The Space-BACN program aims to revolutionize the way space-based communications work by developing
low-cost, high-speed reconfigurable optical datalinks to connect various low-earth orbit (LEO)
constellations. The COCHON team will create a reconfigurable, multi-protocol intersatellite optical
communications terminal that is low size, weight, power, and cost (SWaP-C), easy to integrate, and will
have the ability to connect heterogeneous constellations that operate on different optical intersatellite
link (OISL) specifications that otherwise would not be able to communicate. The UA team is leading the
development of an integrated hardware/software stack to enable transformation of waveforms into a
platform-optimized program execution, cut design time and enable reconfigurable, multi-protocol
modem to support current and future industry-supported waveforms.
This project is leveraging the ongoing Domain-Focused Advanced Software-Reconfigurable
Heterogeneous System on Chip (DASH-SoC) funded by the DARPA Domain-Specific System on Chip
(DSSoC) program. The DASH team is building a framework to develop flexible, high-performance, lowpower, domain-specific SoCs, while assuring non-expert programmability. We are developing an example
SoC for software-defined RF systems: radios; radars; spectral awareness; positioning, navigation, and
timing; and RF convergence. As part of the DASH project, the UA team has
built an ecosystem that we refer to as CEDR: a Compiler-integrated, Extensible, DSSoC Runtime. This
ecosystem integrates compile-time application analysis, runtime system, and an intelligent scheduling
framework to holistically target the challenges of hardware agnostic application development and
deployment on heterogeneous SoCs. Through CEDR we provide a productive abstraction layer over which
software can be programmed in a hardware-independent manner without requiring users to become
hardware experts in the process.
