DARPA to brief industry 19 Dec. on C2E program to develop jamming-resistant communications

ARLINGTON, Va., 10 Dec. 2013. U.S. military researchers will brief industry this month on a program to develop jamming-resistant communications and difficult-to-detect-communications technology to keep battlefield networks functioning amid a variety of spectrum-warfare threats.

Scientists at the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in Arlington, Va., will conduct industry briefings on Thursday 19 Dec. 2013 on the upcoming Communication in Contested Environment (C2E) program.

Briefings will be from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. eastern time at the DARPA Conference Center, 675 North Randolph St., in Arlington, Va. Those who would like to attend should register online no later than 16 Dec. 2013, which is next Monday.

Enemy technology that is designed to intercept, deny, and exploit U.S. tactical communications has advanced quickly, and poses a formidable threat to U.S. air dominance and air supremacy, DARPA officials say.

To counter this threat, U.S. military forces have improved link capacity of a wide range of data radio systems, which focus on the individual node performance. Unfortunately these advances do not address the problem of overall network performance and network pervasiveness, DARPA researchers explain. This is where the C2E program comes in.

The C2E program seeks to make networking improvements that use existing communications capabilities along with new capabilities. The program will seek to use development environments and system architectures for military communications systems that provide flexibility and capability to refresh communications capabilities similar to that of the U.S. commercial communications industry.

DARPA officials say they expect continued growth in sensor systems, unmanned systems, and networked weapon systems that will drive the need for larger, more pervasive networks. At the same time, experts also expect enemy counter-communications systems to improve.

The C2E program will ask industry for ideas in three areas: heterogeneous networking capability to improve pervasive services while accommodating legacy platform capabilities; a communication system architecture that accommodates new and improved communications capabilities; and a development environment that accommodates third-party technology and rapid capability refresh.

Industry briefings on 19 Dec. will introduce the DARPA C2E program vision, goals, acquisition and program schedules, and contract details. Attendees also can ask questions and schedule private meetings with DARPA program officials.

Register online at https://safe.sysplan.com/confsys/c2e/. The user name is C2E and the password is Arlington. Words are case sensitive. More information about the industry day briefings are on the Website.

For questions or concerns email DARPA's Mark Rich at [email protected]. More information is online at https://www.fbo.gov/spg/ODA/DARPA/CMO/DARPA-SN-14-12/listing.html.