This multiple-award contract has a one-year base period of performance, two one-year options, and a contract value of more than $42 million if all options are exercised. Work will be performed primarily in Orlando, Fla.

The Deep Green program seeks to develop a synergistic human/machine system to help military officers and their staffs quickly make command decisions and generate multiple options on the battlefield.

The goal is to enable commanders with the ability to foresee the outcomes of plans through simulation, providing the ability to adjust those plans as required.

Under the contract, the SAIC team will design, develop, and integrate the system, including establishing warfighter computer interfaces, creating a common futures graph, and building a synthetic battlespace engine that will understand inputs and employ reason to predict multiple battlefield outcomes.

"The Deep Green program will significantly advance military planning technology to support the capabilities of the commander on the battlefield," said Beverly Seay, SAIC senior vice president and business unit general manager.

"We are proud to leverage our expertise in the areas of modeling and simulation, software development, and systems integration to advance this cutting-edge program. We look forward to creating an intuitive system that will help commanders visualize the future and act effectively to save warfighters' lives."

Rockwell Collins Controls And Lands Wing-Damaged UAV

Subscale F/A-18 with 60% wing loss. Photo: Business Wire

by Staff Writers
Cedar Rapids IO (SPX) Jun 17, 2008
Rockwell Collins, through newly-acquired Athena Technologies, has completed a successful flight test of a significantly damaged unmanned F/A-18 subscale model air vehicle. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) sponsored the flight demonstrations held this spring at the Aberdeen Proving Grounds in Maryland.

During the first flight test, nearly half of the airplane's right wing was ejected to simulate battle damage and in-flight failure. During the second flight, almost 60 percent of the airplane's right wing was ejected.

Upon ejecting the wing section during both flights, Rockwell Collins' Automatic Supervisory Adaptive Control (ASAC) technology reacted to the airplane's new vehicle configuration, automatically regained baseline performance, continued to fly the plane, and then autonomously landed it using internal Inertial Navigation System/Global Positioning System (INS/GPS) reference only.

The flight test campaign followed a similar successful DARPA sponsored demonstration in April 2007, during which an aileron was ejected in-flight from the unmanned subscale F/A-18.

"DARPA asked us to significantly increase the level of damage and risk in this latest flight test campaign to really put the Rockwell Collins controls technology through its paces," said Mike Myers, vice president of Business Development for Rockwell Collins Government Systems.

"We are pleased with the ability of our adaptive controls to instantly detect and react to the new vehicle configuration after loss of major sections of the wing. The ASAC controls technology enabled the airplane to continue to fly completely autonomously without a hitch and land without further damage."

Damage tolerance is an enabling capability for increasing the mission reliability of UAVs operating in hazardous and high-threat environments.

The technology provides for real-time autonomous accommodation of damage, followed by an adaptation process that alters the flight control system to compensate for the effects of the damage. During the flight test, Rockwell Collins demonstrated a capability that could be applicable to all military aircraft operating in combat environments and to commercial, business and general aviation for full flight automation and backup.

"This demonstration highlights the challenge and importance of autonomously controlling and landing an airplane that has sustained catastrophic damage or failure in flight," said Dr. David Vos, senior director of Control Technologies at Rockwell Collins.

"This powerful capability can save the military the expense of lost UAVs. When applied to both manned and unmanned aircraft, damage tolerance is a key technology that can facilitate the convergence of manned and unmanned aircraft in increasingly crowded controlled airspace; but more importantly, the solution can save lives."

In April, DARPA's Damage Tolerant Controls program completed a series of demonstrations culminating in recovery from loss of the majority of the right wing of a sub-scale F/A-18.

The aircraft, under fully autonomous control from takeoff to landing, recovered from the catastrophic wing damage within seconds, and over the next few minutes the flight control system reconfigured itself to restore most of the original flight quality, allowing the aircraft to complete a flawless autonomous touchdown.

The goal of DARPA's Damage Tolerant Controls program is to establish the ability of adaptive control methods to enable unmanned aircraft to continue to operate in the event of battle damage.

