Southwest Research Institute 2006 Annual Report, Signal Exploitation & Geolocation

To support homeland security interests, Southwest Research Institute continues developing surveillance, communications signal intercept, direction finding, and tagging and tracking systems for the U.S. government, friendly foreign governments and commercial clients.

We delivered communications electronic warfare support equipment to an international client in the very-high and ultra-high frequency ranges for fixed site and land-mobile applications. Equipment included antennas and processing equipment that acquire signals of interest and incorporate frequency hop processing for tracking and locating signals that hop from one frequency to another (tsd.swri.org).

SwRI engineers are modernizing the signal intelligence networks that collect radio direction finding data for the U.S. government. Efforts include modifying current approaches to include acquiring and managing data from new, disparate sources (sed.swri.org).

Global positioning systems are increasingly being targeted for attack, particularly now that they are used to track military forces and supplies. Our staff is developing a system to detect a GPS attack before it can create problems for users (surveillance.swri.org). The system will also be capable of detecting inadvertent interference.

Our internal research program helps staff members take conceptual ideas through to development for the ultimate benefit of our clients. The explosion of digital communication, in particular the Internet, has created an enormous, nearly anonymous, capability for distributing multimedia content. SwRI engineers are developing new techniques for steganalysis, the science of detecting hidden messages, of digital images. Approaches include applying noise removal techniques and using models to detect deviations from the normal image.

Another new area is genetic programming, an evolutionary computing technique that automatically writes programs to solve problems. A successful internal research project created a new GP language that natively handles data in the form of vectors and matrices. Our analysts are using this new tool to investigate the application of GP to automatically discover new digital signal processing algorithms, a class of problem previously intractable to GP techniques.

Other research is focused on frequency hop detection and prosecution, as well as blade processing, a type of computer or processor used primarily for network servers. These new technologies will eventually be built into our FRONTIER design architecture used in SwRI’s series of communications intelligence systems (ssd.swri.org). Other internal research efforts are targeting improvised explosive devices, data mining and specific emitter identification, which allows users to identify and track transmitters.

In response to the industry trend for approaches that are less labor-intensive, we are designing our systems to require significantly less labor to construct and operate. We are also addressing the special challenges of wireless connectivity for government clients, including the need for increased reliability, security, and resistance to detection and jamming.

Our antenna production and operation efforts continue to support U.S. Navy intelligence activities, on schedule and within budget (engineeringsolutions.swri.org). The Signal Exploitation and Geolocation Division is certified to the ISO 9001:2000 international quality standard. We are implementing additional processes to meet Level 3 of the Software Engineering Institute’s Capability Maturity Model® Integration for development.

Visit sigint.swri.org for more information or contact Vice President Dr. William G. Guion at (210) 522-2902 or wguion@swri.org.

Copyright© 2007 by Southwest Research Institute. All rights reserved under U.S. Copyright Law and International Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, without permission in writing from the publisher. All inquiries should be addressed to the Communications Department, Southwest Research Institute, P.O. Drawer 28510, San Antonio, Texas 78228-0510, phone (210) 522-3305, fax (210) 522-3547.