MAXENTRIC TECHNOLOGIES, LLC STTR Phase I Award, April 2020

Our team will develop a high-dynamic-range, high-power-handling, and high-survivability high frequency (HF) radio receiver with significant enhancement in intrinsic interference and jamming resistance. HF band covering frequency range between 3 to 30 MHz provides communications with ranges over thousands of kilometers through skywave propagation and offers an alternative to satellite communications. HF skywave propagation through ionosphere diffraction is a challenging communication channel that exhibits both low and short terms temporal fluctuations and is susceptible to unintentional interference due to spectral congestion, and intentional and adversarial jamming. To mitigate interference, a frequency agile approach will be used to suppress jammers. If the HF communication link is also under broadband barrage jamming attack, then wide dynamic range analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) and machine learning will also be used. RF front-end and software defined radio technologies will harden our HF radio so that it can withstand and survive interference and jamming attacks without causing service interruptions or damage. Our implementation includes: gallium nitride low-noise amplifiers offering front-end high-linearity and high-power-handling capability; precise high-resolution and high-linearity ADCs offering high dynamic range and high waveform fidelity; digital-signal-processing and mixed signal techniques employing machine learning and artificial intelligence for signal filtering with extremely low signal-to-noise ratio.