DARPA Program Manager Lt. Col. Jim McCormick explained, "We wanted to give autonomous aircraft an 'air sense' that would allow them to deal with the unexpected, the way a human pilot might. But more than that, a fully developed system promises significant advantages in terms of responsiveness to a wide range of operationally relevant conditions with greater speed, fidelity, and robustness. And that means better survivability, safety, and effectiveness for our warfighters."

According to McCormick, pilots have made some very spectacular recoveries, such as the Israeli pilot who safely landed an F-15 after losing an entire wing in a mid-air collision, but he added, "This kind of a recovery has never before been accomplished by an autonomous system."

Col. Don Hazelwood, Project Manager for Army Unmanned Aircraft Systems, explained the significance of the accomplishment, "Our warfighters increasingly rely on unmanned aircraft for vital combat capabilities, and the impact of any disruption is much greater than the mere cost of the aircraft.

"This is a very elegant capability that will enhance the availability of unmanned air system-based combat services in the face of battle damage, component failures, or system degradation.

"The extraordinary flexibility of the damage tolerance approach will reduce the burden of training on our operators, limit the impact of pilot error, and lessen our dependence on pre-positioned ground equipment."

The contractor for DARPA's Damage Tolerant Controls program is Rockwell Collins Control Technology. In the next phase of the program, DARPA hopes to rapidly integrate damage tolerance into an operational DoD unmanned air system to show the maturity of the capability and the ease with which it can be fielded.

The goal of this program is to develop a soft, flexible, mobile robot that can identify and maneuver through openings smaller than its actual structural dimensions to perform Department of Defense (DoD) tasks within complex and highly cluttered environments.

As the established leader in innovative robotics research and development, iRobot will lead a team composed of leading technical experts from Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to incorporate advances in chemistry, materials science, actuator technologies, electronics, sensors and fabrication techniques into ChemBots engineering.

The resulting revolutionary new robot platform designs will expand the capabilities of robots in urban search and rescue, as well as reconnaissance missions.

"During military operations it can be important to gain covert access to denied or hostile space. Unmanned platforms such as mechanical robots are of limited effectiveness if the only available points of entry are small openings," said, Mitchell Zakin, Ph.D., program manager, DARPA.

"We believe that a new class of soft, flexible, meso-scale mobile objects that can identify and maneuver through openings smaller than their dimensions to perform various tasks will be quite valuable in many missions."

"Consistently developing new approaches to solve warfighter challenges with robots has made us a trusted DARPA partner," said Helen Greiner, co-founder and chairman of iRobot.

"Through this program, robots that reconstitute size, shape and functionality after traversal through complex environments will transcend the pages of science fiction to become real tools for soldiers in theatre."

Raytheon Integrated Defense Systems (IDS) is working with Teknowledge to evaluate the technology's potential by applying it to a multi-domain situational awareness system that Raytheon developed for defense and homeland security.

The effort was inspired by Raytheon's desire to advance the state of the art for detecting and blocking potential information compromises initiated by users who operate the nation's defense systems.

The technology interprets an operator's behavior in the context of the operator's role and the current state of the system. It determines whether the action would harm the system or compromise information and blocks potentially harmful operator action.

"Protecting defense systems from inadvertent or malicious operator actions is vitally important," said Mark Russell, vice president, IDS Engineering. "Threats from within may represent a vulnerability to these systems."

The contract will evaluate the effectiveness of the protective mechanism in a real operational environment, according to Tom Bracewell, Raytheon's program manager.

"We are evaluating the technology in actual applications and threat scenarios," Bracewell said. "It has the potential to become a common approach for insider threat mitigation in many defense programs."

Argonne's program partners are Advanced Diamond Technologies, Inc. (ADT), Innovative Micro Technology (IMT), MEMtronics Corp., Peregrine Semiconductor the University of Pennsylvania and Leigh University.

The project's principal investigator and project manager is Derrick Mancini, associate division director for facilities and technology at the Center for Nanoscale Materials (CNM) at Argonne. The project's technical leader is Orlando Auciello, a senior scientist in Argonne's Materials Science Division and the CNM.

DARPA, a U.S. Department of Defense organization that supports high-risk, transformational research, is interested in the development of advanced phased-array radar and communication systems for military and commercial applications.

