Low-Cost Chaos Radar

To address the Army"s Phase-II requirements for a low-cost chaos-based radar demonstrator, TechFlow and its research partners- the University of New Mexico and Forza Silicon Corp., will implement and test a prototype E-band chaos radar system incorporating a coherent receiver. In Phase I, the TechFlow team performed a comprehensive study of the coherent chaos-based modulation scheme described by Corron, Blakely and Stahl (CBS). The feasibility of the coherent CBS chaos radar for automotive applications was demonstrated. TechFlow carefully studied analog, mixed-signal, opto-electronic, and high-speed digital system implementation architectures for CBS baseband transmitters and associated matched filters operating in the RF and microwave regime, and identified the most cost effective, risk mitigated architecture for Phase-II implementation. Through HDL co-simulations, TechFlow demonstrated the generation of>100MHz chaotic baseband radar signals and a technique to encode binary user-specified data into the CBS modulation with encoding rates>10Mbps. In Phase-II, we will experimentally demonstrate these capabilities in a controlled field environment. TechFlow has formalized a commercialization and technology transition plan through Phase-III with key support from prime integrators in the radar, electronic warfare and communication market sectors, and generating keen interest from the Army Research Laboratories, which has advocated further development of our technology.