DIRECT TO PHASE II: Advanced Multi-User Signal Separation for Tactical Waveforms

The Program Office championing this effort is PMW/A 101 that manages and delivers advanced, secure tactical communication systems for naval platforms. A core mandate of this office is to continuously integrate next-generation capabilities that enhance waveform resilience, increase spectral efficiency, and ensure robust connectivity for warfighters operating in highly congested and contested electromagnetic environments. The technology developed under this SBIR Direct to Phase II topic is intended to transition directly into the PMW 101 portfolio of tactical radio systems. In modern tactical networks, the proliferation of friendly assets creates a dense signal environment where simultaneous transmissions on the same frequency cause multi-user collisions and limit operational effectiveness. This problem is exacerbated in contested domains where very low Signal-to-Noise Ratios (SNRs) are common. Current baseline receiver systems typically treat these overlapping friendly signals as insurmountable noise. Because legacy systems lack the ability to untangle these collisions, they simply drop the packets or fail to decode them entirely, which severely limits network throughput and the real-time data exchange required for mission-critical operations. To overcome these limitations and maintain a critical operational advantage, this SBIR Direct to Phase II topic seeks the development of an advanced signal processing core capable of robust multi-user signal separation for tactical waveforms. By enabling non-orthogonal multiple access-like schemes, this capability will significantly increase network capacity and user count without requiring additional spectrum. The goal is to deliver high-quality soft signal likelihoods recovered from simultaneous-user collisions to downstream soft-decision decoding algorithms. To achieve close-to-optimal performance in two-user collisions, proposed approaches must operate effectively at very low SNRs and mitigate intermittent interference by dynamically detecting burst collisions and nullifying compromised likelihood data. While advanced joint demodulation represents one viable pathway, proposers are highly encouraged to suggest any innovative framework that targets an approximate 3dB improvement over current baselines. The targeted improvement will be measured against the current baseline receiver under comparable two-user collision conditions and will reflect improvement in multi-user separation and downstream decoding performance rather than overall receiver sensitivity. This 3dB gain will translate directly to longer communication ranges, higher data rates, and increased resilience against jamming. This effort requires the performer to: Develop an advanced algorithm for multi-user separation that is effective in low SNR and interference-prone environments. Generate high-quality Log-Likelihood Ratios (LLRs) for modern soft-decision forward error correction (FEC) decoders, utilizing novel, proposer-defined technical approaches. Implement a mechanism to detect burst collisions and erase or correct corrupted likelihood data to prevent decoder failure. Design, implement, and test the algorithm within a modular Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) core based on open-systems principles. The successful transition of this capability will fundamentally improve the resilience of tactical networks. By delivering a modular FPGA core built on open-systems principles, the solution could be seamlessly integrated into a wide range of current and future Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) radio platforms, which could significantly reduce the life-cycle costs associated with developing entirely new systems to achieve these capabilities. This Direct to Phase II effort seeks proposers who can rapidly demonstrate these advanced receiver techniques with a clear transition path into operational military hardware. Work produced in Phase II may become classified. Note: The prospective contractor(s) must be U.S. owned and operated with no foreign influence as defined by 32 U.S.C. § 2004.20 et seq., National Industrial Security Program Executive Agent and Operating Manual, unless acceptable mitigating procedures can and have been implemented and approved by the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency (DCSA) formerly Defense Security Service (DSS). The selected contractor and/or subcontractor must be able to acquire and maintain a secret level facility and Personnel Security Clearances. This will allow contractor personnel to perform on advanced phases of this project as set forth by DCSA and NAVWAR in order to gain access to classified information pertaining to the national defense of the United States and its allies; this will be an inherent requirement. The selected company will be required to safeguard classified material during the advanced phases of this contract IAW the National Industrial Security Program Operating Manual (NISPOM), which can be found at Title 32, Part 2004.20 of the Code of Federal Regulations.