Blog Editor’s Note: This could be an interesting event. It seems as thought it is structured around signals of opportunity, re-purposing existing RF wave-forms, and discovery of new signals for PNT. These certainly seem less expensive and more resilient that putting another constellation of satellites in the sky.
C-TRAC’s Advanced Signals Design Sprint Focuses on PNT Signals
Through the Advanced Signals Design Sprint, the Air Force Research Laboratory is looking to discover what already exists and what is possible in the realm of advanced Positioning, Navigation and Timing (PNT) signals.
The event, sponsored by the Center for Technology, Research and Commercialization (C-TRAC), takes place June 19-21 at the Catalyst Campus in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
C-TRAC is seeking industry partners consisting of a broad consortium of industry and academic partners to identify several of the most fruitful opportunities for future development. Industry partners should be prepared to join a team, eagerly collaborate, and approach problems with an open mind to embrace the design thinking process.
Of particular interest to this design sprint are industry partners with expertise in the following areas:
• Communication RF waveform development
• Software-defined receivers and/or transmitters
• Cryptography
• Cognitive radio
• Network-based/MIMO approaches
• Wideband waveforms
• LPI/LPD comm signals
The PNT signals of the future should leverage new developments in RF technology when applicable, especially those developed to solve problems in related fields such as communications and radar, to increase the resilience of the PNT enterprise.
Fundamentally, this is an effort to achieve cross-pollination between related technical domains. Signal-based solutions exist for disparate problems such as time-based ranging, time transfer, communications, tracking, and remote sensing of weather and other environmental data. Some of the techniques or hardware developed to meet other challenges is expected to carry over and benefit new developments in PNT signals.
For more information on this event, email Amanda Dobias at [email protected], and for details on CyberWorx, also powered by C-TRAC.
