This presentation examines how artificial intelligence is enabling a fundamental shift in unmanned platform RF architecture — replacing discrete radar, communications, jamming, and ESM payloads with a single integrated low-SWAP multifunctional RF system. The key enabler is AI's ability to switch and orchestrate shared apertures and waveforms across all functions in microseconds, continuously rebalancing mission priorities as the electromagnetic environment evolves. We explore the AI technologies driving this capability — from reinforcement learning-based aperture scheduling to cognitive waveform synthesis — while candidly addressing the core tradeoffs: performance versus resource sharing, switching speed versus reasoning depth, and adaptability versus training data dependency. For drone platforms where every gram and cubic centimeter is contested, AI-enabled multifunctional RF is not an incremental improvement — it is the only architecture that makes full-spectrum capability physically possible.
Matt Orr is the founder and Technical Director of Ocupoint Inc., a specialized R&D company focused on low-SWAP electronic warfare systems. A systems and software professional with over 30 years of experience, he has led the development of electronic warfare, tactical communications, and satellite systems across multiple DoD platforms. He holds patents in radar pulse interception and processing and serves as lead architect for Ocupoint's COTS low-SWAP EW product line. His work spans the full development of electronic interception and countermeasure capabilities against all elements of the kill chain. He founded Ocupoint Inc. in 2016 to bring advanced EW systems design and rapid prototyping capability to the defense industry.
Prior to founding Ocupoint, Mr. Orr served as Senior Systems Engineer in the ITT Aerospace/Communications Division and ITT Space Systems Division. He has been recognized by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) for outstanding contributions in developing algorithms to improve GPS orbital positioning accuracy and in the area of GPS autonomous navigation, with work currently on orbit. Mr. Orr contributed to the software architecture and signal processing designs of the SINCGARS and JTRS tactical military communications systems, as well as the GPS Block IIR and GPS Block III navigation and communications payloads.
His principal expertise spans digital signal processing, algorithm development, and modeling and simulation of dynamic systems. His current research focuses on ultra-wideband, small form factor multifunctional RF architectures that converge radar, electronic warfare, communications, and ESM into a single integrated system.
