Soldier Modernization
Written by Henry Canaday
GCT 2011 Volume: 2 Issue: 6 (November/December)
Battlefield communications are undergoing a revolution. For example, the Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS) will connect tactical warfighters, providing a cybersecure, wireless communication network for forces on ground, air and sea. It integrates high-bandwidth information, including sensor data, with radios that act like cell towers and routers and need no fixed infrastructure.
Today, soldiers rely on point-to-point communications, requiring labor-intensive relays, hindering operations in urban environments and preventing continuous position reporting. JTRS automates relay of critical information up to three hops, reducing transmission time and verbal errors.
AR Modular RF offers superior comms gear, Chris Heavens, vice president/general manager, explained, such as “our AR-50 50W multiband amplifier system that is about half the size of its predecessor, and units with more efficiency than in the past like the latest KMW1031 20W amplifier that uses half the power of the previous model.” The less power that electronic warrior gear uses, the less fuel has to be transported into theater, meaning fewer chances for the enemy to attack convoys.
Military communications are undergoing changes, with a move away from the old concept of a hub and spoke kind of communications between a few key individuals and locations, shifting to a world where everybody needs to be able to “reach out and touch someone” on the other side of the planet in real time, Heavens said. That means networking and big internet protocol pipes in the sky are an essential part of everybody’s world, he continued.
For warriors, comms are critical, providing lifesaving intel about enemy positions, movements and intentions. So AR Modular provides solutions to fill that requirement, systems that are multi-facetted yet easy to use, he observed. “AR Modular RF’s product line spans much of the VHF, UHF and SHF communications bands (30 to 2000 MHz), with powers from 20W up to 200W in our standard family of communications amplifiers, he said. “But customer-specific units of many hundreds of watts have been built for those who need a little more reach than normal,” he added. And all systems must be built for the harsh handling typical in theater. “Ruggedness has been key to our success, and our ultra-low return rates are proof of our effective designs,” Heavens emphasized. “The 20W man-portable unit, our KMW1031, is fully submersible to 60-plus feet, and other systems like our vehicle units, the bigger 50W and 75W units—the AR-50 and AR-75—have been tested to meet the demanding requirements of helicopters, submarines, SOF Zodiacs and large warships to name but a few.” Aside from land, sea and air, AR Modular offers systems linked to space, he noted. “Satellite access (satcom) is key to modern communications, and our units offer switchable low-noise receiver amplifiers with extra co-site filtering. By the end of the year all of our products will offer these kinds of features,” he concluded.
JTRS compliant radio systems like the new PRC-117G are now a reality and offer today’s warrior the very latest networking modulations like ANW2 and SRW, so AR’s products such as the 50 watt AR-50 are being constantly improved, field tested and then certified for interoperability with these exciting new radio systems, Heavens emphasized.
Beyond hardware, Heavens stressed that AR Modular brings 40 years of experience and the expertise of veteran employees to bear on requirements, which can translate into swift research and development of new systems thanks to having already designed similar assets. Challenges include ensuring interoperability and maximizing efficiency in using the available spectrum. Nevertheless, development of JTRS is already over 80 percent complete, with many capabilities demonstrated at the Army’s Network Integration Exercises (NIE). Handheld, manpack and small form fit (HMS) radios have reached limited production for the Rifleman radio and two-channel manpack. JTRS prime vendors include Boeing, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin, ViaSat, Rockwell Collins, Harris, Thales, ITT, BAE Systems, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, BBN and Motorola.
The AN/PRC-154 Rifleman radio is part of JTRS HMS. “Rifleman radios enable soldiers to have secure, mobile voice, video and data communications capabilities similar to those available through commercial cellular networks,” underscored Bill Rau, director of radio programs for General Dynamics C4 Systems. All in a radio that weighs less than two pounds.
Defense recently ordered 6,250 Rifleman radios. During NIE the radio will complete initial operational test and operational evaluation, “the final government test before full-rate production and deployment to forces worldwide,” Rau said.
But there is a lot more to this communications revolution than JTRS, and still more to come.
Harris RF Communications developed the handheld PRC-152 and the manpack Falcon III AN/PRC-117G, both of which also fit in vehicles, explained Dennis Moran, vice president of government business development. About 160,000 PRC-152s have been deployed and 10,000 PRC-117Gs delivered, with 3,000 in Afghanistan. The 117G provides wideband to connect video and data over the network. “These are no theory; they are combat-proven,” Moran stressed. At NIE, Harris’s new wideband PRC-152A will be evaluated. New applications will be developed, including fire support, logistics and intelligence.
