Media Inquiries: 310-317-5321
MALIBU, Calif., August 17, 2010—HRL Laboratories, LLC, announced today it received an award from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) as part of the Dynamics-Enabled Frequency Sources, or DEFYS program. The program will exploit nonlinear dynamics, noise-shaping mechanisms, and innovative engineering of micro- and nanoscale systems to develop compact, ultra-high-frequency (UHF) sources capable of maintaining low phase noise under high accelerations and vibrations over relevant military temperature ranges.
Phase noise (random fluctuations in the phase of a waveform caused by time domain instabilities or "jitter") limits the performance of electronics in both military and civilian applications, including GPS, radios, cell phones, and radar systems. Dynamics-enabled mechanisms provide an innovative route to significantly extend the state of the art for high-performance, miniature reference oscillators.
HRL will lead a team of experts in computational materials mechanics, nonlinear dynamics and noise theory from Rutgers University, the California Institute of Technology and the University of California Santa Barbara to establish a firm theoretical foundation for utilizing these dynamics-induced mechanisms to significantly reduce phase noise and demonstrate experimentally the utility of these frequency sources using miniaturized UHF quartz resonators.###
HRL Laboratories, LLC, Malibu, California (www.hrl.com) is a corporate research-and-development laboratory owned by The Boeing Company and General Motors specializing in research into sensors and materials, information and systems sciences, applied electromagnetics, and microelectronics. HRL provides custom research and development and performs additional R&D contract services for its LLC member companies, the U.S. government, and other commercial companies.