Small UAV Accurate Geolocation and Discrimination

In this Phase 2 SBIR effort, Azure will develop and demonstrate a miniature SIGINT payload suitable for deployment on SUAVs as small as a WASP. This payload will be based on a scalable and modular design that can be extended in frequency, number of channels, and signal processing capabilities for larger platforms. The SIGINT payload will support a rich set of mission plans, allowing the operator to specify bands of interest, revisit rates, signals of interest, and signals not of interest. The demonstrations will test the ability of the payload to detect, characterize, and associate signal intercepts as well as geolocate emitters. Demonstrations will be staged, beginning with a laboratory demo, advancing to a ground-based demo, then an airborne demo in a large aircraft, and finally a demonstration with one or more simultaneous SUAVs. A map-based display will be used to show the true emitter positions, estimated positions, and confidence ellipses. BENEFIT: This research will develop a new miniature capability to sense the RF spectrum and map any RF emitters detected. Once detected, emitters (depending on the mission tasking) can be geolocated and tracked over time. Currently, capabilities such as this exist, but are implemented as large “black boxes” that weigh 10’s of pounds, and draw 10’s to hundreds of Watts in power. Azure Summit has the objective in this Phase II SBIR to break out of the constraints of today’s tactical SIGINT world, by creating a new payload design small enough to fit on a Wasp, and a new SIGINT software implementation expressly tailored for such a small payload.