BAE Systems gets new contract

BAE Systems has been awarded a multimillion-dollar contract by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, to develop a wireless communications system that will allow multiple users to communicate at the same time on the same channel without centralized control or special infrastructure.

The contract is valued at $8.8 million with options totaling $15.4 million. The work will be conducted at the BAE facility in Nashua as well as facilities in Wayne, N.J., and Arlington, Va.

“Bandwidth availability is a limiting factor in many wireless communications systems today,” said Joshua Niedzwiecki, manager of communications and signal exploitation for BAE Systems. “With current technology, bandwidth is shared through assignment of unique time slots, frequency slots, or code words for each user. That’s an arrangement that significantly limits network performance.”

BAE’s proposed technology, Interference Division Multiple Access Communications system, will seek to eliminate limitations by using multi-user detection receiver technology. – TRACIE STONE