Radio Acquisition Evolution
Written by Adam Baddeley
MIT 2011 Volume: 15 Issue: 11 (December)
The Department of Defense and its industry partners are pursuing innovative technology and acquisition approaches to field communications in the wake of the decision to cancel the Ground Mobile Radio (GMR) portion of the Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS).
With the goals of cutting costs and delivering capability faster, the JTRS Joint Program Executive Office (JPEO) in November launched the Mid-Tier Networking Vehicle Radio (MNVR) initiative to replace the cancelled program. A nondevelopmental item program, the MNVR is aimed at pursuing a low cost and reduced size, weight and power acquisition for fielding in fiscal 2014.
Army Brigadier General Mike Williamson, who heads the JPEO JTRS, is clear on the challenges facing his organization. “There are some realities, let’s not dance around that. As we look out over the horizon, there are going to be dollar issues associated with everything we do. I have a responsibility to make this cheaper and smarter for not only the Army, but also the American taxpayer. What we are really looking for is how to make sure that the requirements, definition and delivery schedule associated with those requirements are better synchronized.”
Williamson contrasted the risks and costs associated with developing a radio to last 20 years with the new agile approach now being pursued under JTRS.
“We know that there is level of capability that we could deliver to soldiers now,” Williamson said in a recent interview. “It is available, proven and trusted. What we are trying to do is to leverage both the investment that industry has made and the maturity in programs of record and put those two things together. Then we go back to the user and requirement community and ask if I set the bar at 80 percent and deliver that today at a cheaper price would they be willing to take it. We are already taking things into the fight today that don’t have 100 percent of the requirement.”
Williamson gave an example of how this approach might be applied to a future procurement: “We have a requirements document that says a radio has to operate at a specific temperature. Now what you are going to see in a requirements document are ranges. Instead of saying it has to operate above this temperature now what you are seeing is that it will have to operate in a range. It gives vendors the opportunity to look at best value.
“Now vendors can say that they are on the low end of this temperature range but they can point to all the other features they can now offer because they made that change. As a service we get to say we like the total package and we are going to accept that it is on this low end of the range whereas before, a lot of people would have been thrown out the door,” he continued.
Certain elements of the JTRS enterprise will be preserved. Irrespective of the outcome of particular programs, for example, the Wideband Networking Waveform (WNW) will remain as the bedrock of the future network.
“WNW has demonstrated the broad pipe capability to tie us together at the formation level and to reach outside of it. As I look out to the 2017-19 timeframe, we going to be a WNW-based force, and we are really going to leverage this waveform.”
But that is not to say the WNW is forever, he added. “What we don’t want to do is get stagnated in capability. I think you will see a lot of exploration from industry. I want to know what is going on in environments like 802.11 and 802.16. I also want a waveform that allows me to manage the availability of spectrum. We have to decide how much we invest in that waveform and how we invest in the other great ideas that are coming in. WNW gives our forces more capability but we are not going to close the door on opportunities out there in the future.”
Williamson continued: “I view this as the opportunity to have industry use their investment and innovation to come back to DoD and say, I know you have programs of record that you have made significant investment in. Here are some opportunities where we now can come in and show you smarter, faster, cheaper and better. We want to create a vehicle for them.”
The new strategy does not represent a failure of programs of record, he emphasized, but rather an evolution of how they do business. “We were always going to go to competition with GMR. At some point after full rate production we were going to come back and offer that out to everyone to build this faster, smarter and cheaper. This is all part of that evolution.”
Procurement Process
The first step for the MNVR effort came in early November, with the release of a draft request for proposals (RFP).
Colonel Gregory Fields, program manager for GMR, outlined the process. “What we expect to get from industry is what they intend to bid, and for industry to gain full understanding of its needs, early in its process to ensure that the government has articulated an achievable requirement and to obtain additional recommendations from vendors and industry that could yield cost savings and reduce schedule risk.”
A formal RFP is scheduled to be issued in February, with proposals due the following month. After testing with a heavy focus on the radios’ ability to port WNW and SRW in July and August, a down-select will take place to identify those solutions that will go forward for testing in the NIE 13.1 event, which is the PEO’s target for final assessment.
Based on that performance, a recommendation will be made by January 2013 to award a two-year contract, initially to meet the schedule for Capability Set 14 for the Army’s BCTs, targeting the first quarter of fiscal 2014 to get radios in the hands of soldiers. Fields noted that initially it will just be Army personnel that receive the radios, as the Marines have adopted a waiting approach.
