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DYNAMIC TUNER FOR NARROW-BAND VLF SUBMARINE COMMUNICATION TRANSMITTING SYSTEM

Award Information
Agency: Department of Defense
Branch: Navy
Contract: N66001-14-C-5212
Agency Tracking Number: N123-161-0150
Amount: $928,263.00
Phase: Phase II
Program: SBIR
Solicitation Topic Code: N123-161
Solicitation Number: 2012.3
Timeline
Solicitation Year: 2014
Award Year: 2014
Award Start Date (Proposal Award Date): 2014-06-23
Award End Date (Contract End Date): 2017-01-26
Small Business Information
35 Wiggins Ave.
Bedford, MA 01730-2345
United States
DUNS: 602959579
HUBZone Owned: No
Woman Owned: No
Socially and Economically Disadvantaged: No
Principal Investigator
 Fred Niell
 Senior Engineer
 (781) 275-9444
 niell@divtecs.com
Business Contact
 Mike Kempkes
Title: VP Marketing
Phone: (781) 275-9444
Email: kempkes@divtecs.com
Research Institution
N/A
Abstract

The U.S. Navys VLF/LF Submarine Broadcast remains vital to Americas strategic defense, providing reliable means to command submarines at depth, as well as other fleet assets, using high power radio stations all over the globe. The five major VLF stations with their enormous high-Q antennas presently experience radiated-power limitations and poor DC-to-VLF conversion efficiency when sending the customary 200 baud MSK with its 100 Hz frequency shifts. Dynamic tuning of the antennas series inductance removes antenna bandwidth as a performance limitation by creating a constant, purely resistive transmitter load on both the MARK and SPACE frequencies. As demonstrated in Phase 1 of this work, an IGBT switched inductor accomplishes this. However, switching the high levels of current and voltage at an operational VLF transmitting station presents a formidable task.

* Information listed above is at the time of submission. *

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