Good News for JTRS
Written by MICKEY MCCARTER
PROGRAM RESTRUCTURING, TECHNOLOGY ADVANCES SPUR PROGRESS ON NETWORKCENTRIC COMMUNICATIONS SYSTEM.
Bolstered by a revised program strategy, management reorganization and technological advancements, the Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS) appears to be overcoming some significant bumps in the road and is picking up speed in its drive to use softwaredefined radio technology for network-centric operations.
Several companies involved in various aspects of the multi-faceted program, meanwhile, are reporting progress in development of a wide range of hardware and software designed to serve as precursors to or key elements in the system in the field.
As part of its ongoing review of JTRS, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) in September found that the recent reorganization of the program and a new governance structure approved by the Department of Defense have helped to reduce its risk and boost its chances of success. The congressional watchdogs have been keeping a close eye on JTRS since reports of delays and financial issues had raised questions about its ability to enable warfighters to access maps and other visual data, communicate via voice and video, and get information from battlefield sensors.
“While still meeting key requirements, including those related to DoD’s networkcentric transformation effort, the revised approach is expected to develop and field capabilities in increments rather than attempting to develop and field the capabilities all at once. Costly and non-transformational requirements will be deferred to later increments. Deferring these requirements will allow more time to mature critical technologies, integrate components, and test the radio system before committing to production,” the GAO stated in the report, entitled “Restructured JTRS Program Reduces Risk, but Significant Challenges Remain.”
The senior executive at the JTRS Joint Program Executive Office (JPEO) is Dennis Bauman, who also previously served as Navy program executive officer for C4I and Space. But Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command (SPAWAR) announced in August that Bauman would focus exclusively on JTRS, effective immediately, “to ensure that JTRS meets aggressive schedule and capability goals.”
Previously, JTRS JPEO had announced that it had reorganized the JTRS program from the original five separate clusters of radios into centrally managed program management offices. In so doing, the JTRS JPEO narrowed its target ambitions for JTRS, reducing the requirements for the radios from 32 waveforms to 11. Those waveforms each represent a signal that combines the frequency, modulation type, message format, and/or transmission system.
“A JTRS waveform is implemented as a reusable, portable, executable software application that is independent of the JTRS operating system, middleware and hardware,” GAO wrote.
GAO also concluded that the reduction in the number of waveforms made achieving the program’s goals by 2011, when lowrate production of JTRS radios would begin, much more possible, although not exactly easy. Past delays and cost increases since the program was first conceived in 1997 have lead its total price tag to grow to about $37 billion. That amount does not include more than $11 billion spent since 1998 on the purchase of other tactical radios to support military communications while JTRS radios remain under development, GAO added.
GAO further found that the JTRS JPEO must finalize the restructuring of the program and solicit independent review of the program costs. Meanwhile, the JPEO must obtain more buy-in from the military departments and resolve technical challenges.
The technical challenges facing the program are substantial, the report noted. Not only must interim solutions for enabling network interoperability among different JTRS variants be developed, but also longterm challenges of integrating hardware into diverse platforms while meeting size, weight and power restrictions must be met. In addition, giving a large number of users access to a networked environment raises major information assurance issues.
Overall, however, the GAO report struck a positive note for the program and its hopes of achieving that vision, and, perhaps more importantly, industry has been paying considerable attention to JTRS specifications over the past year.
The JTRS JPEO has been defining those specifications in terms of JTRS product lines, which include ground mobile radios for vehicles (formerly Cluster 1); handheld/manpack/ small form fit radios (HMS, formerly Cluster 5); handheld JTRS Enhanced Multi- band Intra-team Radio (MBITR) (formerly Cluster 2); airborne, maritime and fixed site (AMF) radios (formerly Clusters 3 and 4); Multifunctional Information Distribution System (MIDS); network enterprise services; and joint waveforms.
LEGACY CONVERSION
Thales Communications was selected by U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) several years ago to convert legacy AN/PRC-148 MBITR radios to JTRS Cluster 2 sets compliant with the program’s software communications architecture (SCA). Since then, Thales has evolved the MBITR radio into the JTRS Enhanced MBITR (JEM) radio, according to Felix Boccadoro, Thales director of business development and legislative affairs.
“It is based on a proven platform, and it incrementally moves the PRC-148 product to be compliant with JTRS software communications architecture, provides additional capabilities above the MBITR, and then provides a platform that is able to put additional capabilities in the future after the product is actually fielded, which is something that Thales has proven our ability to do,” Boccadoro stated.