The integration of capacitive radio frequency (RF) MEMS and CMOS devices will enable rapid electronic steering of radar beams to substantially improve radar speed and precision.

Monolithic RF MEMS/CMOS device integration will also greatly improve the multifunction performance of state-of-the-art wireless devices.

RF MEMS devices like resonators (tiny diving board-like structures at very high frequencies) and switches (tiny membranes that establish or disconnect electrical pathways) may substantially improve the functionality and performance of RF and microwave systems.

"The UNCD film technology has the potential to improve the reliability of MEMS switches because of unique combination of properties such as resistance to adhesion between two surfaces in physical contact that can lead to premature switch failure, and because of demonstrated tunability of dielectric properties and leakage current" Auciello said.

"In addition, UNCD films exhibit the highest Young's modulus - the measure of a material's stiffness under stress - of any material being investigate for MEMS resonators, and is currently the only technology that can produce diamond films at temperatures less than or equal to 400 degrees Celsius. Both characteristics provide critical parameters for producing resonators for very high frequency operations and the integration of diamond MEMS with advanced microelectronics, respectively."

In the DARPA Phase II program, the Argonne-led team achieved several key goals:

- materials integration and processes to fabricate UNCD-based resonators;

- integration of UNCD films with CMOS devices;

- demonstration of UNCD dielectric properties suitable for application as low-charge/low-force of adhesion dielectric layer for RF capacitive MEMS switches;

- and demonstration of UNDC-dielectric-based RF MEMS switches that surpassed one-billion switching cycles with low (approximately 0.17-decibel) insertion losses at about 10 gigahertz.

Argonne is the world leader in the fundamental and applied science of UNCD film technology and works jointly with academia and industry to develop new UNCD-based MEMS and other hybrid technologies, including the integration of oxide piezoelectric and UNCD films that produced the lowest power piezoelectrically-actuated UNCD resonators and nanoswitches demonstrated today.

The CNM currently has the world's only microwave plasma chemical vapor deposition system for growing UNCD films at less or equal to 400 degrees Celsius on up to 200-millimeter wafers, located in a clean room environment for nanoelectro-mechanical systems fabrication.

The CNM provides the main expertise and infrastructure at Argonne critical for the success of the DARPA Phase III program. UNCD is prized for its exceptionally small grain size of 5 nanometers, which is thousands of times smaller than grains in traditional microcrystalline diamond films.

Argonne's five research partners each bring specific interdisciplinary expertise and capabilities that are critical to the success of the DARPA Phase III program

- Advanced Diamond Technologies, a Romeoville, Ill.-based Argonne spin off company that commercializes UNCD, is the world leader in the development and application of diamond films for industrial, electronic and medical applications. ADT provides diamond film and materials integration solutions to a variety of industry participants in diverse application areas. ADT has developed a low-temperature process for producing UNCD films, and a number of wafer-scale products suitable for integration of UNCD with other materials for MEMS applications, including diamond-on-silicon and diamond-on-insulator wafers up to 200 millimeters in size with unprecedented property uniformity.

- Innovative Micro Technology manufactures MEMS devices and its overriding goal is to partner with companies to develop products based on MEMS technology. IMT has the largest and best-equipped MEMS foundry facility in the world providing full services from MEMS design to high-volume manufacturing of MEMS devices, including drug delivery, biomedical implants, microfluidics, inertial navigation, sensors, telephone/digital subscriber line switching, and RF devices (critical to the DARPA Phase III), among many other devices. IMT will fabricate the RE MEMS switches for the DARPA Phase III program

- MEMtronics, of Plano, Texas is a privately-held company focused on the development and maturation of RF MEMS switching technology. This technology is being incorporated into phase shifter and tunable filter products targeted at a variety of military and commercial wireless and radar applications. MEMtronics has designed and demonstrated some of the most advanced RF MEMS switches to date- a critical component

- Peregrine Semiconductor is a global leader of high-performance RF CMOS devices. Peregrine's patented UltraCMOS process technology - enabled by silicon on sapphire substrates - drives unprecedented levels of monolithic integration throughout a broad portfolio of mixed-signal RF ICs. The UltraCMOS process technology will drive the UNCD-based RF MEMS switches designed by MEMtronics and fabricated by IMT, in the Phase III program

- University of Pennsylvania Professor Robert W. Carpick leads a group that is conducting world-class research on tribology and mechanical properties of materials using novel atomic force microscopy and surface science tools. The university group will provide unique expertise and tools to characterize the tribological and mechanical performance of UNCD-based MEMS.

