Program Summary
Dominance of the radio frequency (RF) spectrum is critical to successful U.S. military operations. Today, we do this using discrete radar, electronic warfare (EW), and communication payloads that are separately designed, procured, and integrated on platforms. These payloads typically use dedicated apertures, are realized with tightly coupled hardware and software, and are not well-coordinated in their use of spectrum. This rigid and constrained approach makes it difficult and time-consuming to adopt new technology, adapt to rapidly changing adversary threats, maneuver functions effectively in spectrum, and create comprehensive compact RF systems. Finally, such converged, flexible, multi-function systems are accompanied by an overwhelming growth in the number of options due to the anomaly of cheap complexity.
The CONverged Collaborative Elements for RF Task Operations (CONCERTO) program represents the ultimate software defined RF tile for Mosaic Warfare. The program addresses these challenges by developing a modular architecture for adaptive, converged RF systems to realize intelligent control of converged RF payloads supporting radar, EW, and communications simultaneously. The CONCERTO systems under development realize multi-function operations in less space and power than the combined collections of discrete systems, maximize the use and overlapping capabilities of common apertures, and speed technology migration by decoupling hardware from software and firmware. More specifically, CONCERTO is developing a multi-objective resource management system to intelligently coordinate RF mission goals in spectrum, space, and time to maximize the effectiveness of multiple complementary converged payloads. Leveraging the latest Reinforcement Learning and Genetic Algorithms, the CONCERTO resource manager is able to efficiently distill the vast option space in real time dramatically outperforming the traditional greedy approaches. Finally, the modular architecture is also scalable across a range of platforms and will be demonstrated on third party payloads in a flight test at the conclusion of the program.