Scalable Wideband Autonomous RF Mapping MANET (SWARMM)

Electromagnetic spectrum (EMS) awareness continues to be a critical capability for military dominance in the field. The number, dynamics, and types of sources in an increasingly congested RF spectrum has shifted the focus of DoD research away from large faraway high-value SIGINT assets towards large-scale distributed sensing nodes closer to the action. Large-scale distributed sensing and analysis is conceptually able to provide the sensitivity, coverage, agility, and reliability required for future EMS awareness. To become a reality, however, large-scale distributed sensing must overcome significant technical challenges, chief among which is the ability to autonomously perform sensing, data sharing, data analysis, and platform kinetic control all while presenting the operator with a simple single-asset experience and a low-latency command and control interface. The proposed SWARMM exercises significant innovation across the sensing network stack from a multi-antenna radio interfaces, through a very low SWAP sensor technology, distributed autonomous control algorithms, to an overarching efficient scalable MANET architecture. As envisioned, SWARMM can support 100s of sensing platforms the autonomously cooperate to behave like a single very high performance sensing asset.