Initial focus of the first fielding will be on producing enough radios for eight to 10 BCTs, with roughly 80 to 100 radios per BCT depending on its role. In terms of requirements, Fields said that while weight is important, the key elements in the SW&P equation were power draw and size. In waveform terms, WNW and SRW were mandated, but vendors are free to offer additional waveforms.
Fields noted that the Boeing-led GMR will not shut down until next March, in order to ensure that as much as possible is gained from the remaining funding. Type 1 testing for use of the radio with the WNW will shortly be completed, with initial authority to operate by early 2012. That will be the first time that has been done, Fields said, adding that it will be very beneficial after it is placed in the PEO’s Information Repository.
MNVR and Industry
A wide range of companies are pursuing the MNVR. Bill Beamish, AN/PRC-117G product line director for Harris Corp., outlined the company’s approach to MNVR. “The system concept as we understand it is very well matched to the AN/PRC-117G system that we are shipping today. We believe we have a strong and capable product offering that has the capabilities listed in the draft RFP. The radio is the first production radio to have SRW, and we have SINCGARS and a whole host of objective waveforms including UHF Tacsat waveforms like IW and DAMA, as well as HaveQuick and VULOS. We have a plan and approach that will allow us to be well within the timeframe for deliveries.”
The PRC-117G, using the company’s ANW2 waveform, already has been selected as a major bearer for the Army’s Capability Set 13, which has a requirement for eight BCT equipment sets. There are currently over 16,000 of the radios in service, with the latest announced order being a $66.3 million award from the Army.
Rockwell Collins comes to MNVR with a detailed understanding from its involvement in the GMR program with Boeing. “We are evaluating our capabilities and core competencies from our program of record position on GMR,” explained Robert P. Haag, vice president and general manager of communications products, government systems, for Rockwell Collins. “We are trying to see if there is way to leverage that relationship and our existing presence in the program to form a solution there. Rockwell Collins, like most of the industry players, is trying to really get an assessment of the requirements, what would be good enough versus absolutely required.”
At the AUSA show in October, the company had on display a two-channel version of the GMR. It was first shown to the government in December 2009 as a potential means of achieving a smaller, less expensive capability.
“It basically takes some of the strengths that are developed by subsystems and core components from the GMR program and shrinks them to create a two channel radio with a BAE Systems-Boeing team. That creates a smaller version of the GMR, which has the WNW waveform running and already has an operating environment and production hardware. That is one example of what we can do. We are trying to keep our options open.”
Raytheon plans to offer the latest, two-channel version of its Mobile Ad-Hoc Interoperable Network Gateway (MAINGATE) radio, known as MGR-400 for the MNVR requirements. Lucas J. Bragg, senior manager on the MAINGATE program for Raytheon, outlined the system’s operation. “MAINGATE has two components—the Wideband MANET Radio system and the Gateway. As a combination unit, this unit allows you to tie in virtually any radio or subnet into a common network. This has been done with over 30 radio systems to date. There is virtually no U.S. radio that has not been able to be integrated into MAINGATE and we have worked with Norwegian Kongsberg and German Tetrapol radios in Afghanistan.
“MAINGATE will convert everything, whether it is voice or data, to an IP stream, and then we broadcast it. This will set up an essentially local Internet operation with two channels, with 10 Mbs per channel. We can integrate several radios into the same unit on the same vehicles, and then we will set up a network. This is autonomous, so if it sees a neighbor it brings them in and provides range extension throughout the whole neighborhood,” Bragg said.
The system also uses cost-based routing, so that when MAINGATE is unable to complete a terrestrial link it will autonomously connect to an available SATCOM link. This enables MAINGATE to provide reachback throughout the combat area, from upper echelon command centers down to the dismount soldier at the edge of the battle area. For increased range, MAINGATE is often integrated into the aerial tier, such as aerostats, to enable greater range.
The first generation, two-channel MAINGATE was used at the Army’s recently completed Network Integration Evaluation (NIE) 12.1. It operated with a soldier radio from another Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency effort, the Cobham-led Wireless Network after Next (WNaN) program.
MAINGATE has been also deployed for over two years in theater with over 100 units, with a proprietary customer providing the dismounted soldier with real-time video.
