Silvus Technologies Inc. has been awarded a contract under DARPA STO’s 100 Gb/s RF Backbone (100G) program. The total dollar value of this 20 month Phase I contract is approximately $3.7 M. As a final deliverable of this Phase I contract Silvus is to demonstrate a MIMO system capable of multiplexing 8 independent streams each carrying 1 Gbps data over a line of sight wireless range above 50 km.
As stated in the original program solicitation available on FedBizOpps, “The goal of the 100 Gb/s RF backbone (100G) program is to design, build and test an airborne-based communications link with fiber-optic-equivalent capacity and long reach that can propagate through clouds and provide high availability. The system will provide 100 Gb/s capacity at ranges of 200 km for air-to-air links and 100 km for air-to-ground links from a high-altitude (e.g. 60,000 ft.) aerial platform. Additionally, the system will provide an all-weather (cloud, rain, and fog) capability while maintaining tactically-relevant throughput and link ranges. Size, weight, and power (SWaP) will be limited by the host platforms, which will primarily be high-altitude, long-endurance aerial platforms. “
Silvus Technologies Inc. is a leading developer of mesh networked Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) radio products for tactical and commercial applications in harsh propagation environments. Silvus’ Director of Technology Development and Principal Investigator on the program Dr. Abhishek Tiwari states “We are all very excited about the 100G program. Our work on this contract builds on our core competitive technical strengths on multi-antenna signal processing. This program has the potential to create new business opportunities for Silvus in the very high capacity link market.”