JTRS JPEO Update: From "On the Rocks" To "On the Air"

Army, May 2008 by Gourley, Scott R

The JTRS Handheld, Manpack, Small Form Fit (HMS) was offered as another example of a second JTRS program that had also been re-baselined with its prime contractor, a team led by General Dynamics. (Other team members include BAE Systems, Rockwell Collins and Thales Communications.)

"We've delivered EDMs for several form factors," Bauman said. "The primary emphasis here is on building a small module about the size of a hockey puck, which contains the fundamental core radio of HMS. Then we reuse that core radio across all the different form factors of HMS, which range from the largest (a Manpack) to the smallest, a hockey puck-sized device that goes on intelligent munitions, sensor fields, mine fields and so on."

Additional advances were spotlighted for the Multifunctional Information Distribution System (MIDS)-JTRS (MIDS-J), which will replace the current MIDS-LVT (Low Volume Terminal) with greatly expanded communications capabilities, as well as the Airborne and Maritime/Fixed Station (AMF) program, which should see award of its system design and development (SDD) phase contract this spring.

Finally, Bauman offered the example of the Network Enterprise Domain (NED), which encompasses the software used across the JTRS enterprise.

"We delivered [version] 2.5 of WNW. We're already at the threshold throughput on that waveform. It increased the number of ad hoc nodes: We demonstrated this mobile ad hoc networking, where nodes come into and out of the WNW network without preplanning. And we've increased the number of nodes in version 2.5. We're scheduled to deliver 3.0 at the beginning of March. And version 4.0, which is the final version to be fielded, follows that," he said.

"We're also 'productionizing' two other networking waveforms. One of them, TINT [Tactical Targeting Network Technology], is for airborne networking [in MIDS-J]. TTNT allows the rapid join times and low latency required by high-speed aircraft, which could be approaching each other at very high speeds and moving in and out of the network very rapidly. The final one we are productionizing is SRW, the Soldier Radio Waveform. And that's a smaller-scale networking waveform for stub networking down to the soldier or the sensor level, primarily in HMS. It will, however, be resident in GMR, to allow dismounted soldiers, as well as sensor fields and munitions, to gateway into the tactical backbone network provided by WNW in GMR. SRW and TTNT, by the way, are DARPA [Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency]-developed waveforms. So we're taking waveforms that have been developed and demonstrated, and we're productionizing them and putting information assurance features into them, so that they can be combined with a radio and certified by NSA for use.

"My bottom line is, first of all, JTRS is crucial to the Department of Defense," Bauman concluded. "Congress recognizes it, and our leadership recognizes it. We didn't get 'marked' a single dollar, by the way, this year, by Congress. Second, we're delivering capability today, and we're on a path to deliver even better capability in the not-too-distant future. And third, we've made some fundamental changes to the business model that DoD uses in this space. We think that's going to be beneficial in the long term to the Department of Defense."