OUSD (R&E) MODERNIZATION PRIORITY: Microelectronics; Directed Energy; 5G TECHNOLOGY AREA(S): Electronics; Space Platform; Materials; Information Systems; Air Platform; Battlespace The technology within this topic is restricted under the International Traffic in Arms Regulation (ITAR), 22 CFR Parts 120-130, which controls the export and import of defense-related material and services, including export of sensitive technical data, or the Export Administration Regulation (EAR), 15 CFR Parts 730-774, which controls dual use items. Offerors must disclose any proposed use of foreign nationals (FNs), their country(ies) of origin, the type of visa or work permit possessed, and the statement of work (SOW) tasks intended for accomplishment by the FN(s) in accordance with the Announcement. Offerors are advised foreign nationals proposed to perform on this topic may be restricted due to the technical data under US Export Control Laws. Please direct questions to the Air Force SBIR/STTR HelpDesk: usaf.team@afsbirsttr.us. OBJECTIVE: The research team selected for this STTR award will be tasked with developing robust, compact, low cost, and easy to manufacture Radio Frequency Integrated Circuits (RFICs) that can efficiently convert a steady supply of electrical energy into a stable high power RF signal for power beaming applications. Robustness will be measured as the extent the RFICs developed by the STTR awardee can operate a high temperatures, at low temperatures, are tolerant of large temperature swings, can tolerate the hostile conditions found in an orbital environment, and the extent the RFICs developed are resistant to degradation as a function of operation time. Compactness well be measured as a function of how many RFICs can be established on a fixed panel given a specific mass and volume limit. Low cost and easy to manufacture will be measured as the extent the RFICs developed by the STTR awardee can be made with low cost materials and are amenable to being manufactured using standard high throughput integrated circuit (IC) production techniques. High efficiency will be assessed as the extent the RFICs developed by the STTR awardee can exceed the performance of state of the art mass produced RFICs; specifically, the DC-to-RF conversion efficiency of the RFICs developed should be greater than 40% when, either acting independently or in concert with a collection of RFICS, broadcasting at least 200W of RF power. High power RF broadcast stability will be measured as a function of the maximum RF power a RFIC can output, the extent a single or array of RFICs can provide a constant RF signal with a specific waveform, and the duration a RFIC can continuously output RF energy. DESCRIPTION: This STTR call seeks to combine the academic prowess of a university and the commercial expertise of a small business to develop new Radio Frequency Integrated Circuit (RFIC) design paradigms to efficiently generate Radio Frequency (RF) energy for space based power beaming applications. Solid state RF devices are sought as it has been shown that they can be compact, lightweight, and extreme temperature tolerant components that can be designed to generate large amounts of RF power when reasonable amounts of voltage or electric current is applied. To support efforts to develop space based power beaming capabilities, the RFICs developed by this STTR will need to be suitable for deployment on space platforms, capable of producing stable waveforms, can be used to create a high power signal, require limited voltage to operate, have long operational lifetimes, are easy to integrate into existing space systems, and can be mass produced at low cost. Proposals sought in this STTR will detail how their planned work will create RFICs that will outperform current state of the art RFICs by utilizing new designs, address challenges with creating a space systems, and enable successful designs to be manufactured easily. Of particular interest will be discussions on how the new RFICs the proposers plan to develop can be used to create high power RF beams with desired waveforms given the limited amount of electrical power available to be expended on spacecraft, how the proposed designs will mitigate undesired energy losses, why the proposed designs are anticipated to be robust enough to be used on a long duration space mission, and why it anticipated that the proposed RFIC design the proposers plan to develop will easy to manufacture. PHASE I: By the conclusion of their Phase I effort, the STTR awardee will be expected to have completed a laboratory demonstration that proves their RFIC design can generate an RF signal with a reasonable electrical power to RF power conversion efficiency. PHASE II: By the conclusion of a Phase II effort, the STTR awardee will be expected to have prepared RFICs, working either independently or in collectively, capable of generating a stable RF signal. This RF signal should have a desirable RF waveform and be emitted at a strength greater than 200W. PHASE III DUAL USE APPLICATIONS: By the conclusions of a Phase III effort, approaches to package promising RFICs developed by this STTR will have been discovered that will enable these RFICs to be easily integrated into electronic systems. Additionally, ways to mass produce promising RFICs developed by this STTR will also have been identified. REFERENCES: References Sato, D. et al., Thermal Design of Photovoltaic/Microwave Conversion Hybrid Panel for Space Solar Power System , IEEE Journal of Photovoltaics, 7, 1, 2017, pp. 374-382; Jaffe, P. et al., Sandwich module prototype progress for space solar power , Acta Astronautica, 94, 2014, pp. 662 671; Jaffe P. et al., "Energy Conversion and Transmission Modules for Space Solar Power," in Proceedings of the IEEE, 101, 6, 2013, pp. 1424-1437; H. Ikeda et al. "Power conversion efficiency in DC-to-RF MOS-FET high power inverter operating at 2.5 MHz," 1991., IEEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems, 1991, pp. 3035-3038 vol.5. KEYWORDS: RF; RFIC; Radio Frequency Integrated Circuit; DC to RF; power beaming; directed energy; RF generation; space; spacecraft; satellite
