Raytheon BBN Technologies

Cambridge, Mass., June 1, 2009 — BBN Technologies, an advanced technology solutions firm, has been awarded $11,338,050 in funding by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) for the Wireless Network after Next (WNaN) program in a contract awarded by the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL). The WNaN program is developing technology and architecture to enable an affordable, highly-capable and rapidly deployable communication system that will provide the military with the capability to communicate with every soldier and every device at all operational levels.

This new funding follows BBN’s successful December 2008 field demonstration of multihop, packetized voice transmission across groups of hand-held WNaN radio nodes. The demonstration also showed WNaN’s integration with Army command and control (C2) situational awareness (SA) and chat applications, Dynamic Spectrum Access (which allows the nodes to avoid interfering with non-cooperative signals), Disruption Tolerant Networking (for delivering video traffic even when multiple paths get disrupted), and interoperation with existing legacy radios such as the Enhanced Position Location Reporting System (EPLRS).

Under this most recent award, BBN will develop and test a hardened virtual network infrastructure with higher scalability and will demonstrate the technology on a MA/COM radio. Following a 20 node demonstration in August 2009 and a September characteristization against jamming devices, BBN and MA/COM will deliver an additional 50 nodes per week over a seven-week period.

Currently, many warfighters do not have communications radios because the hardware is too expensive. By using inexpensive high-volume commercial COTS hardware components combined with intelligent, adaptive wireless network software operating over densely-deployed, low cost wireless nodes, the WNaN program aims to put a reliable communications radio into the hands of every warfighter. Jason Redi, WNaN principal investigator, BBN Technologies, said, "These are the kinds of technologies that the warfighter needs that have not been seriously deployed in the past under any other program."

Tad Elmer, president and CEO, BBN Technologies, added, "BBN’s deep expertise in ad hoc networking allows us to build an affordable, highly effective networking system that can be transitioned from the lab to wide deployment in the field."

About BBN Technologies
BBN Technologies is a legendary R&D organization that leverages its substantial intellectual property portfolio to produce advanced, repeatable solutions such as the Boomerang shooter detection system. With expertise spanning information security, speech and language processing, networking, distributed systems, and sensing and control systems, BBN scientists and engineers have amassed a substantial collection of innovations and patented solutions. BBN now employs over 700 people in seven locations in the US: Cambridge, Massachusetts (headquarters); Arlington, Virginia; Columbia, Maryland; Middletown, Rhode Island; San Diego, California; St. Louis Park, Minnesota; and O'Fallon, Illinois. For more information, visit www.bbn.com.