Vice President Nick Ortyl described L-3 Integrated Electronics Corporation’s Videoscout as technology to manage, receive, store and distribute full motion video, metadata, signals and human intelligence across theater, in real time, for action as well as analysis.
Improvements have allowed Videoscout to deploy even further forward, from laptops to tablets and Droids. Soldiers can use it to call in air strikes or view full motion video from airborne assets, pushing or pulling data as needed.
Videoscout will evolve further, supporting new data types and sources and interoperating with tactical intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) equipment. It may eventually allow ground soldiers to control air-asset cameras.
L-3 also developed the remotely operated video enhanced receiver (ROVER) III in 2004 to give ground soldiers laptop displays of unmanned aerial system (UAS) results. George Hill, vice president of business development for the communications systems group of L-3, said the company produced over 10,000 ROVER IIIs, IVs and Vs. ROVER V weighs six pounds and receives and transmits on five bands. Future models will be smaller and more flexible.
Future UAS receivers may be either federated or integrated. Federated means different devices with different functionalities connected wirelessly. Integrated means functions packed in the same device.
L-3’s latest product, the Soldier ISR Receiver (SIR), receives on five bands, weighs three pounds and fits into infantry vest pockets. It can display results on eye monocles in the field or large-screen TVs at base. SIR is in the field now.
“Once he gets out of a vehicle, today’s soldier is lucky if he has push-to-talk radio with limited range,” said Mike Bradley, business development analyst for advanced development ventures at Lockheed Martin. “We take 18 year olds used to the latest technology, put them in uniform, and they use 30-year-old technologies like push-to-talk.”
Lockheed is working on the MONAX rapidly deployable cellular network for contingency operations. The company has developed applications for demonstrations and is working on more apps for command and control, ISR and logistics.
Under MONAX, Lockheed has deployed for Army evaluation a 4G cellular system with antennas mounted in vehicles, buildings or aerostats. Challenges include ensuring security and deciding what information can be transmitted. “How do you do it without towers every three to four miles?” noted Bradley. “If you set up a base station you must guard and operate it.” MONAX could be used for logistics and other purposes. “Every soldier can be a sensor, sending information back to command and getting situational awareness from others.” The Army must understand how to plug MONAX into existing systems and get data from legacy systems and servers. “We also want to make it sustainable as technology improves every two years. The Army does not want to take eight years to install a system in 45 brigades, by which time it is out of date,” Bradley said. “They want to upgrade 10 brigades every two years.”
Motorola Solutions exploits commercial business to develop products and hold unit costs down, according to Paul Mueller, vice president and general manager for federal markets.
“Our bread and butter for defense is land-mobile radio used by garrisons,” Mueller said. Motorola enhances commercial systems with information assurance hardware and software. “The theme is applying COTS [commercial off-the-shelf] and federalizing it to give the military 85 percent of the solution at a lower cost.”
Motorola’s individual integrated squad radio was developed for the Marines from a commercial radio with military features added at low cost. Mueller said JTRS targets costs at $1,800 per unit. “We are selling well below that.”
Motorola is looking at the next generation of radios needed by soldiers in 2014 or 2015. The Army is testing COTS technologies for these purposes. Motorola concentrates on two areas, very high-speed wireless broadband technology for point-to-point communication, and WiMAX (Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access) technology for point-to-multipoint communication.
Motorola is excited about the shift to smartphones and tablets. The company is investing in adapting commercial devices for the assured mobile environment the military needs. It is developing encryption and virtualization that goes on smart cards and can be inserted in Motorola or third-party devices in the field.
Northrop Grumman Information Systems works on extending command, control, communication and computing (C4) to the soldier edge, explained Dan Verwiel, director of Northrop Battle Management Systems. Work on the joint capabilities release for the Force Battle Command, Brigade-and-Below system has extended capabilities through satellite to a hundred thousand vehicles. The next step is getting them out to individual soldiers.
Challenges include making the extension cost-effective, keeping size and weight low, preserving security against intercept or capture, ensuring reliability and making it all easy to use. Any new system must exploit existing equipment, not add another piece of gear to be carried.
Verwiel believes the answer lies partly in adapting COTS devices like cell phones to military requirements and linking to Army radios. Northrop hopes its advanced meshnet technology will allow the Army to plug useful current capabilities into soldier devices. For example, warnings now given by Counter Rocket, Artillery and Mortar within seconds of mortar launch to forward bases could also be sent to soldiers on patrol in the target area.
