A -- TERA HERTZ OPERATIONAL REACHBACK (THOR) -- RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT SOURCES SOUGHT

Notice Date

September 18, 2001

Contracting Office

Department of the Air Force, Air Force Materiel Command, AFRL -- Wright Research Site, Det 1 AFRL/PK Bldg 167, Area B, 2310 8th Street, Wright-Patterson AFB, OH, 45433-7801

ZIP Code

45433-7801

Solicitation Number

Reference-Number-SS-THOR-SNK

Response Due

November 30, 2001

Point of Contact

Dawn Ross, Contract Negotiator, Phone (937) 255-5182, Fax (937) 656-9074, Email Dawn.Ross@wpafb.af.mil -- Steven Ewers, Contracting Officer, Phone (937) 255-3585, Email Steven.Ewers@wpafb.af.mil

Description

Tera Hertz Operational Reachback (THOR) Program New Start Announcement, DARPA Technical POC: G. Duchak, DARPA Advanced Technology Office, Email gduchak@darpa.mil (email contact preferred), Other Technical POCs: P McManamon, Email Paul.McManamon@wpafb.af.mil, R. Feldmann, (937)255-9614 and W. Hartman (937)255-4947, Air Force Research Laboratory. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), Advanced Technology Office is intending to further pursue enabling communications technologies via the Tera Hertz Operational Reachback (THOR) Communications Program. This notice is to provide potential sources with advanced information that may be useful in preparing concepts for submission when, and if, a solicitation is issued for this program. The response date is only included to satisfy a computer system problem. The THOR Communications Program is intended to demonstrate the enabling technologies and system concepts to provide high data rate (HDR) optical links between aircraft and ground, aircraft and subseacraft, aircraft and aircraft, and aircraft and spacecraft. A possible list of enabling technologies includes: high power beam combining, optical retro-reflector modulator, steered agile beam (STAB), multi-beam single aperture, wave division multiplexing, and innovative optical receiver technology. At completion, the program will demonstrate a HDR (MBPS to GBPS) link from a terrestrial Point of Presence (PoP) to an underwater vehicle via an aircraft or spacecraft surrogate with an air-to-air relay link. The goal is an affordable family of terminals with an order of magnitude reduction in Size, Weight, and Power over current state of the art. The THOR initiative will develop both the enabling technologies and system concepts to provide assured military communications in support of worldwide, short notice deployments through the use of very high data rate free-space optical & hybrid RF/optical links that extend the utility of the terrestrial fiber infrastructure to expeditionary forces. In short, THOR optical technology will provide mobile and undersea forces connectivity to the Global Grid. This research will have significant impact on a wide variety of existing and future communications systems in the DoD and commercial environments. It is also expected to provide an extensible backbone technical architecture that can meet the needs of both military and civilian future wideband, mobile communication systems. This effort will require the involvement of a wide variety of government (Joint and Service Laboratories) and commercial technology development centers. A solicitation is anticipated for release in the Fall/Winter CY01 to obtain proposals for the THOR Program. Contractual questions related to effort may be directed to Steve Ewers, Contracting Officer at (937) 255-3585.

Web Link

Visit this URL for the latest information about this (http://www.eps.gov/spg/USAF/AFMC/AFRLWRS/Reference-Number-SS-THOR-S NK/listing.html)

Record

Loren Data Corp. 20010920/ASOL011.HTM (D-261 SN50X9L7)