Argonne National Laboratory brings the world's brightest scientists and engineers together to find exciting and creative new solutions to pressing national problems in science and technology. The nation's first national laboratory, Argonne conducts leading-edge basic and applied scientific research in virtually every scientific discipline.

Argonne researchers work closely with researchers from hundreds of companies, universities and federal, state and municipal agencies to help them solve their specific problems, advance America's scientific leadership and prepare the nation for a better future. With employees from more than 60 nations, Argonne is managed by UChicago Argonne, LLC for the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science.

"The military is currently using photomultiplier tubes, which are bulky, fragile and require a lot of power to run them, or silicon photodiodes that require a complex filter so that they only detect the desired ultraviolet light," said Russell Dupuis, Steve W. Chaddick Endowed Chair in Electro-Optics in Georgia Tech's School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) and a Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar.

New research shows that ultraviolet avalanche photodiodes offer the high gain, reliability and robustness needed to detect these agents and help authorities rapidly contain an incident like the 2001 anthrax attacks.

The fabrication methods and device characteristics were described at the 50th Electronic Materials Conference in Santa Barbara on June 25. Details of the photodiodes were also published in the February 14 issue of the journal Electronics Letters and the November 2007 issue of the journal IEEE Photonics Technology Letters.

ECE associate professor Douglas Yoder, assistant professor Shyh-Chiang Shen and senior research engineer Jae-Hyun Ryou collaborated on this research, which is funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the Georgia Research Alliance.

The team chose to develop avalanche photodiodes for this bioterrorism application because the devices can detect the signature fluorescence of biological molecules in a sample of air. Since most of the molecules of interest to the researchers emit ultraviolet light, they designed special photodiodes that detect the fluorescence in the ultraviolet region, but have no response to visible light.

"We built our photodiodes with gallium nitride, which is a semiconductor that can be used to create photodiodes that require no filters because this material has an inherent response to ultraviolet, but no response to visible light or solar flux," explained Dupuis.

To improve the sensitivity at ultraviolet wavelengths, the researchers designed the gallium nitride photodiodes to operate in a mode that employs avalanche multiplication. The avalanche multiplication phenomenon is used to multiply normally tiny currents by factors of up to one million, thus dramatically increasing the device gain.

Avalanche photodiodes can create much larger currents for each photon compared to normal photodiodes. Once the necessary electric field strength has been achieved inside the device, the avalanche effect starts with just one free electron. Since the illuminated photodiode will contain many free electrons, an avalanche will always occur if the electric field is large enough.

"One electron-hole pair that is produced by a photon absorption event creates a million other electron-hole pairs and the current becomes a pulse of current that you can detect with special electronics," added Dupuis.

The researchers fabricated high-performance gallium nitride ultraviolet avalanche photodiodes on bulk gallium nitride substrates that demonstrate optical gains of 100,000 at ultraviolet wavelengths from 280 to 360 nanometers.

The gallium nitride device structures were grown by metalorganic chemical vapor deposition, a technique for depositing thin layers of atoms onto a semiconductor wafer. Many layers can be built up, each of a precisely controlled thickness and composition, to create a material which has specific optical and electrical properties.

This is the first time gallium nitride was successfully used in the fabrication of photodiodes having ultraviolet optical gains greater than 10,000.

Since demonstrating the feasibility of the photodiodes to exhibit the avalanche effect, the research team has been developing a more advanced structure capable of operating as a Geiger-mode detector, so that the photodiodes are sensitive enough to detect only one photon at a time.

When the Geiger-mode detector is connected to the avalanche circuitry, a single electron-hole pair can trigger a strong avalanche current to flow from just one photon.

