SBIR/STTR Award attributes
The Navy needs a high power microwave (HPM) directed energy weapon (DEW) capable of stopping vehicle and vessel engines from a range of up to 250 m. Current broadband RF-HPM weapon systems are very large, heavy, and costly, prohibiting their use in many operational areas where other radar or communications are already in use. The Navy needs a smaller, lighter and lower cost broadband HPM antenna system with capability to avoid key friendly frequencies. PSI will develop an antenna system that is SWAP-C minimized, wideband, and highly directional. PSI will outline a path to combine this antenna with a HPM wideband source, thermal cooling system, energy storage system, and high power, broadband feed. The key innovation is extremely compact and broadband antenna elements with 20 MHz frequency carve-outs inherent in their physical resonating structures. The designed system is capable of inducing an electric field that meets the minimum requirement for damaging electronics on commercial vehicles and does so across a 1-3 GHz frequency band. In this Phase I SBIR program, PSI will fabricate and test an antenna element in a far-field range and will produce a fully defined system architecture capable of achieving the solicitation goals. In the Phase II period, PSI will build a prototype of the system for testing on military vehicles and vessels at the Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division. Once the Phase II prototypes have been evaluated by the Navy, PSI will pursue strategies to produce the developed system at production levels.
