DARPA is envisioning a 100-Gigabit per second Radio Frequency communications link between airborne and ground assets. Currently, fiber optic cables provide the core backbone for military and civilian networks, enabling high speed Internet, phone, video and other data transfer.
A major challenge to providing 100 Gb/s from an airborne asset to the ground is cloud cover. Free-space optical links won’t propagate through the cloud layer, which means RF is the only option. The system will be designed to provide all-weather capability enabling tactically relevant data throughput and link ranges through clouds, fog or rain. Technical advances in modulation of millimeter-wave frequencies open the door to achieving 100G’s goals.
“Providing fiber-optic-equivalent capacity on a radio frequency carrier will require spectrally efficient use of available RF spectrum,” said Dick Ridgway, DARPA program manager.
“100G plans to demonstrate how high-order modulation and spatial multiplexing can be synergistically combined to achieve 100 Gigabits per second with the size, weight and power needed for a deployable system. We believe that to achieve the program’s goals requires the convergence of telecommunications system providers and the defense communications tech base.”
DARPA will host a proposers’ day on Jan. 9, 2013, in Arlington, Va. For details, visit:http://go.usa.gov/gVnB
