Federal award (DEFINITIVE CONTRACT, fiscal year 2023)
Recipient: BAE SYSTEMS INFORMATION & ELECTRONIC SYSTEMS INTEGRATION INC
Awarding agency: Department of Defense / Defense Contract Management Agency
Funding agency: Department of Defense / Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
Period of performance: 2013-03-15 to 2019-03-31
Current total value of award: $36539401
Description: THE GOAL OF THE ADAPTIVE RADAR COUNTERMEASURES (ARC) PROGRAM IS TO DEVELOP THE CAPABILITY TO COUNTER ADAPTIVE RADAR THREATS IN TACTICALLY RELEVANT TIME FRAMES BASED ON OVER-THE-AIR OBSERVABLE SIGNALS.  AN ADAPTIVE THREAT IS DEFINED AS AN ADVERSARY S RADAR WHOSE WAVEFORMS AND BEHAVIORS ARE NEW, UNKNOWN, OR AMBIGUOUS.  THREATS OF PARTICULAR INTEREST INCLUDE GROUND-TO-AIR AND AIR-TO-AIR PHASED ARRAY RADARS CAPABLE OF  PERFORMING MULTIPLE FUNCTIONS (E.G., SURVEILLANCE, CUED TARGET ACQUISITION, TRACKING, NON-COOPERATIVE TARGET IDENTIFICATION, MISSILE TRACK, ETC.) AND EXHIBITING A HIGH DEGREE OF AGILITY IN BEAM STEERING, WAVEFORM, AND COHERENT PROCESSING INTERVAL (CPI) CHARACTERISTICS (E.G., CODING, PULSE REPETITION INTERVAL [PRI], ETC.).   THE KEY CHALLENGES TO COUNTERING RADAR THREATS ARE: (1) UNAMBIGUOUSLY ISOLATING THE SIGNAL IN THE PRESENCE OF OTHER HOSTILE, FRIENDLY AND NEUTRAL SIGNALS (2)DEDUCING THE THREAT POSED BY THAT SIGNAL AND (3) SYNTHESIZING AND TRANSMITTING A COUNTERMEASURE THAT ACHIEVES A DESIRED EFFECT WITHIN THE RADAR S SIGNAL PROCESSOR. TODAY S AIRBORNE ELECTRONIC WARFARE (EW) SYSTEMS RELY ON A PRIORI KNOWLEDGE OF THE THREAT ENVIRONMENT IN ORDER TO SIMPLIFY THESE TASKS.  WHEN A SIGNAL IS DETECTED, ITS CHARACTERISTICS ARE COMPARED TO A LIST OF RADAR SIGNALS THAT WERE DEEMED TO BE POTENTIAL THREATS IN THE GEOGRAPHICAL AREA OF OPERATION (I.E., A LOAD SET). IF A MATCH IS FOUND, THEN THE EW SYSTEM IS ABLE TO IDENTIFY THE THREAT AND APPLY AN APPROPRIATE PRE-PROGRAMMED COUNTERMEASURE (CM) THAT WAS DEVELOPED OFFLINE BY SKILLED ANALYSTS AND ENGINEERS, AND TESTED VIA SIMULATION AND RANGE TESTING (WHEN POSSIBLE).  WHEN THE SIGNALS DETECTED IN THEATER ARE AMBIGUOUS OR DO NOT MATCH THE WAVEFORMS IN THE CURRENT LOAD SET, LIMITED REAL-TIME, ADAPTIVE RESPONSES ARE AVAILABLE TODAY.   AS RADARS EVOLVE FROM FIXED ANALOG SYSTEMS TO DIGITALLY PROGRAMMABLE VARIANTS WITH UNKNOWN BEHAVIORS AND AGILE WAVEFORM CHARACTERISTICS, IDENTIFYING RADAR SYSTEMS IS BECOMING INCREASINGLY CHALLENGING.  FUTURE RADARS PRESENT AN EVEN GREATER CHALLENGE AS THEY ARE EXPECTED TO HAVE THE ABILITY TO SENSE THEIR ENVIRONMENT AND ADAPT THEIR TRANSMISSION CHARACTERISTICS AND PULSE PROCESSING ALGORITHMS TO MAXIMIZE PERFORMANCE AND MITIGATE INTERFERENCE EFFECTS. THE RESULT IS THAT OUR EW SYSTEMS WILL INCREASINGLY ENCOUNTER ADAPTIVE RADAR THREATS.  THE OBJECTIVE OF THE ARC PROGRAM IS TO ENABLE OUR EW SYSTEMS TO AUTOMATICALLY GENERATE EFFECTIVE COUNTERMEASURES AGAINST NEW, UNKNOWN, OR AMBIGUOUS RADAR SIGNALS IN NEAR REAL-TIME (I.E., AS THEY ARE ENCOUNTERED DURING A MISSION).