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DARPA Wants Extreme Wireless Interference Buster
coondoggie writes "This month the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency will begin looking for technology that will let wireless communications work through the most extreme interference. From the article: 'The CommEx program will assess next generation and beyond jamming threats and then develop advanced interference suppression and avoidance technologies to successfully communicate in the presence of severe, traditional, and novel types of interference that are orders-of-magnitude more severe than what are currently addressed by the most advanced systems, DARPA stated.'"
Not really sure what they can advance on besides frequency hopping routines that are quicker and cover a larger spectrum. SINCGARS, HAVE QUICK I/II and SATURN are pretty good at counter-jamming already, as long as the sequence can not be easily predicted and the fills are updated regularly (every 24 hours or so) then jammers will have to invest quite a bit into the infrastructure of their broadcasting equipment. It certainly wouldn't be portable, and it'd be loud and easy enough to find and take out by more traditional means.
The only thing, like I mentioned above, is moving to waveforms that are spread across larger frequency ranges (which can be problematic) and are faster so the jamming equipment can't keep up with the normal signal. Beyond that, digital data over RF can be reinforced by better packet correction and error handling.
Of course you could always just overpower every other signal on your band, but I do not think battery tech has reached that level yet for portable radios, and well... Most soldiers prefer not to be cooked alive if they have a choice.