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A -- ADVANCED MULTIFUNCTION RF SYSTEMS CRITICAL ENABLING TECHNOLOGIES (AMRFSCET) SOL BAA 97-023 DUE 080197 POC Glynis Fisher ONR 251, (703)696-0993 BAA-97-023 The following BAA on Advanced Multifunction RF Systems (AMRFS) Critical Enabling Technologies (AMRFCET), as it appears below and in the Commerce Business Daily (CBD), cross references the printed Office of Naval Research (ONR) Guide to Programs which is dated August 1992. ONR has not yet produced an updated paper GUIDE, so FEDIX (fedix.fie.com) and the ONR Home Page (www.onr.navy.mil) are the best sources of current information about ONR. The Office of Naval Research (ONR 31) with the technical support of multiple Integrated Product Teams (IPT) with participation from NRL, NRaD, NSWC, and NAWC is interested in developing and demonstrating critical technologies to enable the consolidation of individual RF systems/functions currently onboard Navy platforms into multifunction, programmable systems. The desire is to insert this multifunction system into future ship and aircraft. Specifically, ONR is interested in a phased approach to demonstrate multifunction RF systems that will have common technology applicable to ship and air based platforms, such as SC-21, CVX, CSA, E-2C, JSF, and F/A-18E/F. This BAA initiates demonstrations of critical near term enabling technologies at a component or a subsystem level to achieve this goal. U.S. Navy ships and aircraft have large numbers of antennas and receivers, each performing unique functions in the radar, electronic warfare (EW), and communications domains. The number of autonomous systems will continue to increase since new electronic capabilities to meet increasing functional requirements are presently being identified and developed. It is anticipated that multifunction systems will mitigate the real-estate problems on ships and aircraft while providing the following payoffs: (1) reduced life cycle cost through equipment commonality, diversity of maintenance, and logistics; (2) reduced signature; (3) increased flexibility in hardware resource allocation; (4) enhanced ship topside and avionics sensor designs with reduced weight, size, volume, andnumber of antennas;(5) improved survivability; (6) increased electromagnetic compatibility; (7) enhanced growth of combat capability and accommodation of legacy systems; (8) reduced or eliminated electromagnetic blockage while maintaining original RF system performance; and (9) reduced hand-off time between functions with more ability to integrate functions. In fiscal year 1995 ONR initiated the AMRFS program to explore current and future technologies and attendant system concepts that will enable the development and demonstration of shipboard and airborne multifunction RF systems. In 1997, ONR awarded four contracts to Hughes, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman to develop plans to demonstrate and build an AMRFS test bed. Since the ultimate AMRFS program goal is to reduce the number of antennas on ships and aircraft by developing an optimum set of antennas/arrays that can perform a multitude of RF functions, this testbed will be designed to cover a multitude of functions performed independently and simultaneously at current performance levels or greater. The key aspect of this planned testbed is the need for it to support an open system architecture concept. Therefore, as critical enabling technologies mature, these can be inserted into the testbed, hence providing an ever increasing capability to the testbed. The purpose of this AMRFS Critical Enabling Technology (AMRFS CET) BAA is to develop and demonstrate critical technologies at the component and subsystem level necessary to enable key multifunction RF modes, and to verify that performance goals for those critical technologies can be met within a schedule being developed for the AMRFS testbed. It is desired that these critical technologies be demonstrated on a schedule that supports insertion into AMRFS systems onboard navy platforms identified above (e.g., SC-21). Any critical enabling technologies developed under this BAA should support an open system architecture as described above. Parties desiring to respond to this BAA are expected to: (1) identify near term critical enabling technologies that meet open system architecture goals (in a time frame in which the component and subsystem technologies are available to realize a successful testbed); (2) produce a plan to demonstrate and validate the technologies at the component and subsystem levels; and (3) conduct near term laboratory demonstrations (one to two years) to verify performance levels. The AMRFS government team has determined that at least the following seven critical enabling technology areas should be considered under this BAA (not in any priority order): 1) Radiating Element/Array Architecture; 2) Transmit/Receive Isolation; 3) Solid State Modules and Components; 4) Direct Digital Synthesis (DDS); 5) A/D Converters; 6) True Time Delay; and 7) Dynamic Resource Allocation and Management Optimization. Other technical areas not listed here may also be considered Critical Enabling Technologies: 1. Radiating Element/Array Architecture -- ONR is interested in broadband,low-profile, efficient, dual-polarized radiating elements and radiating assemblies for low-signature phased array antennas suitable for the 1 -- 25 GHz band (though one antenna element is not expected to cover the entire frequency band). This radiating element/array architecture design should be optimized to support wideband separate transmit and receive phased array architectures to provide multiple simultaneous receive and transmit beams. In addition, it should support wide, instantaneous bandwidth for both EW and radar functions. Furthermore, it should support full phase and amplitude control at each element, radiating assembly, and array level to accommodate various true time delay concepts. Finally, the goal is to provide high polarization integrity for any polarization at all scan angles. Different array architectures that allow insertion of new technologies as they become available (e.g., true time delay, D/A, multiple simultaneous receive and transmit beams) should also be investigated. 2. Transmit/Receive Isolation -- ONR is interested in solving isolation issues for AMRFS. Possible candidate module architectures, materials, filters, and other innovative methods should be considered to address isolation issues. The technology areas of consideration are: broadband, tunable, precision, low-loss bandpass filters; channelized filters; and notched filters that provide high transmit-to-receive isolation. Crucial to the realization of separate transmit and receive AMRFS antennas for simultaneous transmit and receive beams, is the provision of a low cost, miniature isolation filter that would fit inside a module. Filters with improved cutoff properties are needed to reduce out-of-band noise and mitigate jamming and interference without degrading RCS performance of the array. Filter design must allow manufacturing economies of scale in size and weight. The most stressful filter goal in communications application is SHF SATCOM's requirement to simultaneously transmit and receive signals. This requires that the transmit signal level is +65 dBm and the receive sensitivity is -130 dBm, resulting 195dB isolation between transmit and receive. Channelizing filters are also desired to deal with interfering signals in frequency agile systems in radar and EW applications. Filter approaches that provide low insertion loss ( 90 dB), low RCS, and fast switching times are desirable for AMRFS. 3. Solid State Modules and Components -- ONR is interested in module/components/devices that can be used to implement the AMRFS concept. Of particular interest are: high power, linear, wideband amplifiers; low noise amplifiers; phaseshifter/attenuator/switch/amplifier network; and low loss and low RCS circulators for separate transmit (T) and receive (R) modules. These modules must exhibit a wide bandwidth (~10 -- 20 GHz), high power (e.g., goal of >10W at X-band), low noise figure ( 18. WEB LINK: {the URL of a web page containing documents related to this notice. In the form http://www.usa.gov/procurement/index.html} 19. DESCRIPTION OF WEB LINK: {enter the text which will label the web link entered above; e.g. click here to download a copy of the RFP} 20. E-MAIL LINK: {the e-mail address of an agency point of contact. In the form jdoe@fed.gov} 21. DESCRIPTION OF E-MAIL LINK: {enter the text which will label the e-mail link entered above; e.g. click here to contact the contracting officer via e-mail} CBDNet is provided through an alliance of the United States Department of Commerce and the United States Government Printing Office. Questions or comments regarding this service? Contact the GPO Access User Support Team by Internet e-mail at cbd-support@gpo.gov or toll-free at 1-888-293-6498. URL: http://cbdnet.gpo.gov/M.template LAST MODIFIED: June 20,1997 by JER (0182)

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