S2 CEO Receives Electronic Warfare Development Award

DR. KRIS MERKEL, PRESIDENT AND CEO OF S2 CORPORATION, WAS AWARDED THE JERRY SOWELL radio frequency AWARD IN 2014 FROM THE ASSOCIATION OF OLD CROWS (AOC).

Citation reads:

"Dr. Merkel has committed 15 years to advancing wideband spectrum monitoring technology, with 2013 representing huge strides in reaching 20 GHz full instantaneous bandwidth, with >63 dB dynamic range spur free and 500,000,000 frequencies per second, and 4 field tests showing capability in tactical spectrum sensing and many advanced functionalities in direction finding and signal identification."

THE AOC IS AN ORGANIZATION FOR INDIVIDUALS WHO HAVE COMMON INTERESTS IN ELECTRONIC WARFARE (EW), ELECTROMAGNETIC SPECTRUM MANAGEMENT OPERATIONS, AND OTHER INFORMATION-RELATED CAPABILITIES.

S2 Presents at NWRCS

S2's Kris Merkel recently presented at the National Wireless Research Collaborating Symposium, on the company's testing of their 10 GHz Instantaneous Bandwidth Spectrum Monitoring, which took place at Idaho National Labs. Markel explains: "S2 Corporation tested its wideband RF spectrum monitor at Idaho National Labs (INL) in December 2013. Rich RF spectrum data was collected over 0.5-10 GHz with 250,000,000 unique frequencies per second, with a resolution bandwidth below 0.1 MHz and full spectrum frame rate of at least 2,000 frames per second. Wireless signals at INL were controlled during captures, and concurrently an FCC Special Transmit Authority (STA) allowed transmission in frequency hopping signals across the 10 GHz bandwidth for calibration and added signal environment."

S2 Paper Presented at GOMAC 2014

S2's publication titled "20 GHz Instantaneous Bandwidth RF Spectrum Analyzer Measurements with High Sensitivity and Spur Free Dynamic Range" was recently presented at the GOMAC 2014 conference. The following describes the papers findings:

The paradigm of operations for radio frequency (RF) monitoring is rapidly moving towards “wideband sense and react”, given the proliferation of transmitters for radar and communication systems operating over more of the electromagnetic spectrum (EMS). A significant challenge for present and future military and commercial systems is to analyze signals over a wide bandwidth, out to 120 GHz, in real time without any scanning in frequency, and without any prior knowledge of the signals, carrier frequency, or modulation format. For spectrum monitoring (SM), a receiver system must have a high spur free dynamic range (SFDR), so that the small signals of interest (SOI) are not mistaken for the false signals – spurs – that are generated by large signals, such as other SOIs, co-site interference, or jammers. The system should have fast update rates for tracking signals with fast pulse repletion frequency (PRF), with changing PRFs and wide bandwidth to handle frequency hops, and low latency to cue other systems or countermeasures. Such a system should also have high RF sensitivity. Typical high sensitivity measurement systems “choke down” the bandwidth to get a lower noise floor, which can approach the thermal noise floor limit of -174 dBm/Hz, less the noise figure (NF) of the system. Typical narrow band measurement techniques use superheterodyne detection at a fixed frequency and resolution bandwidth (RBW). For wideband coverage the local oscillator (LO) tunes across the desired bandwidth dwelling on each frequency sequentially [1]. Modern digital spectrum analyzers use digitizers and Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) processing to enable higher instantaneous bandwidth measurements limited by mainly the digitizer performance [2]. In comparison, our spectral sensing system remains fully open to the entire bandwidth of interest, presently over 20 GHz and readily extendable to >100 GHz, operates with high sensitivity, high SFDR and generates 400,000,000 unique frequency measurements per second.