April 7, 2014
DARPA awards $750,000 contract to develop technology to protect military communications
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - A U.S. Department of Defense agency is providing funds to a team headed by Indiana Microelectronics LLC to develop technology to protect the armed forces' broadcast communications against intentional interference such as jamming devices and environmental interference such as adverse weather conditions.
DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) has awarded a 24-month Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase II contract worth $750,000 to fund a joint development between Indiana Microelectronics LLC and San Antonio-based Southwest Research Institute®.
Mike McPheters, director of business development at Indiana Microelectronics, said the funding will be used to further research and development that has been conducted in Purdue University's School of Electrical and Computer Engineering.
"The contract calls for the development of the feedback and control mechanism for Indiana Microelectronics' state-of-the-art reconfigurable filters in the microwave frequency band," he said. "The technology is designed to mitigate co-site interference and hostile jamming sources, which would allow defense agencies to better manage an ever-challenging and crowded radio frequency environment."
The Closed Loop Frequency Control for Tunable High Quality Factor Filters contract was awarded Aug. 20, 2013.
Indiana Microelectronics is based in the Purdue Research Park of West Lafayette.
About Indiana Microelectronics LLC
Building on cutting-edge research in applied electromagnetics and advanced packaging materials, Indiana Microelectronics focuses on its core competency of advanced design and packaging of frequency agile components.
About Southwest Research Institute
Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) is an independent, nonprofit, applied research and development laboratory headquartered in San Antonio, Texas, with almost 3,000 employees benefiting government, industry and the public through innovative science and technology.
About Purdue Research Park
The Purdue Research Park, with four locations across Indiana, has the largest university-affiliated business incubation complex in the country. The park network is home to about 240 companies that employ about 4,500 people and are located in West Lafayette, Indianapolis, Merrillville and New Albany.
Purdue Research Park contact: Steve Martin, 765-588-3342, sgmartin@prf.org
Source: Mike McPheters, 630-868-8381, mmcpheters@indianamicro.com