24 Jun 03. HYPRES, Inc., a Superconducting Micro-Electronics company, announced that it has been awarded an $8m contract by the Department of Defense (DoD). Under this contract, HYPRES will develop the world’s first All Digital Receiver (ADR).
The contract has been awarded by the Office of Naval Research (ONR) and will be further supported by the Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS) Joint Program Office (JPO). ONR will provide DoD management of the contract, and JTRS JPO will provide system level guidance across the JTRS domains.
The technical feasibility of the long-sought ADR is made possible by recent breakthroughs in the rapidly maturing technology of Superconducting Micro-Electronics (SME). SME now greatly exceed performance levels of conventional semiconductor technologies through direct digitization of incoming RF signals and subsequent unparalleled digital signal processing. Digital-RF(tm) receivers will have a broad impact on a range of DoD missions and commercial applications.
The DoD JTRS radio program stands out for the breadth of impact on the DoD capabilities. The HYPRES Digital-RF(tm) receiver will exceed all JTRS highest-level objective requirements, and greatly improve the ease of platform integration compared to conventional approaches.
Jack Rosa, CEO of HYPRES, commented, “Our technology brings the power of digital processing to the RF domain, which represents a change in the basic paradigm of wireless communications that will revolutionize the industry and the markets.” He further commented, “This contract represents a major milestone toward the goal of demonstrating the unparalleled capabilities of our technology.”
Among the many additional defense applications of Digital-RF(tm) receivers are satellite communications, signal intelligence, electronic warfare, and radar systems. Most significant among commercial applications are wireless communication systems with performance that greatly exceeds the current and forecasted performance of conventional technologies, and at a fraction of the cost.