A RESEARCH STUDY IS PROPOSED THAT WILL LEAD TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF A ROBUST, SURVIVABLE TACTICAL COMMUNICATION NETWORK BASED ON AN ADAPTIVE BEAM ANTENNA SYSTEM.

A RESEARCH STUDY IS PROPOSED THAT WILL LEAD TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF A ROBUST, SURVIVABLE TACTICAL COMMUNICATION NETWORK BASED ON AN ADAPTIVE BEAM ANTENNA SYSTEM. THE PERFORMANCE OF SUCH A NETWORK WILL BE DETERMINED AND ALGORITHMS FOR BEAM ACQUISITION AND TRACKING DEVELOPED FOR POINT-TO-POINT (LINK) AND NETWORK ENVIRONMENTS. ANTENNA ARRAY CONFIGURATIONS WILL BE SELECTED AS A FUNCTION OF FREQUENCY FROM VHF TO MILLIMETER WAVE. THE SYSTEM IMPACT OF SUCH PRACTICAL FACTORS AS COMBINER LOSS AND BEAM SIDELOBE LEVELS WILL BE DETERMINED. THE INTERACTION OF THE ANTENNA SYSTEM WITH COMMUNICATION EQUIPMENT IN GENERAL, WILL BE INVESTIGATED AND THE APPLICABILITY OF ADAPTIVE BEAM SYSTEMS OF SEVERAL SPECIFIC TACTICAL COMMUNICATIONS SYSTEMS ASSESSED IN MORE DETAIL. A PLAN FOR A DEMONSTRATION SYSTEM ILLUSTRATING OPERATION OF A SELF ORGANIZING AJ, LPI ANTENNA SYSTEM WILL BE DEVELOPED. THE RESULTING ADAPTIVE ANTENNA COMMUNICATION NETWORK WILL HAVE EXCEPTIONALLY GOOD AJ AND LIP PERFORMANCE WHILE PROVIDING THE FLEXIBILITY OF AN OMNIDIRECTIONAL BEAM SYSTEM TO ACCOMMODATE MOBILE AND TRANSPORTABLE NODES.