DARPA Awards Wireless Technology Contract to BAE SYSTEMS.NASHUA, N.H. -- The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), U.S. government agency administered by the Department of Defense (see Defense, United States Department of). has selected BAE Systems BAE Systems British manufacturer of aircraft, missiles, avionics, naval vessels, and other aerospace and defense products. BAE Systems was formed (1999) from the merger of British Aerospace (BAe) with Marconi Electronic Systems. to develop a wireless communications wireless communications System using radio-frequency, infrared, microwave, or other types of electromagnetic or acoustic waves in place of wires, cables, or fibre optics to transmit signals or data. system that increases the capacity and performance of wireless networks. BAE Systems will develop the Interference Division Multiple Access Communications
Access Communications Co-operative Ltd. system (IDMA IDMA International Diamond Manufacturers Association IDMA Irish Direct Marketing Association IDMA Insurance Data Management Association IDMA Interleave Division Multiple Access IDMA Internal Direct Memory Access ) under an $8.8 million contract with options totaling $15.4 million. IDMA Communications is planned as an ad-hoc wireless communications system that enables multiple users to simultaneously communicate on the same channel without centralized control or infrastructure, greatly increasing network capacity and performance. The work will be performed at BAE Systems facilities in Nashua, N.H., Wayne, N.J., and Arlington, Va. "Bandwidth availability is a limiting factor in many wireless communications systems today," said Joshua Niedzwiecki, manager of communications and signal exploitation for BAE Systems. "With current technology, bandwidth is shared through assignment of unique time slots, frequency slots, or code words for each user. That's an arrangement that significantly limits network performance." IDMA Communications will seek to eliminate those limitations by using multi-user detection receiver technology that enables simultaneous demodulation demodulation: see modulation. See demodulate. (communications) demodulation - To recover the signal from the carrier. For example, in a radio broadcast using amplitude modulation the audio signal is transmitted as the mean amplitude of a of multiple, interfering digital signals. "The concept that support this technology has been studied for years," said Dr. Rachel Learned, principal investigator for BAE Systems. "However, the solutions to date have been too complex to implement in a real-time system." BAE Systems has addressed the problem with patented multi-user detection techniques that reduce computational complexity with minimal sacrifice in performance. These techniques will be further refined and employed on the IDMA Communications program to develop the first-ever real-time radio prototype that incorporates a multi-user detector. About BAE Systems BAE Systems is the premier trans-Atlantic defense and aerospace company, delivering a full range of products and services for air, land and naval forces, as well as advanced electronics, information technology solutions and customer support services support services Psychology Non-health care-related ancillary services–eg, transportation, financial aid, support groups, homemaker services, respite services, and other services . BAE Systems, with more than 100,000 employees worldwide, had 2005 sales that exceeded $28 billion. |
|
||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion