MIMO-Enhanced Signal-Agnostic Telemetry Collection Buoys

Silvus Technologies and Sparton Corporation will bring the power of multiple-antenna (MIMO) technology to improve the next generation of low-cost telemetry (TM) collection. We believe US Government TM collection will benefit from: 1) MIMO radio enhancements that increase radio range/robustness, thereby requiring dramatically fewer collect buoys than current practice; 2) a signal-agnostic approach enabling the same buoys to collect any in-band TM signal (e.g. PSK, FM, etc.) with no swapping-out of modems for each collect, 3) ad hoc networking to recover recorded TM data directly or routed through neighboring buoys, and 4) a low cost TM collection system employing buoys with unit cost similar to todays sonobuoys. This approach also makes maximum re-use of the US Governments existing investment in TM transceivers. Our vision for the program starts with MIMO algorithms and CONOPS cost analysis in Phase I, develops testable prototypes based on Silvus StreamCaster radios and Spartons A size buoys in Phase II, and ultimately creates a very low-cost, stripped-down radio and buoy for field deployment in Phase III.