Communications and Networks

Normal radios operate in kilohertz (kHz) and megahertz (MHz) frequencies, bandwidths corresponding to electromagnetic oscillations in the thousands and millions of cycles per second ranges, respectively. Upping the ante, cell phones and radar systems operate in the billions of cycles per second range—that is, gigahertz (GHz) frequencies. But no one has managed to push radiofrequency technology into the trillions of cycles per second, or Terahertz (THz), range. With the Terahertz (THz) Electronics Program, however, DARPA has begun to make it possible.

In a vision shared by innovators, entrepreneurs, and planners in both defense and civilian contexts, the skies of the future will be busy with unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Unseen but central to the realization of this vision is wireless communication within and between those future fleets of UAVs that is reliable and resistant to both unintentional and ill-willed interference. “If these UAVs can’t communicate, they don’t take off or they don’t operate the way we want them to” said Josh Conway, a program manager in DARPA’s Microsystems Technology Office. 

Precise timing is essential across DoD systems, including communications, navigation, electronic warfare, intelligence systems reconnaissance, and system-of-systems platform coordination, as well as in national infrastructure applications in commerce and banking, telecommunications, and power distribution. Improved clock performance throughout the timing network, particularly at point-of-use, would enable advanced collaborative capabilities and provide greater resilience to disruptions of timing synchronization networks, notably by reducing reliance on satellite-based global navigation satellite system (GNSS) timing signals.

Modern networks and platforms rely on access to the radio frequency (RF) spectrum for communications, radar sensing, command and control, time transfer, and geo-location. Electromagnetic interference, due to congestion in the spectrum or malicious jamming, can have catastrophic effects. Countering such interference is particularly important for unmanned platforms. To address this challenge, the Hyper-wideband Enabled RF Messaging (HERMES) program seeks to provide an assured link for essential communications by developing a jammer- countering capability that is orders of magnitude beyond the state-of-the-art.

Dr. Tom Rondeau joined DARPA as a program manager in the Microsystems Technology Office in May 2016. His research interests include adaptive and reconfigurable radios, improving the development cycle for new signal-processing techniques, and creating general purpose electromagnetic systems.