Aug 23, 2021

August 23, 2021 Kumu Networks announced that it has received a $1.5 Million Direct to Phase 2 SBIR project from the US Army. The scope of the project includes integrating Kumu’s Self-Interference Cancellation technology to create radios capable of not only suppressing in-band self-interference from friendly, co-located jammers but also eliminating interference from non-co-located enemy jammers, providing soldiers the ability to transmit freely to friendly forces while simultaneously jamming enemy transmissions. The Army Program of Record office plans to subsequently focus on incorporating this capability into multiple production Handheld, Manpack and Small Form-Fit (HMS) radios. Technology prototyped as part of the project will be used in existing vehicle mounted and manpack military radios to not only double the spectral efficiency of field deployed radios thus doubling throughput, but will be able to do so while simultaneously operating co-located in-band jammers. Kumu Networks CEO David Cutrer, stated that one of the biggest communications challenges for Army warfighters is to operate in congested, contested and denied environments. Minimizing self-interference from friendly and enemy jammers is a key enabler for the current and future connected battlefield. Kumu is excited to apply its technology in an environment that pushes that state of the art not only for self-interference cancellation but its practical application in the most rugged field conditions. As part of the project, Kumu will utilize its patented Self-Interference Cancellation platform to construct the highest performing Full-Duplex Module created to date. Current Kumu Full-Duplex modules already deliver ~80dB of cancellation (eight orders of magnitude interference cancellation). As the project’s prime contractor, Kumu will additionally incorporate MIT Lincoln Laboratory adaptive antenna cancellation and receive beamforming technology so that together the solution will deliver 100dB of cancellation, a full two orders of magnitude higher than current state-of-the-art self-cancellation technology of any kind. “ MIT Lincoln Laboratory is leveraging previous efforts funded by the Office of Naval Research by combining receive beamforming with antenna cancellation technology developed as part of those efforts with Kumu’s Analog and Digital Cancellation technology to deliver more than 100 dB of self-interference cancellation, one of the highest levels reported to date,” said Dr. Bradley Perry, Assistant Group Leader at MIT Lincoln Laboratory. “In a wirelessly connected battlefield, the ability to operate free of radio self-interference concerns creates a critical asymmetrical advantage for our nation’s fighting forces.” Share this article: