Rome Laboratory/PKPX, 26 Electronic Parkway, Rome NY 13441-4514

A -- SPECIAL NOTICE: ROME LABORATORY'S FY 97 SBIR TOPICS SOL SBIR TOPIC 15 POC Joetta A. Bernhard, Contracting Officer, A/C315-330-2308; Margot Ashcroft, SBIR Program Manager, 315-330-1793. PART 4 OF 6. ROME LABORATORY'S FY 97 SBIR TOPIC. ROME LABORATORY IS PLEASED TO MAKE AVAILABLE THE FOLLOWING SMALL BUSINESS INNOVATIVE RESEARCH (SBIR) PROGRAM TOPICS, AS FOLLOWS: SBIR TOPIC (15) TITLE: InP-based Power Transistors for Optically Controlled Millimeterwave Transmitters. -TECHNICAL POINT OF CONTACT: Kenneth Vaccaro, RL/ER-H, 617-377-4921. OBJECTIVE: Develop high power InP-based transistor technology for millimeter wave and optoelectronic integrated circuits. DESCRIPTION: Microwave and millimeter-wave communication and radar systems require high power transmitters capable of producing directional beams of EM radiation. Presently, thermionic devices such as traveling wave tubes are often used. These tubes and their power supplies often drive system design through their weight, size, MTBF, and voltage requirements. An alternative to microwave tubes is a monolithic array of power combined semiconductor microwave sources such as Gunn diodes or microwave transistors. A shift to solid-state power devices, such as the InP-based HBTs, HEMTs and MISFETs, would reduce weight and size of such systems, as well as dramatically improve system life and reliability. High power density InP devices are readily integrable with optical control and mm-wave radiating antenna elements. Integration of these structures on a common chip would reduce the necessity for coaxial interconnects, and advance system performance though enhanced amplifier efficiency. High electron saturation velocity and high thermal conductivity make InP a promising material for microwave power devices. The use of InP-based devices will allow integrated optical control functionality. Insulated gates are preferred over Schottky barrier gates for microwave power applications since larger operating voltages and higher output powers are attainable before the onset of drain-to-gate breakdown. The performance-limiting factor of III-V insulated gate devices is the high density of traps at the insulator/semiconductor interface. Several approaches to improve and stabilize the surface of InP prior to insulator deposition have been demonstrated. Interface control layers (ICLs) are used to avoid the native oxides of III-V semiconductors or prepare the III-V surface for subsequent processing. Another method introduced to improve the electrical properties of III-V semiconductor surfaces is sulfur passivation.- PHASE I: Develop processing procedure for discrete InP-based power transistors. POTENTIAL COMMERCIAL MARKET: Integrated power circuits are highly applicable to airborne and space borne systems which are sensitive to payload mass, volume, and power requirements. Such systems include commercial communication and radar systems. An integrated solution would also be applicable to systems requiring high reliability, especially those which currently use heavy, redundant tubes to guarantee high power microwave capability in the 20, 40, 60, and 100GHz frequency bands. SBIR TOPIC (16) TITLE: Ka-Band Satellite Link Quality Short-Term Forecasting Tool. TECHNICAL POINT OF CONTACT: Bertus Weijers, RL/ER-H, (617) 377-2527. DESCRIPTION: Ka-band (20 to 40 GHz) satellite links, particularly at low elevation angles, often degrade due to rain, clouds, or excessive moisture content in the atmosphere. Link operators cannot adequately predict how impending weather will affect their datalinks and fail to optimally react to rapidly degrading propagation conditions, resulting in lower signal-to-noise (SNR) ratios and consequently reduced data rates and throughput. Current forecasting techniques use passive radiometers, which simply measure the overall sky temperature. Potential errors abound due to the inhomogeneous distribution of expected brightness temperatures, which does not allow for correct estimation of the local attenuation. A simple, low-cost device is needed to provide advanced warning for operators to respond by reconfiguring their communications assets to either reroute data via different satellites, use landlines if available, or adjust power levels. This device will be placed alongside satellite terminals to provide a short-term, 60 minute or less, forecast of the potential attenuation on satellite links in the Ka-band. The data will be displayed, recorded, processed, and interfaced with existing communications equipment to automatically adjust for changing SNR ratios and will also be used as input to take actions to change system parameters or switch to alternative communication paths. OBJECTIVE: Develop a small, low-cost device to forecast impending attenuation on satellite links in the Ka-band. - PHASE I: Develop weather attenuation prediction algorithms at Ka-band frequencies. POTENTIAL COMMERCIAL MARKET: The commercial application of this Ka-band satellite link quality short-term forecasting tool is expected to be excellent since many satellites under development for deployment are being planned for the Ka-band to take advantage of the larger channel bandwidths. These commercial systems will benefit from a warning device when changing atmospheric propagation conditions degrade the link sufficiently for data rate changes to occur. SBIR TOPIC (17) TITLE: Multifunction Phased Arrays. TECHNICAL POINTS OF CONTACT: Livio Poles, RL/ER-H, 617-377-4087, Thomas Blake, RL/C3BA,(315) 330-1482. OBJECTIVE: Develop affordable K-band phased array antenna and sensor technology for future vehicles. DESCRIPTION: Military, commercial, and private air, ground, and sea vehicles of the future will require sophisticated but affordable antennae and sensors for aircraft and other mobile platforms. Expected performance needs vary from high gain, multi-element arrays to low gain, multiple function single elements. Digital beamforming, adaptive control and neural networks will lead to more flexible and cheaper antennae and sensors for commercial and military systems. New capability needs include: improved low noise amplifiers (1 to 1.3 dB noise figure is desired), dual simultaneous polarization antenna elements, efficient RF power combining circuits, smart control for array antennas that can sense failures and correct