JEM radios have the ability to accept additional waveforms after the hardware has been fielded and JTRS JPEO issues new waveforms, he added, which old MBITR systems could not. Thales announced this summer that the JEM radio had successfully completed Joint Interoperability Test Command testing, and thus was suitable for use by USSOCOM.
“This is the first JTRS to actually go through an early operational assessment with actual troops, the first to get the SCA certification with waiver, and now the first to actually complete a formal operational test and evaluation with troops under a formal program,” Boccadoro declared.
That is not to say that all of the work is done. JTRS requirements are incrementally growing. They are governed by a JTRS operational requirements document that is in the process of becoming a capabilities description document, which defines for all of the different domains all of the waveforms that are necessary to support the formal program of record, Boccadoro commented.
“Right now, under the JTRS program, all of those requirements for what are new waveforms will be in accordance with what is put in and vetted through the Joint Staff to go into the capabilities description document,” he elaborated. “That document keeps evolving, depending on what the different services believe they need in all of the different domains and the connectivity that they envision. That, by default, drives the waveforms.”
The JEM radio, formerly the Cluster 2 program, has the capability to grow through additional waveforms. However, the current program really must strive to meet a list of enhancements sought by USSOCOM, which serves as the formal acquisition executive for JEM, Boccadoro explained.
Thales continues to ship legacy MBITR radios, but it will field JEM radios soon, he added.
“We will be fielding JEM radios. They have been out in the field and tested already to ensure that they meet stringent requirements in terms of questions like, ‘Is the heat okay?’ ‘Is the battery life sufficient?’ and ‘Does it meet operator needs?’” Boccadoro said. “We have a formal stamp of approval from USSOCOM that it does so. We have a production release, and we will be shipping our radios in the near future.”
Physically, JEM radios are exactly the same in appearance as MBITR radios, Boccadoro noted, and Thales will upgrade existing MBITR radios to JEM radios for a reasonable fee.
THIRD FALCON
Harris Corp.’s Falcon II family of radios, which includes its AN/PRC-150(C) radio, is already heavily used by the Army and Marine Corps. But the Army has also placed initial orders for its Falcon III radio, the company’s first JTRS radio.
That PRC-152 radio represents a significant upgrade in capability, explained Kevin Kane, director of business development in the Harris RF Communications Division, even if final requirements for JTRS have not yet been defined.
“In our view, the Army is fielding a JTRS-type radio with the PRC-152. We see this as a significant accomplishment for the program. This is the first time they are really fielding something and almost all of these radios are going directly to Iraq. They are going immediately into an operational theater,” Kane said. “Not only do they have something they can go and apply today, which gives them significant operational capability, but they also have a radio they can build on in the future.”
The Army Communications and Electronics Command this summer awarded Harris a $169 million contract for Falcon III dual Vehicular Adapter Amplifier Systems, designated as the AN/VRC-110. These systems include the AN/PRC-152(C) handheld, which slides into the vehicular base to form the complete system.
Harris serves as a subcontractor to Boeing on the program originally designated as Cluster 1 for vehicular radios. Its Falcon III AN/PRC-152 is designed to standards defined by the former Cluster 5 handhelds, however. Kane pointed to two elements that really signify that the radio is a JTRS radio.
“We have achieved SCA certification, the software communications architecture underlying JTRS. We have achieved certification for the PRC-152 as well as NSA certification for our type-1 COMSEC [communications security],” Kane said. “This is the first radio that is going into the Army’s inventory that has SCA certification and reprogrammable COMSEC. Those are two key elements of a JTRS radio.”
The Harris Sierra II programmable encryption module enables the radio to meet COMSEC requirements set by the National Security Agency, which must certify encryption on JTRS radio systems. And, as with other JTRS radios, Falcon III radios have been certified compliant with the JTRS SCA.
“Once you pay the price of admission, so to speak, and build this digital radio, it is very easily upgradeable. You are running this standard operating system, this SCA, which is the Windows for radios if you will. You can grow that platform,” Kane remarked.
While Harris has no plans to upgrade its Falcon II series to JTRS standards, the Falcon II radios still will remain current and competitive for several more years at least, Kane reported.
