Resilient Integrated Photonic Transport In Denied Environments (RIPTIDE)
Summary
The Department of War’s Special Operations Command (SOCOM) is seeking SBIR proposals to develop resilient, jam‑resistant free‑space photonic crosslinks that provide communications and cooperative navigation for Group 3 unmanned aerial system formations operating in GPS‑denied environments. The effort focuses on an optical mesh that simultaneously delivers low‑probability‑of‑intercept data transport, precision time transfer, direction finding and ranging across a theater‑scale swarm spanning up to 300 nautical miles.