Time Domain Announces NASA STTR Contract Award

Huntsville, AL, March 14, 2012 --(PR.com)-- Time Domain, a leader in ultra wideband (UWB) product development, has been awarded a Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) contract by NASA to study the use of its UWB sensors for navigation/localization, wireless communications, and radar/sensing in support of autonomous multi-robot exploratory missions. The contract will be managed by NASA’s Langley Research Center (LaRC), based in Hampton, VA.

CEO Rachel Reinhardt stated that, “We are excited about this effort that will lay the groundwork for future NASA missions and objectives. We appreciate that NASA recognizes UWB technology as vital to its success.” Time Domain’s academic partner for this STTR is the University of Alabama in Huntsville, led by Dr. Laurie Joiner of the school’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

NASA’s Communications and Navigation Systems Roadmap specifically addresses UWB technology as a key area of research – one that has been demonstrated as a potential solution to communications, navigation, and tracking challenges of robotic exploratory missions. Time Domain’s production of coherent pulsed-RF UWB modules (PulsON® 400) has confirmed that further miniaturization and specific developmental improvements are achievable in simultaneous mobile ad hoc networking, distributed navigation/localization, and cooperative radar imaging. Investigation of the novel capability to fuse these critical functions and improve performance, while minimizing overall power consumption and weight, should revolutionize collaboration among interdependent teams of robotic platforms and increase their capacity for exploration.

Time Domain’s PulsON 400 module represents the culmination of over a decade of UWB research and product development, including five generations of custom silicon. “One of the advantages of Time Domain’s technology architecture is the flexible combination of capabilities onto a single chipset,” said Reinhardt. A PulsON 400 module delivers the functions of data transfer, precise peer-to-peer range measurement, and motion/proximity sensing in a single small, cost-efficient, easy-to-use platform.

The company is now shipping PulsON 400 modules and development kits to a broad customer base comprised of government/defense, industry, and academia. For more information on Time Domain and its UWB product offerings, please visit Time Domain's website or call +1.256.922.9229.

###