BAE Systems say they have demonstrated new small-form-factor semiconductor technology designed to sense radio frequency and communication signals in battle environments in conjunction with a drone.
The Hedgehog technology, which was used in this exercise to sense radio frequency and communication signals in congested and contested battle environments in conjunction with an unmanned aerial system, is a collection of general-purpose, reconfigurable MATRICs chips in a software-defined radio system, the company said in a statement.
“In a recent military exercise attended by representatives from multiple research labs and military service branches, BAE Systems successfully demonstrated new, powerful small-form-factor semiconductor technology. The Hedgehog technology, which was used in this exercise to sense radio frequency (RF) and communication signals in congested and contested battle environments in conjunction with an unmanned aerial system, is a collection of general-purpose, reconfigurable MATRICs™ chips in a software-defined radio (SDR) system.
The Hedgehog demonstration was in support of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Distributed RF Analysis and Geolocation on Networked System (DRAGONS) research. The DRAGONS program is designed to deliver a drone-integrated, small form factor signal identification and geolocation capability. This research and the underlying research on MATRICs and Hedgehog was developed with funding from DARPA.”
“Our successful demonstration underscores the capabilities of our breakthrough Hedgehog technology moving one step closer toward operational readiness,” said Chris Rappa, product line director for Radio Frequency, Electronic Warfare, and Advanced Electronics at BAE Systems FAST Labs.
“The importance of this potentially game-changing technology is that it can be deployed for many different purposes across a multitude of platforms and mission types, providing deployed units with a tactical advantage only previously possible with large scale platform support.”
Or, in plain English, they’ve made things smaller to keep up with Iran, China…
China hasn’t invented anything since they invented gunpowder. Their modern day culture is all about stealing what others invent. They see nothing at all wrong with doing that.
Perhaps I’m behind the times? Isn’t this the program that not only aimed to shrink the size by reducing the chips but was attempting to software control the circuitry inside the chip? So the chip can be transmit/receive/GPS/TACAN/Inertial Nav/ Radio/data Relay all in the same chip and common replaceable box?