Yoder, who works on Georgia Tech's Savannah, Ga. campus, is developing computer models of the new photodiodes to calculate the detailed electronic and optical transport. Yoder's goal is to optimize the materials and design of the Geiger-mode avalanche detector to assure optimal, reproducible performance of the avalanche photodiodes.

"Doug's work is pivotal because these applications don't require one working detector, they might require thousands of uniform detectors in the same chip that all function the same way, so our ability to manufacture identical photodiodes and detectors is important," said Dupuis.

With proper manufacturing, these avalanche photodiodes can be used for more than detecting bioterrorism agents. They can also be used detect fires, gun muzzle flashes, missile propulsion flames and maybe even cancer cells, according to Dupuis.

VADER is a radar sensor being developed by Northrop Grumman for use with the Sky Warrior, an extended-range multi-purpose unmanned aerial vehicle under development by General Atomics.

When deployed, VADER will allow accurate Ground Moving Target Indicator (GMTI) data and Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) imagery to be readily available to ground commanders in real time.

During this first test flight conducted in Georgetown, Md., high resolution SAR imagery and GMTI data were collected on a Northrop Grumman PBN Islander test aircraft and processed on a radar ground station to show vehicle motion on the ground.

"Capturing high quality SAR images on the first flight is an unusual accomplishment and a significant one for the DARPA program," said Brian Reise, VADER program manager for the Advanced Concepts and Technologies Division of Northrop Grumman's Electronic Systems sector.

"Notably, the design, building and integration of this complex system were completed in a very short 18 month timeframe."

The activity included development of a new antenna and unmanned aerial system-compatible receiver/exciter/processor with associated software. The antenna was designed to support multiple missions, including the capability to detect dismounts and facilitate the exploitation of this data.

The DARPA project is sponsored by the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Office (JIEDDO). Awarded in 2006, the objective of the VADER program was to design, build and test a radar system within two years.

High thermal temperatures are a key barrier in the development of next-generation military electronics, such as high-power radars, electromagnetic weapons and all-electric aircraft.

Under the initial 18-month contract, Northrop Grumman will use improved materials and techniques to transfer excess heat away from semiconductors where the heat is generated.

Specifically, the team will develop and test the feasibility of replacing solid metallic heat spreaders with an advanced passively-driven, internally liquid cooled, silicon carbide-based thermal ground plane.

"The U.S. military's future need for high-power electronics cannot be overestimated, yet the ability to control thermal loads generated in electronic systems has remained a formidable hurdle to that development," said Dr. Larry Greenberg, Northrop Grumman program manager.

"Northrop Grumman's solution will leverage a number of innovative technologies developed by our team, as well as employ our extensive experience in silicon carbide processing and etching.

"Our technical approach will produce a flexible thermal ground plane with significantly improved thermal conductivity and cooling compared to conventional copper-based heat spreaders, ultimately supporting the development of a new generation of high-performance electronic devices."

The $1.7 million, 18 month, cost-plus-fixed-fee contract is for the first phase of the three-phase DARPA program. The total value of the effort, if all phases of the development program are completed, could be up to $5.2 million over three and a half years.

Northrop Grumman's Electronic Systems sector is leading the effort. The company's teammates include the University of Missouri, Columbia, Mo.; Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta; and Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, N.M.

Following a successful initial phase, DARPA selected QinetiQ to continue development of a new sensor system to provide persistent tactical surveillance and precision tracking capabilities.

The concept is to develop a sensor system that operates at high altitude (~20 km), possibly on an airship or endurance UAV, that detects and simultaneously tracks large numbers of moving vehicles in dense urban areas with a high degree of accuracy, 24-hours a day.

In order to achieve this, the sensors need to be high resolution and sensitivity and have a wide field-of-regard, with low mass and system volume.

QinetiQ's solution is the based on novel adaptive coded aperture imaging, an all new disruptive camera technology with a wide range of defence, security, industrial and commercial applications.

QinetiQ is being assisted in delivering the LACOSTE programme by Goodrich ISR Systems which is responsible for designing the optical system, assisting with CONOPS and architecture development, and performing laboratory and flight testing.

