BAE Systems receives RFMLS contract from DARPA

BAE Systems has received a $ 9.2 million contract from the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) for the Radio Frequency Machine Learning System (RFMLS) programme, the company announced on 27 November.

The contract will see the company develop data-driven machine learning algorithms to enable military and commercial users to identify RF signals in different operating environments.

Under the Phase 1 contract, BAE will use cognitive approaches to create signals differentiation tools. In addition, the company aims to create algorithms that can learn to differentiate important versus unimportant signals in real-time scenarios through a deep learning approach.

John Hogan, product line director of the sensor processing and exploitation product line at BAE Systems, said: 'The inability to uniquely identify signals in an environment creates operational risk due to the lack of situational awareness, inability to target threats, and vulnerability of communications to malicious attack.

'Our goal for the RFMLS programme is to create algorithms that will enable a whole new level of understanding of the RF spectrum so users can identify and react to any signals that could be putting them in harm’s way.'