Raytheon latest to claim DARPA strategic tech funding
By
Frank Konkel
The newest award suggests the Pentagon and intelligence community want to improve the collection of geospatial data.
Last June, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency issued a broad announcement soliciting research proposals for disruptive strategic technologies that merited funding.
A little more than halfway through the yearlong solicitation, four organizations have nabbed awards from DARPA, with Raytheon the latest to secure federal grant money for a proposal focusing on the problem of distributing information from intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance assets "in an anti-access area denial (A2AD) scenario by increasing network capacity without adding network resources." The award is for $230,000.
Raytheon would not comment, but DARPA's award suggests that the intelligence community and Defense Department are seeking ways to improve how they collect large amounts of geospatial and other kinds of data.
"The effort will develop a model of topology control, develop analytical and simulation models for SNO algorithms and use these models to characterize the performance of SNO algorithms in mobile, dynamic A2AD scenarios and determine the effect on overall network performance," the award notice states.
The other organizations that have received awards are Systems and Technology Research ($396,000), the University of Tennessee ($499,000) and the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessment ($175,000). Little has been revealed publicly about those projects, but DARPA's original announcement listed electronic warfare; command and control; communications; ISR; battle management; and positioning, navigation and timing as the focus areas.
Furthermore, DARPA's announcement said, "Technologies of particular interest would address challenges of operating in contested, denied and/or austere environments," including those in which adversaries jam GPS signals or high-bandwidth infrastructure does not exist.
DARPA seeks cutting-edge research in high-frequency radio and optical polarization; the exploitation of precise spectral, time and position data; innovative methods for finding difficult targets in contested environments; and an assortment of other advanced technical solutions applicable to the military, defense and intelligence communities.