The U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) said this week that its information directorate in Rome, N.Y., signed a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) on Nov. 13 with Santa Rosa, Calif.-based Keysight Technologies, Inc. [KEYS] to explore technology development for terahertz (THz) and sub-terahertz communications frequencies.
Ngwe Thawdar, an AFRL program manager, said in a statement that “dynamic and assured access to the electromagnetic spectrum and network resources is critical to establishing resilient communication links and networks and sub-terahertz frequencies are the next spectrum frontier for communications in congested and contested spectrum environments.”
Radio frequency (RF) systems use frequency bands below 100 gigahertz (GHz) for airborne and satellite command and control links.
“Since frequencies above 300 GHz remain unregulated, increasing demand for higher data rates in communications systems has led the research community, including AFRL, and wireless industry companies to seek the next available wide bandwidth by exploring new parts of the spectrum,” AFRL said, adding that the CRADA is to permit the lab “to leverage new technologies with materials, devices, test techniques and simulation in the optimization of wireless network performance.”
AFRL said that It “will work with the CRADA to leverage Keysight’s existing testbeds to evaluate test and measurement concepts at sub-terahertz, or sub-THz, frequencies, particularly full device characterization and measurement.”
Lockheed Martin [LMT] said this month that it has field tested a hybrid tactical mesh network based on fifth-generation wireless communications, as the company advances its development of 5G for military use (Defense Daily, Nov. 1). Keysight Technologies has been a subcontractor on the effort and has provided RF planning, configuration, and optimization tools, to Lockheed Martin.
In addition, Lockheed Martin has said that it plans to test space-based 5G.MIL communications aboard a satellite base station next year during the company’s Tactical Satellite demonstration and that Keysight Technologies has done standards-based development testing of the base station (Defense Daily, Nov. 16).
Keysight Technologies in its annual report last year said that aerospace, defense, and government revenue in the company’s Communications Solutions Group represented 31 percent of the $3.8 billion the group recorded in annual sales and that the company, since 2021, has been making increased “investments in spectrum operations, cybersecurity, and satellites and space, as well as new commercial technologies like 5G and early 6G research applications.”
In Keysight Technologies’ third quarter earnings this August, the company said that it it has paid $3.1 million of a penalty assessed in a consent decree with the U.S. State Department’s Directorate of Defense Trade Controls (DDTC) on Aug. 3, 2021 to resolve the company’s “alleged violations” of the Arms Export Control Act and the International Traffic in Arms Regulations.
DDTC imposed a $6.6 million penalty over three years but suspended the payment of $2.5 million on the condition that the company used the funds to implement a State Department-approved remedial compliance program (Defense Daily, Aug. 9, 2021). In addition, the consent decree required the company to hire an outside compliance officer for two years and conduct an external audit to review its compliance efforts.
“The suspended portion of the penalty has been satisfied by amounts we have spent on qualifying compliance activities to date,” the company said in its third quarter earnings in August.
The State Department’s Office of Defense Trade Controls Policy in 2018 determined that Keysight exported its Multi-Emitter Scenario Generation (MESG) software, which “can be used with certain hardware to model and simulate multi-emitter electronic warfare threat scenarios for testing radar equipment on fixed or mobile platforms,” the department said.
The State Department said that it did not debar Keysight from government contracting because of the company’s cooperation into the department’s review of the alleged violation.