NuWaves Engineering has been awarded a Phase II Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) contract from NASA to develop and prototype a miniature linear and high-efficiency C-Band power amplifier to provide communication range extension for a variety of NASA missions and applications, including Unmanned Aircraft Systems integration into the National Airspace System.
Under the terms of the contract, NuWaves Engineering will develop, prototype and test two distinct C-Band amplifier variants: an efficient linear PA for data links with amplitude-modulated waveforms, such as Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM), and a high-efficiency PA for data links with waveforms characterized by having little or no amplitude variation.
NuWaves’ partner on the Phase II contract is InnoWave, Inc. of Acton, Massachusetts. Together, the Team will incorporate linearization and Doherty amplifier designs into monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC) devices that will serve as the core of what will be connectorized PA modules capable of being integrated into existing command and control and communication systems. In addition to the MMICs, each of the two connectorized PA modules will feature a broad power supply range, advanced thermal management techniques and optional bidirectional circuitry. Finally, the technology will be scalable to higher frequencies, such as X-, Ku-, K- and Ka-bands.
