Extremely Small, High Performance Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) Payloads for Expendable Undersea Platforms

Vadum will develop an architecture and design options for a reconfigurable, modular Electronic Warfare (EW) sensor buoy to augment the Electronic Support Measure (ESM) suite of US submarines. The buoy design will include specification of RF and digital hardware, signal processing algorithms for detecting, processing and locating radar and communication emitters, and a software framework that enables operators to configure the sensor buoy prior to launch. The configuration framework will enable operators to partition EW applications with composeable signal processing operations across offboard buoy and onboard processing resources. A software library of high-level EW applications will simplify sensor processing configuration. Vadum will include advanced algorithms for radar de-interleaving, radar characterization, and communications emitter geolocation in addition to standard radar and communication software elements through partnership with EW equipment vendors. The flexible hardware and software in the buoy solution will dramatically increase the EW surveillance capabilities of US submarines through increased RF sensors deployed from the 3-inch launcher as individual or distributed nodes.