MIT 2009 Volume: 13 Issue: 9 (October)
AMF Program Links Air, Maritime Domains
The Networked Capabilities Being Delivered
Are the Equivalent of Giving Warfighters the
Other Team's Playbook Before the Big Game.
Editor’s Note: This is another in a regular series of updates on the Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS), as provided by the program’s Joint Program Executive Office (JPEO).
One of five major programs within the JPEO JTRS, the AMF program consists of a two-channel small airborne (SA) joint tactical radio (JTR), and a four-channel maritime/fixed (M/F) JTR.
Increment I of AMF-SA will support UHF SATCOM, the Mobile User Objective System (MUOS), Wideband Networking Waveform, Soldier Radio Waveform (SRW), and Link-16. The Army’s Longbow Apache attack helicopter is the lead platform, and the radio will also go into other Army aviation assets and Air Force tankers and cargo transports such as the C-130, KC-135 and KC-10.
Increment 1 AMF-M/F will support the UHF SATCOM and MUOS waveforms, and be integrated into Navy ships like aircraft carriers and destroyers, as well as fixed station platforms, Air Force command and control (C2) centers, and Navy shore C2 installations.
The SRW 1.0C waveform was tested in a multi-node, surrogate radio field trial this past June, and was scheduled to start porting in October. It demonstrated a high degree of confidence in the capability and how it will change the battlefield for the warfighter. During the field test, there were 5 watt handheld radios that were connected to each other within a line of sight.
Then, another node was placed on the other side of the terrain, out of line of sight, that was a sufficient distance away than the range of the radio’s capability. A helicopter rose to 200 feet, and instantly there was communication. A larger network, which gave greater situational awareness, materialized in a simulated battlespace environment.
Within the next few months, AMF is on track to hold a critical design review. A software/hardware demonstration based on a mission scenario environment will follow in the March/April 2010 time frame.
date, the National Security Agency (NSA) has not identified any key issues with AMF architecture, and that’s due in large part to the partnership and close working relationships between the AMF program, NSA and the contractors delivering the waveforms.
In summary, AMF provides a vertical extension of the joint ground domain. The ground forces, enabled by the JTRS ground mobile radios (GMR), will establish a critical network for terrestrial operational forces. All too often, the ground domain and airborne domain are characterized as separate layers, each having its own network that requires a strategy to link the two. In reality, it is one network that is enabled by the GMR JTRS and AMF JTRS radios. Interoperability demands a singular view of a joint network that empowers the soldier, sailor, airman and Marine regardless of the service or combat platform.
For a long time, the emphasis of developing systems has been on achieving interoperability of those systems, perhaps giving the impression of cobbling together disparate independent systems into a joint enclave of interoperable tools, observed Colonel Raymond Jones, AMF program manager. A more appropriate word for today’s thinking, he suggested, might be interdependency. That reflects a more advanced interpretation that a broad community’s interests can intersect and support each other, anticipating that a military operation may grow to include different government agencies and coalitions. And that’s what AMF and JTRS deliver.
“I’m on task with delivering capability. I’m a warfighter. I wear a uniform. I tell my contractors this every day: I’m not building a doorstop. I’m building a capability that needs to get to the warfighter as quickly as possible,” Jones said. ♦
