RF Engineering
Radio frequency (RF) engineering is the design of systems and components that use electromagnetic principles for the transmission and reception of information across wireless and/or wired channels. At NSI, our research is on key components and systems that enable capabilities such as those defined by the 3GPP standards for 5G, 6G, FutureG wireless communications. At the component level, we research phased array antennas, SWaP-advantaged filters, power amplifiers, AI/ML edge compute processors, and RF quantum sensors. This component-level research feeds into system-level research in software defined radios, wireless propagation modeling, digital twinning simulations, and simultaneous transmit-and-receive front ends for radar and communications. We transition fundamental research from CU鈥檚 innovative academic departments by use of applied research contracts in service to the USA. To do this, we partner with researchers in CU鈥檚 college of engineering and applied science, with large and small defense contractors, and with representatives from the DoD and IC.
Missions: RF communications, LPI/D communications, spectrum operations, electronic warfare
Challenges: frequency bandwidth, transmit power, receive sensitivity, miniaturization, system integration, operational resilience, reconfigurability, computational speed
CU Strengths: wireless protocols, antenna design, power amplifier design, filter design, MMIC design, RF AI/ML design, photonics