Radio Risk Reduction
CHANGES IN THE JOINT TACTICAL RADIO SYSTEM WILL CENTRALIZE MANAGEMENT, SIMPLIFY TECHNOLOGY AND FOCUS ON INCREMENTAL DEVELOPMENT.
The Department of Defense office overseeing development of the Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS) has restructured the program to hold down development costs and reduce technological risk to the government.
The announcement this spring by Joint Program Executive Officer Dennis Bauman of JTRS revisions marked the conclusion of a year-long process of reviewing and rethinking the structure and goals of the program, which is designed to provide what Bauman calls the “first tactical mile” of data connectivity to the warfighter. (See MIT, Volume 10, Issue 2, page 10.)
The changes will further centralize management and oversight of the variety of programs under the JTRS umbrella, while also simplifying key technological aspects, emphasizing enterprisewide interoperability and adopting an incremental strategy focused on phased development.
In a May teleconference with reporters, Bauman said that the changes would reduce research and development costs for the total program to $4 billion from an estimated $6 billion.
The most obvious change involves the realignment of the component JTRS programs, previously divided into five and later four “clusters,” into four “domains” under centrally managed program management offices. The domains are:
• Ground Domain—Ground mobile radios (GMR) for vehicles; handheld, manpack and small form-fit radios. Airborne and Maritime Domain—airborne, maritime and fixed site (AMF); Multifunctional Information Distribution System (MIDS).
• Network Enterprise Domain—network enterprise services, including gateways; waveforms.
• Special Radio Systems—JTRSenhanced Multi-Band Intra-Team Radio (MBITR).
Other programmatic changes include a reduction in the number of waveforms, from 32 to nine, a cut in the number of form factors from 26 to 13 and, in some form factors, a reduced number of channels.
ENTERPRISE STRATEGY
Reflecting on the governance issues surrounding the vast, multi-level program, Bauman summed up the need for management changes—which began with his own appointment as joint program executive officer more than a year ago—this way:
“DoD was told to centralize the management of JTRS and make it more effective. Up to that point, it lacked a strong, centralized management structure. It was composed of five very service-centric clusters. Because there was a lack of a strong centralized management structure, there was no overarching enterprise-coordinated acquisition strategy or architecture underpinning the entire program.
“It was widely recognized in Congress and DoD that a centralized, strengthened approach was needed to go forward with JTRS,” said Bauman, who also serves as Navy program executive officer for C4I and space.
In addition, Bauman pointed to fundamental shifts in the goals and strategy of the program, which was originally designed to provide interoperable “software defined” radios for future warfighters.
“JTRS was initiated as a legacy radio replacement program, albeit with software,” he said. “There’s been a complete change in that requirement, so that it now is a program to realize mobile ad hoc networking capability across the force. That change represented a huge requirements increase, especially in the technology readiness and information assurance. It grew to a full networking capability without any modification to the budget or timeline for developing the clusters.”
Information assurance (IA) requirements also posed major challenges, Bauman noted. “Another key finding was that the complexity of the IA challenges was not fully appreciated at the outset of the program. When you move from a radio to a networking device, and put it in the hands of a frontline soldier, the potential vulnerabilities to the network and information security grow exponentially.
“Because mobile ad hoc networking is a relatively new concept, the National Security Agency [NSA] had not fully appreciated or understood what the full ramifications of that vulnerability were, and how to mitigate it. So we found on Clusters 1 and 5 that the IA requirements from NSA continued to evolve while we were developing hardware. This led to difficulties because of the redesign work that had to be done to meet the IA requirements,” he said.
The bottom line, Bauman continued, was that major changes were needed in the management and execution of the programs, using an enterprise approach based on “looking at the strategic picture for DoD and then developing individual form factors and waveforms that fit into the enterprise model.”
BUSINESS PHILOSOPHY
Bauman also pointed to several principles as key to the business philosophy of the revised program. They included:
• Open software: “We are requiring that government-purpose rights be delivered to the government on all elements of software that will be used in JTRS. What we intend to do, and already have done with the software we currently have, is to develop a software repository, where we are placing all of this software, to make available to contractors as they implement JTRS products for DoD use.”
• Open system architecture built on the Software Communications Architecture: “This includes enteprisewide standards that all software waveforms have to meet and application program interfaces that are standardized across all the software, hardware and the operating environments that work in JTRS. It also includes enterprise networking and IA architecture, which we are finding to be quite feasible.”
• Maximizing competition, particularly in hardware production: “We intend to the extent possible to have continuing competition in production. We do not want to be in a sole-source position for hardware with anyone, and we want to be able to compete, ideally by lots in each year of production. We intend to do full and open competition on all the hardware development. We like to have at least two hardware vendors as part of the system design and development phase, so that they can then compete on radio networking device production in the execution year.”
• Risk reduction: “We have set as a governing principle that we will only move forward on low- to moderate-risk projects. We’re not going to do science projects, or move forward state-of-theart technology. What we are going to do is to take technology that is at a sufficient readiness level to go into production, and use that to produce these networking products.”
BOEING ROLE
Bauman also addressed the role of Boeing in the future of the program. The company has been the prime contractor for the former Cluster 1, which has generally been viewed as experiencing the most difficult development progress of JTRS overall. DoD officials last year put the brakes on project development in light of technological and financial uncertainties. Bauman specifically cited Boeing’s ongoing role in three key aspects of the program—waveform development, Cluster 1 (now GMR) and the current competition to develop AMF. “Boeing is very critical to the program. I expect them to continue in all of those roles.”
Bauman also praised Boeing for joint efforts to address development and other problems. “They have made significant changes for the better, and we continue to work with Boeing to improve their execution on the contract,” he said.
“Some of the areas we’re talking about with Boeing for improvement are stabilization in their baselines, emphasis on cost control, affordability of the final product, stability of requirements and relationship with their subcontractors.”
The changes will enable the Boeing team to deliver capability incrementally as quickly as possible, to a known set of requirements and under an achievable schedule, according to Ralph Moslener, Boeing JTRS GMR program director.
“Boeing has been working with the Joint Program Executive Office [JPEO] to develop a medium-risk program going forward,” Moslener said. “Once approved, the plan will ensure that the program can proceed in a manner that is achievable and provides this revolutionary communications system to the warfighter as quickly as possible.
“The Boeing team will be able to focus on the highest-priority capabilities needed by its users,” he continued. “The go-forward plan developed by the JPEO enables an executable approach to completing the system design and development phase of the program, including requirements, program priorities, achievable schedules and appropriate funding.
“The JTRS Cluster 1 program will proceed in accordance with the government’s go-forward plan, which is in the evaluation and approval cycle. In the meantime, the program is operating to governmentprioritized and -approved tasks in support of the JPEO, to reduce program risk and ensure timely delivery to the warfighter,” Moslener said. ♦
