[Think Tank Voice] From Concept to Reality-DARPA promotes the development of the concept of "Mosaic War"

Source: Aerospace Defense Author: She Xiaoqiong

US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Strategic Technology Office filed in 2017 "mosaic war" concept, conceived by fast and flexible integration of various sensors, multi-domain node allegations, it was /Unmanned platform, gain a new asymmetric advantage.

In recent years, DARPA has successively issued "Strategic Technology" inter-departmental announcements and announced three projects. The specific contents of two projects are kept secret, indicating that DARPA is actively promoting the development of the "Mosaic War" concept.

一 "Strategic Technology" Inter-departmental Announcement

In March 2019, DARPA Strategic Technology Office issued a "Strategic Technology" inter-departmental announcement, seeking innovative ideas and disruptive technologies that support the Mosaic War ：

Mosaic technology. The technology that enables the commander to use all the capabilities of the combat space to establish and operate the effect chain, focusing on the three functional areas of planning and compilation, interoperability, and implementation;

mosaic effect network service. The technology to expand the capability of the effect chain, focusing on novel sensors and effectors that are in line with the "mosaic war" strategy, and emphasizing offensive non-kinetic energy effects against balanced opponents;

mosaic test. Interoperable integration technologies and methods of various modeling simulation and test environments;

basic strategic technologies and systems. Innovative concepts for the "mosaic war" system and architecture may include technologies that significantly reduce system size, weight, power, or cost, technologies that enable rapid system updates, technologies that significantly improve system efficiency, etc.

In February 2020, the DARPA Strategic Technology Office once again issued a "Strategic Technology" inter-departmental announcement, continuing to seek related concepts and technologies.

2. "Mosaic War" project

(1) "Providence" (Providence) project

In October 2019, the DARPA Strategic Technology Office issued an inter-departmental announcement for the "Providence" project, aiming to seek innovative research proposals for the development of new radio frequency sensing and signal processing.

The "Providence" project focuses on naval surface warfare, electronic warfare, combat space surveillance, machine learning, intelligent systems and ultra-wideband reception and other technical fields, and explores innovative methods that can achieve revolutionary progress in technology or systems . The project is divided into two phases with a total period of 36 months. The

project is an important part of the final vision of "Mosaic War", and the specific content is confidential.

(2) "Coherent Oscillators" (Coho) Project

In November 2019, the DARPA Strategic Technology Office issued a cross-departmental announcement for the "Coherent Oscillator" project , Seeking innovative research proposals for the development of advanced signal processing technologies for future radio frequency systems. In the future, radio frequency systems will increase the working bandwidth of real-time signal detection and identification capabilities to obtain an asymmetric advantage for implementing tactical operations in an "anti-access/area denial" environment.

"Coherent Oscillator" project will provide the following benefits for tactical signal detection and recognition:

monitoring. Combining large working bandwidth and noise isolation, carry out background electromagnetic search in a low signal-to-noise ratio environment;

filtering. Isolate signals based on modulation characteristics, and process signals in the presence of co-channel interference;

location. Supports low-latency implementation of multi-aperture processing, based on azimuth angle recognition signal. The project is divided into two phases with a total period of 39 months. The

project is an important part of the final vision of "Mosaic War", and the specific content is confidential.

(3) "Resilient Network Distributed Mosaic Communication" (RN DMC) Project

In June 2020, DARPA issued a cross-departmental announcement for the "Resilient Networking and Distributed Mosaic Communication" project, seeking innovative proposals in the field of distributed coherent communication technology, focusing on the development of current tactical radio combat waveforms The two-way mosaic element system. The

project aims to achieve long-distance communication through a mosaic antenna composed of spatially distributed transceiver elements (or patches). The project uses a patchwork of space distributed patch transceivers to replace high power amplifiers and large directional antennas. A single patch can use radio frequency detection to estimate the channel response and adjust the phase of the transmitted carrier.

This enables the distributed mosaic antenna to emit directional beams, and no beams are emitted in a specific direction. The project is divided into three phases with a total period of 45 months. The project is an important part of the final vision of the "Mosaic War".

Three, some understanding

(1) The concept of " Mosaic War" has been initially perfected

DARPA since 2017 After the concept of "mosaic war" was put forward, little progress has been made in related fields. It was not until 2019 that DARPA issued a "strategic technology" inter-departmental announcement. After that, it issued three inter-departmental announcements to seek specific technologies to support the "mosaic war" and made it clear that these three projects are important for the final vision of the "mosaic war" component.

It can be inferred that the concept of "Mosaic War" has been initially perfected, and DARPA is pushing the "Mosaic War" from concept to reality.

(2) Efficient real-time battlefield communication is currently the primary concern of DARPA "Mosaic War"

"Mosaic War" will realize the integration of various sensors, nodes and systems Distributed interconnection, radio frequency communication is one of its basic key technologies.

The first three "Mosaic War" projects announced by DARPA are all related to RF communications. Among them: "Providence" project focuses on new RF sensing and signal processing; "Coherent Oscillator" project focuses on supporting future RF systems Advanced signal processing technology; the "Resilient Networking Distributed Mosaic Communication" project focuses on distributed coherent communication technology that can realize long-distance communication.

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