or compensate antenna patterns, super-resolution and neural network techniques that can perform accurate direction finding with smaller systems using less accurate, lower cost components, automatic system calibration based upon the use of available beacons, and adaptive cancellation of interference for mobile satellite terminals. These capabilities allow the use of small, low cost radar, and communication antennae and sensors with increased capability due to the flexibility of adaptive digital smart control. Since most of this flexibility will be implemented by and under computer control, the development of low-cost, digital beamformer modules containing all components from radiating element to A/D converter is key to this initiative. The emerging technology of direct digital synthesizers based on fast D/A converters will drive digital beamforming on transmit. Components developed under this SBIR have the potential to greatly enhance and encourage a quickly growing multi-faceted market.- Phase I: The contract should target a specific antenna application, refine the concept by a thorough theoretical analysis, trade study and error analysis, and perform preliminary experiments on key subsystems that will test the overall idea. DUAL USE COMMERCIAL POTENTIAL: An expanding commercial use of high technology products will include radar and communication capabilities for a variety of portable and mobile systems. These systems will face increasing demands for improved performance while maintaining pressure to continually lower cost. SBIR TOPIC (18) TITLE: Information Exploitation for Identification. TECHNICAL POINT OF CONTACT: Joseph Antonik, RL/IRA, 315-330-3206. OBJECTIVE: Develop new techniques for the exploitation of information to identify threats and potential targets. DESCRIPTION: Information exploitation is the assimilation and analyses of data obtained from heterogeneous sources for the identification of threats and targets. The concept is to correlate and fuse information from a varietal set of sources and exploit the resultant data product for unique characteristics that would provide indications of the presence of a target and/or threat and its identification.- PHASE I: This consists of developing concepts for the assimilation and exploitation of information for target identification. POTENTIAL COMMERCIAL MARKETS: Information exploitation is a potentially valuable tool for the analysis of data in processes of creating and sustaining competitiveness: new business opportunities can be identified, information fusion generates innovation strategies, discovered information is rapidly assimilated into the organization by learning, and available technologies are more readily commercialized. The present challenge for the information management business is to develop more effective mechanisms for distilling data into useful and valuable information through fusion, information discovery and exploitation. SBIR TOPIC (19) TITLE: Advanced Data Fusion Technology. TECHNICAL POINTS OF CONTACT: Mark Alford, RL/OC, 315-330-3573, Michael L. Hinman, RL/IR, 315-330-3175. OBJECTIVE: Development of new all-source fusion technology applied to distributed environments implementation utilizing expert system fusion. DESCRIPTION: Data Fusion has been defined (Joint Directors of Laboratories (JDL), Technology Panel on C3 (TPC3), Data Fusion SubPanel (DFSP)) as: ''Information processing that deals with the association, correlation, and combination of data and information from single and multiple sources to achieve refined position and identity estimation, complete and timely assessments of situations and threats, and their significance in the context of mission operation. The process is characterized by continuous refinement of its estimates and assessments, and by evaluation of the need for additional sources, or modification of the process itself, to achieve improved results.'' Current data fusion techniques beyond Level-1 (correlation) are mainly manual and cannot keep pace with the highly mobile, dynamic forces likely to be faced in the future. Current Level-1 fusion techniques only support limited sources, not all-source information. In addition, distributed data fusion is currently not available. This topical area will address advanced computing technologies for all-source data fusion, as well as distributed data fusion. Develop an expert system fusion system for management and implementation of dynamic control, multiple assignment and tracking algorithms. The concept of expert system fusion has long held intuitive appeal as a method of providing improved multilevel control capabilities. There are many cases when the shooter will turn off the fusion system because it simply does not work. Research is needed to manage and implement the dynamic control of multiple assignment and tracking algorithms which employing knowledge based systems/fuzzy logic approaches. Included should be the capability to plot target separation versus sampling time for nearest neighbor, cluster/raid tracks. Special purpose system portability and object orientation are essential features. Develop an expert system fusion system for management and implementation of dynamic control, multiple assignment and tracking algorithms.- PHASE I: Develop an innovative concept to provide truth, alignment, association, assignment, tracking, and a system output capable of feeding back information through a knowledge based/fuzzy logic algorithm manager. Phase I will investigate advanced computing techniques (e.g., statistical, artificial intelligence, artificial neural networks, fuzzy logic) applicable to all-source data fusion. Phase I will result in a detailed plan and prototype software, which demonstrates the feasibility of a potential Phase II effort. POTENTIAL COMMERCIAL MARKET: This topical area has dual-use potential wherever data from different (or even similar) sources are required for decision making. Examples of potential industries include: drug enforcement/interdiction, medical, environmental, aerospace, automotive, and manufacturing. This system developed under this program will immediately contribute to the sensor fusion community by providing a neuro-fuzzy adaptive expert system fusion system which could be used for concealed weapon detection for airport security (0229)

Loren Data Corp. http://www.ld.com (SYN# 0004 19960819\A-0004.SOL)