Direct Digital Radiation-hardened Radio (DDR2) for High-Frequency (HF) Communications

The NC2/NC3 communities rely heavily on a layered approach to the communications architecture. As the environment degrades during nuclear events, the frequencies available for reliable communication degrade from high frequency to low frequency. During normal operations, the preference is to use high frequency satellite and data links to move high speed data, voice and video information. The lower frequency systems are used to move force status and Emergency Action Messages (EAM) traffic. During nuclear operations, nodes within the NC2 and NC3 networks start to degrade and shift over to priority force status and EAM traffic only. In this mode, ultimately the only frequencies that are reliable are the HF and LF/VLF bands. HF radios are the most flexible since they are typically small and very mobile versus the LF/VLF systems that require complex antenna systems due to the long wave lengths. A family of modern radiation/ electromagnetic pulse hardened, COTS based Direct RF Conversion Software Defined Radios capable of executing current and upgradable waveforms would provide a significant advantage to the survivable nuclear communications system architecture. The IAI team proposes to develop such a Direct Digital Radiation-hardened Radio (DDR2) for HF operation in post nuclear environments.