| Acquisition Program: | |
| | The technology within this topic is restricted under the International Traffic in Arms Regulation (ITAR), which controls the export and import of defense-related material and services. Offerors must disclose any proposed use of foreign nationals, their country of origin, and what tasks each would accomplish in the statement of work in accordance with section 3.5.b.(7) of the solicitation. |
Objective: | The objective of this project is to develop an innovative adaptive polarized RF reference source for establishing a battlefield position and orientation referencing system. It has been shown that polarized RF sources can be used to establish position and orientation referencing systems over an entire battlefield. The referencing system can then be used by polarized RF sensors on guided munitions, UAVs, UGVs, all ground and airborne platforms and the soldier to determine its position and orientation relative to the established reference coordinate system and/or to initialize other position and orientation sensory devices such as inertia-based devices. The reference sources may be fixed (relative to the earth) or mobile. The proposed concept must be easy to deploy, must provide a reliable and secure reference source, and must be capable of being synchronized to form a position and orientation referencing system with built-in redundancy, be capable of covering a very large area, portions of which may not be in line-of-sight.
| Description: | It has been shown that polarized RF sources can be used to establish position and orientation referencing systems over an entire battlefield. The sources may be fixed or mobile, on the ground or in the air. The establishment of such a position and orientation referencing system is highly advantageous since they can enable smart munitions, weapon platforms, vehicles and warfighter to have a common accurate, reliable and secure position as well as orientation referencing system. Such a referencing system will also allow smart munitions and weapon platforms to be equipped with low volume, lightweight, low power, inherently hardened and relatively low-cost onboard position and orientation sensors that provide position and orientation relative to this referencing system. Such referencing systems have also the potential of being used by the command and control, forward observers, UAV, and warfighters alike. As a result, errors due to cross-referencing, loss of GPS signal, inherent errors in inertia devices and rate gyros, are significantly reduced and the effectiveness of munitions guidance and control systems will be greatly improved. The proposed sources must be relatively small and low power, rugged, and should be adaptive, i.e., be capable of being deployed very quickly without the need for calibration and/or adjustments. The proposals should address the issues of position and orientation measurement accuracy with the proposed referencing system, sensitivity, susceptibility to environmental noise and methods of reducing their effects, and in and out of line-of-sight issues. The RF frequencies of interest are in the 8-100 GHz range. The proposals must address issues related to reducing the probability of detection of the reference sources and methods of establishing an absolute referencing system.
| | PHASE I: Develop innovative adaptive polarized RF sources to be used to establish full position and angular orientation referencing systems in the battlefield. The sources must adapt to a known plane of reference using simple and rugged mechanisms.
| | PHASE II: Develop analytical models to simulate the performance of the proposed RF sources. Develop and fabricate a prototype of the proposed adaptive polarized RF source and demonstrate its performance and precision in controlled field tests.
| | PHASE III: The development adaptive RF sources for full position and orientation referencing has a wide range of military, homeland security and commercial applications. In the military related areas, the developed position and orientation referencing system enable smart munitions, weapon platforms, vehicles and warfighter to have a common accurate, reliable and secure position as well as orientation referencing system. The referencing system can then be used for guidance and control of all smart munitions, missiles and guided bombs as well ground and airborne weapon platforms with minimal error due to the use of a single position and orientation referencing system. The developed position and orientation referencing system also has military, homeland security and commercial applications for guidance and control systems of various, robotic systems, particularly those used for remote operation in hazardous environments, which may be encountered in homeland defense, and for almost all mobile robotic applications used in the industry for materials handling and other similar applications. Commercial applications also include material handling equipment such as cranes; loading equipment, particularly in the sea; and industrial equipment used in assembly, welding, inspection, and other similar operations.
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| | Keywords: | RF Sources, Polarized RF Sources, RF Sensors, Position and Orientation Referencing, Guided Munitions, Smart Munitions, Guidance and Control |