“Falcon II is a family of digital software-defined radios. They are not JTRS. They are radios that are in general use by the military today that we produced under our commercial model,” Kane observed. “In some of the markets that we serve, especially internationally, where JTRS is not a requirement, some of the things in the Falcon II family are intensely competitive. Falcon III, on the other hand, will have some capabilities that are not necessarily interesting to our international customers.”
BEYOND TACTICAL RADIO
The most immediate goals of the JTRS program have centered upon fielding improvements in tactical radios for soldiers and vehicles. As such, most of the former cluster groupings operating in frequencies of 2 GHz and below to achieve specific tactical communications, noted Barry Press, chief engineer at L-3 Communications, Communications Systems West.
But L-3 CS West has been taking the concepts from the JTRS JPEO and applying them to applications with even faster data rates, Press said.
“The JPEO has a whole set of standards that you need to comply with for them to certify your implementations as compliant with the requirements,” Press remarked. “This includes things like the portability of your waveform software. They do an extensive review of your implementation. They go in and look at the code, and we have been working with them for a long time now at that level.”
CS West has supplied the common data link, which has run over JTRS systems but also on the Army’s Multi Role-Tactical Common Data Link (MRT CDL) system, thereby taking the JTRS approach and adapting it for much higher frequencies. The company has experienced a great deal of success with its program and has been running hardware in the lab that proves its systems meet the standards.
“In terms of the underlying technologies and in terms of providing communications equipment that meets the JTRS goals, we are doing it,” Press emphasized. “We are doing it to a pretty stringent standard. For example, on the hardware that we are building for the MRT CDL program, we will not only run the full suite of standard CDL waveforms, but in fact we will run the new Networked CDL waveforms and we will run satcom waveforms. We will in fact be delivering to the Army hardware that absolutely realizes the goal the government set out to reach with the entire software programmable radio approach. We are making it happen, and we are making it happen at very high rates.”
As such, Press stressed, CS West has shown that the benefits of JTRS and its SCA are not limited to low-rate, low-frequency implementations of radios. The common data link runs X-band and Ku-band radio frequencies, placing it in the 8 to 15 GHz range—well above the 2 GHz range of most tactical radio equipment.
The networked common data link (NCDL) provides implementations that may permit warfighters to place a hub on an airplane. The hub could distribute data to units on the ground as well as provide them with the ability to communicate with each other through the hub. L-3 Communications’ Multi-Platform (MP) CDL is the first terminal to implement the NCDL waveform, Press added.
“One of the things that we have been able to show with this is the value of an incremental proving out of the capability. NCDL proves the waveform design is good, proves that it meets operational utility, and then we are migrating that technology onto this JTRS SCA-compliant high-rate platform that we are delivering with MRT CDL,” Press said. “As it was originally conceived, there were data rate limitations to how fast of a radio that you could put on SCA.”
HMS PROGRAM
Meanwhile, the HMS program has undergone changes in the past 12 months based on the JTRS enterprise restructuring, and has maintained its schedule. The program has progressed through requirements analysis, into design and now into build and integration. Under a recent contractual milestone, demonstrations were performed for the government with HMS pre-engineering development models (pre-EDMs ) running SLICE 1.04p (an early version of the Soldier Radio Waveform), SINCGARS, HAVEQUICK and UHF LOS waveforms.
The demonstrations involved multiple HMS form factors, including a Two-Channel Manpack Technology Demonstrator (Manpack TD) and Small Form Fit A (SFF-A), which will be used in future force unattended ground sensor and intelligent munition system platforms. These early HMS radios, scheduled for delivery this fall, will support both development and integration of future force systems and provide networking and communications for the Future Force Warrior technology demonstration initiative.
The demonstrated HMS Manpack TD capability that provides two-channel functionality and supports both new networking and legacy waveforms in a JTRS SCA radio represents a first for industry, according to developers. Additional functionality beyond legacy radio capabilities includes features like embedded GPS SAASM.
To achieve this increased two-channel level of performance in the size of one-channel legacy radios required significant innovation. New architectures, implementation approaches and component technologies from commercial industries were needed to move beyond legacy radio capability and achieve both the size and weight goals, as well as to increase the security to levels required to run the new networking waveforms. The same SLICE 1.04p networking functionality demonstrated in the SFF-A pre-EDM radio further proves the advancements made under the HMS program. The SFF-A pre-EDM currently weights less than 6 ounces.
General Dynamics C4 Systems leads the JTRS HMS industry team, which comprises BAE Systems, Rockwell Collins and Thales Communications. ♦
