DARPA: SBIR Opportunity: SQUad Intelligent Robotic Radio Enhancing Links (SQUIRREL)

Suspense Date: 29 June 2021 Description: The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Small Business Programs Office (SBPO) is issuing an SBIR/STTR Opportunity (SBO) inviting submissions of innovative research concepts in the technical domain(s) of Electronics, Information Systems. In particular, DARPA is interested in understanding the feasibility of SQUad Intelligent Robotic Radio Enhancing Links (SQUIRREL).

Category

Opportunity

DoD Communities of Interest

Ground and Sea Platforms

Subject

SBIR Opportunity: SQUad Intelligent Robotic Radio Enhancing Links (SQUIRREL)

Due Date

29 June 2021

Government Organization

Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)

Description
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Small Business Programs Office (SBPO) is issuing an SBIR/STTR Opportunity (SBO) inviting submissions of innovative research concepts in the technical domain(s) of Electronics, Information Systems. In particular, DARPA is interested in understanding the feasibility of SQUad Intelligent Robotic Radio Enhancing Links (SQUIRREL).

This SBO will open for proposals on May 27, 2021, and close at 12:00 p.m. ET on June 29, 2021.

I. INTRODUCTION
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Small Business Programs Office (SBPO) is issuing an SBIR/STTR Opportunity (SBO) inviting submissions of innovative research concepts in the technical domain(s) of Electronics, Information Systems. In particular, DARPA is interested in understanding the feasibility of SQUad Intelligent Robotic Radio Enhancing Links (SQUIRREL).

This SBO is issued under the Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) for SBIR/STTR, HR001121S0007. All proposals in response to the technical area(s) described herein will be submitted in accordance with the instructions provided under HR001121S0007, found here:
https://beta.sam.gov/opp/d0cde4fb668d40b1982da8296d5349c0/view.

II. TOPIC OVERVIEW

a. Objective
The success of communications technology in enabling U.S. missions, including hostage rescue, scouting, and training allies, has been significant. The advantages of operating as networked teams are lost in the few domains that remain challenging for mobile networking, such as caves and jungles. Small military units operating in triple-canopy jungle face challenging conditions for mobile radiofrequency (RF) communication due to attenuation from layers of wet foliage. Based on the discovery of RF Mobility Gain (RF-MG), it may now be possible to form a dense three-dimensional mesh of radio relays to support and augment communications capabilities (e.g., in mission scenarios such as reconnaissance and hostage rescue). SQUIRREL seeks innovative solutions that: (1) are intended for a squad of no more than eight members; (2) maintain connectivity amongst the team as they move; (3) maintain
connectivity with higher echelons; (4) minimize size, weight, and power (SWAP).

b. Description
SQUIRREL research and results seek to enable communication for small units operating in the triple-canopy jungle[1], such as tropical rainforest, where the U.S. military has not operated extensively since the 1970s. Many of the attenuation characteristics of northern forests are similar, albeit less severe than rainforest. Nonetheless, it is clear networking is now essential to US warfighters, independent of where geopolitical events unfold. For SQUIRREL, communication is presumed to be of two distinct types: inter-team and reach-back. In jungles, the dielectric properties of wet foliage attenuate point-to-point communications to the degree that WWII communications in tropical jungle used long strings of wire as a transmission medium. SQUIRREL research must extend the range of wireless mobile communication in such terrain to give teams more freedom of operation. Reachback is establishing connectivity to U.S. communications assets, as available.

Important success criteria for reach back include providing team status to higher command and providing situational awareness and directives to the team.

SQUIRREL anticipates exploiting robots (e.g., climbers, fliers, or novel hybrids) as radio relays. SQUIRREL solutions should form a self-positioning three-dimensional mesh in support of small unit operations such as reconnaissance. In practice, mission requirements are highly variable, including:
o deployment method,
o mission lifetime,
o area of operation,
o resilience and
o characteristics of interest to the military, such as:
§ low noise,
§ low observability,
§ low probability of intercept and
§ low probability of detection.

SQUIRREL systems should be designed to support both types of communication:
(1) amongst members of the small unit, as well as
(2) connecting into the larger U.S. DoD grid.

SQUIRREL solutions should exploit RF-MG [2], discovered during the formulation of DARPA’s LANdroids (Local Area Network droids) program[3]. ANdroids, treaded crawlers used to support urban operations, improved persistence by minimizing transmit power needed to maintain RF links. The program laid the foundations of distributed control of robotic radio relays. LANdroids presumed urban environments, where buildings introduce complex localized reflectivity, transmissivity, and shadowing phenomena. DARPA’s Subterranean Challenge[4] maintains communications in less RFpermissive settings, such as caves, sewers, and subways.

Small unit movement through a jungle environment means a SQUIRREL mesh must continuously adapt to new settings as it follows and supports the team. To avoid using RF power levels needed to escape the jungle canopy, SQUIRREL nodes with the last foliage to penetrate and most potential for an intermittent line of sight access to overhead assets should opportunistically use free-space optical communications as they move.

Website

https://beta.sam.gov/opp/4983dfa3040e44978de5fe8627cbef02/view