Millimeter Wave Ranging and Synchronization System

To address the Navy’s need for high-precision time and phase synchronization of multiple distributed radio frequency (RF) sources located on unmanned aerial system (UAS) platforms, Intellisense Systems, Inc. proposes to develop a new Millimeter Wave Ranging and Synchronization (MiRS) system. The MiRS system is based on a novel multinode ultrawideband millimeter wave (76-81 GHz) radar and active reflector configuration to determine mutual UAS positions with millimeter accuracy. The acquisition of accurate UAS positions allows high-precision synchronization of the RF sources (from UHF to C band) to work together to form a coherent beam on a target in the absence of both GPS and cooperative targets. To reduce the MiRS system cost and increase the maximum range between RF sources, Intellisense incorporates recently introduced, highly integrated radar devices and multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) technology. In Phase I, Intellisense will design and develop the concept and approach for time synchronization of RF sources across a distributed system and demonstrate the feasibility of the designed approach through modeling and simulation for a swarm consisting of 10 UASs randomly distributed spatially throughout a 1-mi area, and quantify the beam pointing error as a function of frequency. In Phase II, Intellisense will develop prototype hardware and demonstrate the approach on 3 to 6 platforms, with static demonstrations and, if successful, dynamic demonstration on quadcopter platforms. We will also prepare a Phase III development plan for integrating the MiRS system into Navy platforms.