Bragg described the GMR as from four to six times more expensive than MAINGATE with less connectivity than the Raytheon radio. Commenting on the Next Generation MANET Waveform that MAINGATE uses, Bragg said, “There is no case when the MG waveform is not better. We get higher efficiency, more bits per hertz, better distance. MAINGATE has more nodes that can be connected, so we are trying to convince them to give us a return and spec the product. We would rather use a more efficient waveform than WNW.”
Other companies pursuing MNVS include General Dynamics and a team of ITT and Northrop Grumman.
Manpack Production
Other programs within the JTRS family, meanwhile, are continuing apace. The Handheld, Manpack, Small Form Fit (HMS) program successfully made its way through Milestone C in May and prime contractor General Dynamics C4 Systems has a low rate initial production contract for 6,250 PRC-154 Rifleman Radios and 100 PRC-155 two-channel manpacks.
After that decision, the manpack radio participated in NIE 11.2 last spring, which represented the limited user test for that radio and was completed in mid-July, paving the way for entry into its current governmental development testing (GDT) phase. The Rifleman Radio’s GDT was concluded shortly before AUSA, with NIE 12.1 being used for the PRC-154’s initial operational test and evaluation, which will be the final field test exercise before a full rate production milestone decision.
Bill Rau, director, communications programs for General Dynamics C4 Systems, explained that demand for Small Form Fit (SFF) radios were closely tied to the Future Combat Systems program. With that program’s cancellation, demand for the SFF A and B has naturally been reduced, but there is still active interest, and it is an integral part of programs like the small unmanned ground vehicle. Rau noted that PEO Aviation was installing SFF-Bs in Shadow UAVs in order for it to operate as an additional relay payload for bridging and connecting soldiers.
General Dynamics has also been active in supporting WNW via the waveform’s Software in Service Support program, awarded in September to the company and let by JTRS Network Enterprise Domain, the part of the JPEO responsible for creating a repository of waveforms.
“General Dynamics C4 Systems and our team are providing subject matter expertise to the government for maintenance of the core code, bug fixes as well as enhancements. There are a number of enhancements that the government is going to want, such as the HAIPE crypto,” Rau said.
In support of the JTRS enterprise but outside of HMS is the company’s independent research and development-funded Sidewinder vehicle mount for the Rifleman Radio, which was launched in October.
“It allows you to take a Rifleman Radio and quickly plug it into a vehicle mount that allows that radio to connect into the voice intercom system and to plug into any platform computer, central display, and external antennas and vehicles power. Not every vehicle has to have the full capability of a manpack in it; there are certain vehicles like an ambulance or a logistic truck that could be connected into the network with Sidewinder,” Rau said.
Maritime Changes
Work on the Lockheed Martin-led Airborne Maritime Fixed (AMF) JTRS program is well advanced, with engineering development models (EDM) now fielded to the C-130J and Apache AH-64D integration labs. The latter platform, Apache AH-64D, equipped with a pre-EDM Small Airborne set, has supported WNW capabilities and VMF messaging, with a functional check flight in January 2011 as well as participation in NIE 12.1 with SR capabilities. In January 2012, the team will perform a functional flight test of pre-EDMs onboard a U2 Dragon Lady, testing the WNW, with the U2 replicating a high altitude UAV.
Lockheed Martin has also put forward plans to include AMF in the Army’s NIE 12.2 event in March 2012, in which WNW and SRW will be used to connect Army aviation and Air Force assets to the ground at altitudes of up to 50,000 feet. Nonetheless, changes in this JTRS program are also underway. In August, the team received contractual direction to pause work on the AN/URC-147 Maritime Fixed (MF) set and work a new structured program focused on affordability using the program’s other radio, the AN/ZRC-2 Small Airborne (SA) set.
“Under the restructuring plan, work on the MF will be paused indefinitely for affordability reasons,” said Jim Quinn, vice president of C4ISR systems at Lockheed Martin’s IS&GSDefense. “We will go forward with the government and the determination that we will collectively have to make is whether we can achieve the mission of the MF form factor by using the Small Airborne form factor to accomplish what has to be achieved by submarines, ships and fixed stations. The vast majority of the guts of the radio are common to both.”
Another change has been the transition from cost plus to a cost cap for completion of AMF’s system development and demonstration phase, and then transition from that into low rate initial production. This leaves what Quinn described as “several hundred million dollars” to complete the work.
Quinn concluded, “We are still in discussions with the JPEO. It has not been accepted. We are still working the details. We have put forward a plan for the JPEO to consider and we are working with them to reach a decision.” ♦
