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BAE SYSTEMS completes critical JTRS broadcast demonstration

21 Jun 2002

BAE Systems has received an $82.3 million contract from the U.S. Navy to provide engineering, technical and logistics support services for the Naval Air Warfare Center's Surface Communications and Information Systems Division, Systems Modernization Branch, St. Inigoes, Maryland.

BAE Systems brought the U.S. Army one step closer to its goal of seamless communication, with a first-ever live demonstration of a Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS) network. The demonstration was presented to members of the JTRS project team from PM-TRCS and the JTRS Joint Program Office (JPO) on June 13, 2002.

This represents the first successful networking using a CSMA waveform in a JTRS Software Communication Architecture environment. The acronym CSMA (Carrier Sense Multiple Access) describes how a networking protocol regulates communication among nodes. Within BAE Systems' System Integration Laboratory, five networked engineering development models demonstrated:

* Frequency Hopping (a form of wireless communications in which the frequency of the transmitted signal is deliberately varied.)
* Link Adaptation (varying transmit power levels, forward error correction rate, and message transmission burst rate automatically as conditions change, )
* Network self-healing (the ability of nodes or users to join or drop from the network without affecting the integrity of the network)

JTRS is a key part of fulfilling the Army's goal for information superiority. JTRS will provide the capability to transmit, receive, bridge and gateway between similar and diverse communications waveforms and networks.

The JTRS Step 2C project takes the theoretical and engineering lab developed software and incorporates it into fieldable hardware to be deployed in the Stryker Brigade Combat Teams (SBCT). BAE Systems has participated in the JTRS program from its inception.

"This demonstration brings together several technologies that we have been working on for some time: networked radios, wideband waveforms and software programmable products," said BAE Systems CNI president Jeff Markel. "We're very pleased to be able to help the JTRS JPO validate this capability, and to help the Army move forward in its transformation process."

JTRS Step 2C, being deployed to the U.S. Army's Stryker Brigade Combat Teams, provides packet-switched datagram service, which provides reliable, simultaneous, multichannel voice, data, imagery, and video transmission in the battlefield. Wireless Local Area Network (LAN) service for both line-of-sight and beyond-line-of-sight is possible. The system's adaptive routing makes network survivability possible, even in the most challenging environments.
Notes to Editors:

JTRS is a critical program in the Army's effort to revolutionise the way it communicates.

The mission statement for JTRS reads, in part:

"The single-function hardware design of legacy communications systems cannot take advantage of rapid changes in commercial technology and so cannot provide the functionality and flexibility necessary to achieve and maintain information superiority or to support the rapid mobility require by today's armed forces.

"Therefore, a software programmable and hardware configurable digital radio system is required to provide increased interoperability, flexibility, and adaptability to support the varied missions requirement of the warfighters. The JTR System lays the foundation for achieving network connectivity across the radio frequency spectrum and provides the means for digital information exchanges both vertically and horizontal, between joint warfighting elements, which enables connectivity to civil and national authorities."