Target Tracking with a Distributed Sensor System by Office of Naval Research (ONR)

Originally aimed at offsetting the expense and time associated with installing Ethernet office networks, wireless LAN products are finding their way into more demanding Industrial and Military environments and applications.Unlike office or residentialapplications, the Military/Industrial wireless application scenarios require levels of performance and reliability beyond what is currently available. The challenges facing the next generation of industrial strength wireless LAN products can be summarizedas follows:Extreme Environmental Stresses* Sustainable operation in harsh physical environments* Predictable connectivity in various friend and foe jamming scenarios* Connectivity in open, closed, and connected spacesApplication Based Requirements*On-demand multi-link thruput* Guarantee user access* Seamless roaming between nodesThis research will investigate a next generation approach (3G) to providing concurrent high-speed multi-user wireless accessibility within a non-cooperative electromagneticenvironment.This research will examine the multi-access capabilities of code division multiple access (CDMA) with the robustness of orthogonal frequency division multiplexing to overcome channel impairments such as multipath and jamming.Using availableCOTS IEEE 802.11 2.4 GHz components and communication systems modeling applications Phase I output will focus on establishing a set of implementation strategies and technological techniques for implementing a short range jam resistance link-agilemulti-access CDMA/OFDM transceiver.This technology has specific and immediate industrial and commercial application, these include:1. Enhanced spectrum utilization in the VHF to 1 GHz spectrum. The 150 MHz - 1 GHz band plays a major role in business,commercial and national infrastructure communications. Primarily used for narrowband voice and data applications the FCC is actively seeking modulation and coding techniques, which substantially increase channel capacity, and effective data throughputwithout affecting legacy narrowband services.2. Providing low-cost multi-access high-density voice and data services for semi- urban and rural business and residential subscribers. More than thirty percent of U.S. citizens are without reasonably pricedInternet access and nearly 10 percent are lacking reliable voice service. Worldwide it is estimated that the unfulfilled demand is for 45-50 million network connections per year. 3. Next generation of in-building high-speed multi-user LAN systems.Productized this technology would provide 100 MHz + wireless office LAN connectivity.