The second phase of the programme covers the building and flight testing of a working sensor module to meet the LACOSTE goals. This builds on a successful first phase in which new sensing and processing technologies were developed and proven.

"This award is an endorsement of the team's ability to deliver novel sensing technologies," explained Dr Chris Slinger, QinetiQ's Principal Investigator on the LACOSTE programme and a QinetiQ Senior Fellow.

"Our adaptive coded aperture imaging draws on several elements of QinetiQ's rich technology base, combining leading edge micro electro mechanical systems (MEMS), optical and sensor physics, signal processing, image recovery, tracking techniques and systems engineering. It is an example of a new wave of disruptive, computational imaging systems that offer orders of magnitude improvement in mass, size, economy and performance when compared to conventional sensor technologies."

Tom Bergeron, President of Goodrich's ISR Systems business added: "This contract award is an important endorsement of the adaptive coded aperture imaging approach successfully demonstrated by the QinetiQ/Goodrich team during the LACOSTE Phase 1 programme. This novel computational imaging approach has now demonstrated real potential as a disruptive technology for the ISR Market. The Goodrich ISR Systems business has a long history of offering world leading capabilities in real time electro-optical systems in space and on manned and unmanned airborne platforms and is ideally placed to transition this capability into the ISR market."

The Manta UAVs, manufactured by Advanced Ceramics Research (ACR) of Tucson, Arizona, were issued official consecutive Korean CASA tail numbers: S7049, S7050 and S7051. Under a program funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) a two-man ACR flight team is operating the Manta UAVs for atmospheric research scientists to assess Beijing air pollution control efforts during the Olympics (CAPMEX).

The Manta UAV flights are the first ever UAV flights from Jeju Island.

Manta UAVs previously received certifications to fly in civil airspace in the Maldives in 2006 by that country's Civil Aviation Department to study the effects of air pollution above the Indian Ocean, and also from Denmark's Civil Aviation Administration to operate in civil airspace in Greenland in 2007 and 2008 in support of NOAA programs studying conditions on the Greenland Icecap (Greenland).

Manta UAVs are also currently operating in restricted airspace at NASA Dryden where atmospheric scientists are monitoring pollution levels in Southern California (Dryden) for the California Energy Commission (CEC).

The Manta UAV was initially designed and prototyped under funding from the Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) in 2002, and the first three production units were funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the Office of Naval Research (ONR) for a research platform in early 2003.

The Manta has a maximum gross take-off weight of 24Kg with a 7Kg payload, a 3m wingspan, and will fly for 4-6 hours. The Manta UAV is equipped with fully autonomous rolling take-off and landing, or can be rail launched.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) acknowledged it has never been done before "because the design requirements for a submersible and an aircraft are diametrically opposed."

But in a request for proposals earlier this month, it said it was looking for "radical new technologies that can provide a game-changing Department of Defense capability for inserting small teans clandestinely, along coastal locations."

DARPA is renowned as the originator of many of the Pentagon's most revolutionary innovations, from the Internet to the stealth technologies that underpinned the B-2 bomber.

Its proposal asks for feasibility studies and experiments to prove concepts for a submersible aircraft with the speed and range of an aircraft, the loiter capabilities of a boat and the stealth of a submarine.

The proposed craft should be able to fly commandos 1,000 nautical miles (1,850 kilometers, 1,150 miles) into a theater of operations, fly close to the sea surface for another 100 nautical miles, and then travel underwater for the last 12 nautical miles.

And it should be able to do all that in eight hours.

The craft should then be capable of loitering for three days in seas with up to four-meter (13-foot) waves.

That's not all. It should have enough fuel left over to extract the commandos and fly to a rendezvous point 100 nautical miles away.

"Given the list of diverging requirements and design considerations, the difficulties involved in developing a submersible airplane are clear," DARPA said.

Aircraft are designed to be light and bouyant. Submarines, on the other hand, need weight to remain submerged, as well as thick skins that can sustain the pressure of being underwater.

Differences in densities of water and air, in velocities and loading requirements all make for aircraft and submarine design requirements that work against each other.

The DARPA proposal said previous attempts failed because they focused on making a submarine fly.

