRS radios product lines.
PRIVATE SECTOR COMMERCIAL POTENTIAL/
| | DUAL-USE APPLICATIONS: Handheld SDRs available for commercial sale are becoming available (e.g., Thales Liberty™ radio). Multi-channel higher-end SDRs will be emerging over the next few years, and the UT being designed in this project is a critical subsystem for these radios. Consequently, there is likely to be a market for the product as a supplier to radio vendors – both in the US and overseas.
There is also a market for SDR development hardware. Firms such as Spectrum Signal sell SDR development platforms but without actual radio frequency hardware. Rather, they package other vendor’s products as accessories with their development platform. This SBIR vendor has an opportunity to leverage the marketing resources of a large company in selling this type of product.
| References: | 1. Gio Cafaro, Tom Gradishar, et al., “A 100 MHz “ 2.5 GHz Direct Conversion CMOS Transceiver for SDR Applications, 2007 IEEE Radio Frequency Integrated Circuits Symposium, 1-4244-0530-0/1-4244-0531-9/07/
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/iel5/4266345/4266346/04266410.pdf
2. Alex Betts, Matt Hall, et al, The GNU Software Radio Transceiver Platform, National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA)/University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC)
http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/~kindr/papers/sdr04_paper2.pdf
3. John Boyd, Si-on-Sapphire Goes Mainstream, EE Times On-Line, 07/09/2007, http://www.eetimes.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=200001972
| | Keywords: | software defined radio; SDR; receiver; transceiver; RF; JTRS; SOS; GaAs |
Questions and Answers: |
Q: A typical Radio has a power amplifier followed by switched harmonic filters. Should this be included in this study? |
A: A: There are no restrictions on the use of the switched harmonic filters. Please pay close attention to the Space, Weight, and Power consumption contraints of the design. |
Q: A typical radio may have pre-select filters at its input to reject out-of-band interference. Should this be included in this study? |
A: A: No restrictions on the use of the pre-select filters. |
Q: It is stated for Phase 1 that you want the design results compared with those of a conventional baseline radio. Since this requirement is for a radio operating from 2 MHz to 2GHz, do you have a conventional baseline radio capability for which to make the comparison? |
A: A: Our current baseline radio design is from BAE Systems, which is based in Wayne NJ. This Universal Transceiver (UT) is specifically designed to accommodate the Wide Band Networked Waveform (WNW), which provides networked voice, and data communications among mobile forces in a tactical battlefield environment.
Our Universal Transceiver consists of three primary functional components:
* Exciter/Receiver
* Modem
* Black Channel Processor
The Universal Transceiver supports software configurable channels and performs the transformation of digital data to and from low power RF signals.
The Universal Transceiver, when configured with waveform specific software, provides all functions required to convert RF signals to baseband digital data in the receive mode and to convert baseband digital data to RF signals in the transmit mode. A single transceiver module design is capable of handling any JTRS GMR, single-channel, half-duplex waveform. The waveform software automatically controls any required reconfiguration within the transceiver. |
Q: It is stated that the study may consider multi-core DSP's but the focus seems to be on the transmit/receive converters. The DSP's would be used in the signal processing which is usually a separate module from the transmit/receive module. Should the study also include the signal processing module? |
A: This question has already been addressed in responses from TPOC that have been previously posted. |
Q: What is the maximum data rate that the receiver is required to process? |
A: The highest mode for WNW operates at 23Mbps. It is unlikely this mode will ever be used. A more likely upper limit would be 10Mbps. |
Q: Is this radio to be full or half duplex? |
A: The answer is: Half-Duplex. |