Meshnet can also manage the massive amount of data likely to be transmitted when soldiers discover how much data is available on the tactical internet. Videos, biometric data, pictures and other data will put large burdens on the system.
Northrop prides itself on communication and software expertise. Buying and modifying commercial devices may make more sense than developing small volumes of ruggedized military devices for thousands of dollars apiece. “If a $250 device doesn’t work, you can just throw it away and get a new one,” Verwiel said. Northrop’s solution must still go through NIE. That probably puts deployment off another 12 to 18 months.
Northrop has also developed the Enhanced C4 ISR Operation Response Enterprise, explained John Lynch, director of business development for C4ISR Networked Systems in Northrop ISR Systems. This means that eCOR establishes a framework, architecture and standards so that ISR can be extended to soldiers and commanders rapidly. Users need only a single sign-on and then can query by space, time or contextual query, as in Google, to access all ISR data for which they are eligible. To place it in perspective, eCOR is the foundation for a number of products already in the field.
Maingate is the backbone of a Mobile Ad hoc Network (MANET) for radio, explained Scott Whatmough, vice president, integrated communication systems at Raytheon Network Centric. “It allows legacy radios and cell phones to talk to each other. They have not been able to do that before.” Maingate is distinguished by its bandwidth, 10 megabits per second, enough to handle 20 full motion video channels simultaneously.
Thirty Maingates are in Afghanistan. The system will be demonstrated in a 12-node test at NIE. Maingate goes beyond capabilities sought in JTRS, supporting 3G and ultimately 4G communication. Raytheon is also working on Nett Warrior, hands-free communications. And the company is involved in the Secure Mobile Anti-Jam Reliable Tactical Terminal program, an extremely high frequency system for communication between large units over satellites. Thales focuses on radio communication, noted Aaron Brosnan, director of business development for tactical systems. Thales worked on the Rifleman radio under JTRS HMS with prime General Dynamics. The first unit will be delivered in October. Rifleman radio allows soldiers to build MANET networks with each other in the field and communicate locations, pictures, text message and videos, all without communication towers.
An early use will be location. A small personal digital assistant can be attached to Rifleman to show soldiers and commanders where troops are. “Down the road, biometrics and pictures of the local population could be transmitted,” Brosnan said. Chat applications can be added, as can data on chemical and biological agents.
Thales and General Dynamics will each do half initial production. Ultimately the Army wants about 160,000 Riflemans, and the firms will compete for this volume. Marines are watching the program carefully.
3M Peltor has fielded about 200,000 COMTAC earmuff headsets worldwide. Tom Lavalle, business development manager for 3M Occupational Health and Environmental Safety, said the future will see an expansion of communications to virtually all soldiers and increasing emphasis on hearing protection.
Both earmuff and in-ear headsets have advantages, depending on conditions and mission. 3M has developed a hybrid in-ear and earmuff headset called the COMTAC IV that combines features of both versions. It is now in testing and evaluation.
Equipping more soldiers with communications should reduce prices. “If you give soldiers $200 smartphones it does not make sense to give them $700 headsets,” Lavalle noted.
TEA specializes in headsets for Special Operations Command, noted Steve Tocidlowski, vice president and director of business development. Its Invisio series offers a very small in-ear bone-conduction headset, giving soldiers a light and compact device. The next challenge is preserving situational awareness while enhancing protection of hearing. TEA has been working on a new version of Invisio to meet this challenge.
TEA also makes standard, over-the-ear headsets and push-to-talk switches. “The trend is to smaller form factor, size and weight,” Tocidlowski said. “There is a lot of interest outside special operations. The trend is to replace the bulky earmuffs. They want headsets smaller and lighter with more situational awareness. They want smaller pushto- talk switches but still with a tactile feel.”
Tocidlowski believes TEA can prove its worth outside special operations. Its headsets provide 29-decibel hearing protection, versus 19 decibels for traditional headsets. The TEA exec sees the military emphasizing cable and power management for all the gear soldiers must carry. “We would like to get involved in that,” he said.
Tactical Electronics has not forgotten another friendly on the tactical edge. Its K-9 mounted camera sits on the back of a dog and transmits video back to the handler. A built-in mini-DVR records audio and video directly to an SD card for post-operation review and archiving. ♦