"The design concept being evaluated here is for a submersible aircraft, not a flying submarine," it said.

"While it is hard to envision a propulsion system that could ever get a craft with the weight of a submarine airborne, it may be possible to submerge an extremely buoyant platform like an aircraft if the operating depths can be minimized."

Northrop Grumman Wins Terahertz Contract

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"This contract win shows that Northrop Grumman is at the leading edge of microelectronics technology capable of delivering dramatic improvements in performance and functionality for U.S. military and space systems," said Dwight Streit, vice president of Microelectronics Technology and Technical Development for Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems.

"Program Manager Bill Deal, our scientists and engineers are excited about helping to ensure the reliable communications ability of U.S. satellites and the safety of our warfighters performing critical tasks across the globe."

"The THz Electronics program will develop a technology for integrated circuits operating at far higher frequencies than ever possible before. This will be crucially important for emerging applications like terahertz communications and radars," said Dr. Mark Rosker, program manager of DARPA's Microsystems Technology Office.

"But of potentially even greater consequence, this program will drive the state of the art in high performance III-V electronics, with vast implication to RF circuits and systems operating at more conventional (microwave and millimeter-wave) frequencies."

The THz Electronics program is an extension of Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems' successful $7.7-million phase one of development on the Sub-millimeter Wave Imaging Focal Plane Technology (SWIFT) program for DARPA.

SWIFT demonstrated the first active components, such as oscillators and amplifiers (low-noise and power) operating at 340 GHz, enabling systems for high-resolution imaging at sub-millimeter frequencies in all types of weather environments encountered by space and defense satellites.

Work on the THz Electronics program will move even higher in frequency, starting at 650 GHz this year. As with SWIFT, the current Program will continue to be supported by the U.S. Army Research Laboratory.

Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems recently captured a Guinness World Record for the fastest transistor based on a device that has a maximum frequency of oscillation well in excess of 1,000 GHz.

AeroVironment Inc., a California company, announced that the Defense Advanced research Projects Agency had awarded it a contract extension to design and build a working prototype of a nano air vehicle.

The contract extension is worth $2.1 million and continues through summer 2010 for work that uses "biological mimicry at an extremely small scale," which would allow for "new military reconnaissance capabilities in urban environments," a company release said.

AeroVironment said its NAV reached a technological milestone when the craft, using two flapping wings and carrying its own energy source, managed controlled hovering flight. The company said the NAV used only the wings for propulsion and control.

While in flight the NAV was able to climb and descend, fly forward and back and also left and right while under remote control.

"The NAV program will push the limits of aerodynamic and power conversion efficiency, endurance, and maneuverability for very small, flapping wing air vehicle systems," Todd Hylton, DARPA program manager, said in a release.

"The goals of the NAV program -- namely to develop an approximately 10-gram aircraft that can hover for extended periods, can fly at forward speeds up to 10 meters per second, can withstand 2.5-meter-per-second wind gusts, can operate inside buildings, and have up to a kilometer command and control range -- will stretch our understanding of flight at these small sizes and require novel technology development."

DARPA, an agency within the U.S. Department of Defense, said the NAV program was initiated to develop an extremely small flying vehicle that could be used in either outdoor or indoor military missions. "The program will explore novel, bio-inspired, conventional and unconventional configurations to provide the warfighters with unprecedented capability for urban mission operations," the agency said on its Web site.

DARPA foresees the program advancing technology in collision avoidance, navigation systems and hovering flight.

"There are still many hurdles to achieve the vehicle we envisioned when the program was started," Hylton said in the AeroVironment release, "but we believe that the progress to date puts us on the path to such a vehicle."

AeroVironment NAV Project Manager Matt Keennon said the propulsion and control systems were seen as the biggest challenges when NAV Phase I began.

Keennon said Phase II, which is covered in the contract extension, will focus on longer flight capabilities for the NAV and improving its ability to switch from hover to forward flight and back. AeroVironment will also work to reduce the craft's size and weight while seeking to make it quieter.

"All of these are distinct technical challenges in their own right that actually conflict with each other, making for an interesting and exciting path ahead," he said.