FY12 Communications and Netwo

archived

Communications technology that can provide seamless, robust, connectivity is at the foundation of the Sea Power 21 and FORCEnet Vision "... to have the right information, at the right place, at the right time ..." The performance of Command and Control (C2) systems and decision making at all levels of command depend critically on reliable, interoperable, survivable, secure, and timely communications and networking, and the availability of high capacity multimedia (voice, data, imagery) communication networks is fundamental to nearly all Department of Navy missions. The current evolution of naval warfighting from a platform-centric to a network-centric paradigm depends on successfully meeting the implied need for significantly enhanced communications and networking capabilities of C2, sensor and weapon systems. These systems are deployed on a variety of platforms and users, both manned and unmanned, operating under challenging battlefield conditions (lack of infrastructure, mobility, spectrum, interference, multipath, atmospherics, size/weight/power constraint, etc.) in different environments (space, terrestrial and undersea). The goal of the Communications and Networking Program within the Office of Naval Research (ONR 312) is to support the FORCEnet vision by developing measurable advances in technology that can directly enable and enhance end-to-end connectivity and quality-of-service for mission-critical information exchange among such widely dispersed naval, joint, and coalition forces. The vision is to provide high throughput robust communications and networking to ensure all warfighters -- from the operational command to the tactical edge -- have access to information, knowledge, and decision-making necessary to perform their assigned tasks. Objective and Areas of Interest: Proposals for potential FY12 Exploratory Development/Applied Research (Budget category 6.2) projects are sought under the following focus areas: 1. Novel approaches for wideband, electrically small, lightweight phased array apertures; 2. Alternatives to traditional SATCOM and network architectures for on-demand reach back, including low probability of detect/intercept wideband HF communications; 3. Technologies that enable low probability of detect/intercept for tactical data links against advanced electronic threats; enhanced synchronization of noise-like signals; 4. Spectrum co-existence (underlay/overlay, interference cancellation, etc.) of military waveforms (RADAR and communications) with commercial communications; RF/baseband transmit and receive technologies for dynamic (and simultaneous) spectrum access to multiple non-contiguous narrowband channels across a wide frequency band (e.g., 100 MHz-10 GHz); machine learning and reasoning based algorithms/protocols for distributed spectral awareness and spectrum/network management; 5. High wall-plug efficient, power scaled (coherent and/or incoherent), blue-green transmitter technologies. High speed (Gbps), single-photon counting, blue-green detectors. High performance blue-green receiver waveforms/protocols with relaxed sync/timing accuracies; 6. Robust tools/approaches for de-confliction of traffic prioritization policies -- according to Commander's Intent -- over a distributed, tactical network; and 7. Dynamic routing mechanisms that focus on robust data delivery -- in near real time -- under harsh networking conditions (i.e., intermittent connectivity, limited throughput, etc.). ONR is also receptive to highly innovative ideas in other general communications and networking areas that are not within the designated focus areas above, but nonetheless are important to the Navy/Marine Corps, as determined under the synopsis section above. ************************************************************************************************************************************The FULL ANNOUNCEMENT is available on the Grants.gov website by scrolling to the top of the synopsis page and clicking on the "FULL ANNOUNCEMENT" box surrounded by the dotted line at the top of the page.

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