A Pentagon program designed to replace 26 intelligence-broadcast
receivers with a single radio appears to have overcome serious setbacks
that had threatened to derail the project.
According to Army Lt. Col. Warren O. Greene, the development of
the Joint Tactical Terminal illustrates the perils of underestimating
technical challenges in a military program. But the project was
worthwhile, he said, because this technology is needed in the battlefield.
A case in point is that U.S. commanders running the war in Afghanistan
requested that JTT radios be installed in their headquarters.
Army commandos in Afghanistan also received six portable terminals.
“They were very pleased,” Greene said in a recent interview.
Greene is the program manager for JTT, a family of software-programmable
intelligence radios that receive broadcasts of tactical, theater
and global threat data. Despite a 20-month slip in the schedule,
he was relieved to see his program contribute to the war effort.
The broadcasts that JTT receives typically come from classified
operations centers—located in the rear area of the theater
of war or in the United States. The threat-reporting data is uploaded
on a satellite link, which is what JTT listens to. The terminals
can be installed in ground vehicles, aircraft, ships or fixed sites.
A stand-alone 37-pound version—designed for autonomous operation
in the field—is called JTT briefcase. Equipped with a built-in
laptop computer, the briefcase was the preferred system by Army
special operations forces in Afghanistan.
Most users of JTT only receive data. But there are variants of
JTT that also can transmit. The terminal can help a commander, for
example, track enemy and friendly forces emitting any kind of electronic
signal in a particular area.
This technology “visualizes for the commander what’s
happening in the battlefield,” said Col. Ronald Nelson, project
manager for the Army’s Common Ground Station. The CGS—a
ground station for intelligence processing—is one of the host
platforms for JTT.
The system has a “fairly robust set of filters, so the commander—at
whatever level of the battle—can tailor his view of what’s
relevant,” Nelson said in an interview. “Sometimes,
the amount of data can be overwhelming.”
The JTT radio picks up several intelligence broadcast networks
used today by national command authorities, the military services
and the National Security Agency. These include the TDDS (tactical
related applications data dissemination system), the TADIXS-B (tactical
data information exchange system), the TIBS (tactical information
broadcast system), the TRIXS (tactical reconnaissance intelligence
exchange system) and the NRTD (near real-time dissemination).
These broadcast waveforms eventually will be phased out and replaced
by the so-called Integrated Broadcast System. While JTT aims to
standardize the hardware, the IBS will be the common waveform for
all intelligence broadcasts.
BTG Inc. received a $60 million, seven-year contract to develop
IBS. The program is managed by the Air Force Electronic Systems
Center.
Industry Competition
The agency in charge of JTT is the Army program executive office
for intelligence and electronic warfare systems. The Army awarded
a contract in 1996 for the development and production of JTT to
an industry team led by Hughes Corp., a company subsequently bought
by the Raytheon Co. One of the losing competitors, Allied Signal,
protested the award and won. So the Army started the competition
all over. A company called E-Systems got the award this time—and
also ended up being acquired by Raytheon. In an ironic turn of events,
the Allied Signal division that protested the JTT subsequently became
part of Raytheon as well.
The $110 million contract was a fixed-price development and production
agreement for 411 terminals. That includes 59 of the briefcase variant.
The Army budgeted $18 million in fiscal 2002 for JTT procurement
and $4.5 million in 2003.
Even though JTT still is in development and has yet to be approved
for full-rate production, the program office fielded 80 systems
so far, to help the users integrate JTT with their various platforms.
Operational tests of JTT are scheduled this summer for the Marine
Corps, the Navy and the Special Operations Command. A full-rate
production decision could come as early as September. Program officials
hope that the Defense Department will buy up to 1,700 terminals.
“That number is fluid,” Greene said. “It’s
driven by requirements and funding.”
Raytheon officials estimated that the potential market for JTT
is worth about $500 million. Frank Brzezinski, the company’s
business development manager, said the JTT program has resulted
in a significant financial loss for Raytheon, because it was bid
as a fixed-price contract. Both the contractor and the government
program officials underestimated the technical complexity, so Raytheon
had to spend its own funds to keep JTT alive.
“Initially, we thought JTT was going to have 220,000 lines
of code,” said Greene. It turned out that it needed nearly
twice as many. Program officials also had anticipated they could
re-use some of the legacy technology from the Army’s commander’s
tactical terminal (CTT), but “We found out that it was not
the case,” he said. “We basically had to start all over
again.”
Another technical hurdle was the development of the computer-processing
boards, said Brzezinski. “The technology is a combination
of off-the-shelf, but also customized boards,” he said. “The
major challenge is to get state-of-the-art boards, shrink them down
and still get the same functionality.”
For the most part, Greene said, “It’s been a rough
road, because we [the government and the contractor] did not understand
how difficult this task was.” But he said that he is satisfied
with the results so far. “We basically had to build a Cadillac
of a radio. … This radio does a heck of a lot.”
The price tag for JTT varies, depending on the features, said Greene.
A radio that receives eight channels and transmits one channel is
about $150,000 each. A more expensive variant can receive 12 channels
and transmit four.
The 12-channel transmit-and-receive JTT typically is used on large
surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft such as the Air Force Rivet
Joint, Joint STARS and the AWACS radar plane.
Raytheon is investing its own funds to develop a handheld JTT—the
size of a Palm Pilot—but the government has yet to make any
commitment to buying it.
The briefcase JTT, at 37 pounds, is the smallest version available
today. It can receive four channels of data but cannot transmit.
It requires 28 volts of direct current to operate, which means it
has to be connected to a Humvee or another type of vehicle that
can generate electric power.
Users of JTT require security clearances, given the sensitivity
of the information. To ensure that only legitimate operators have
access to the data, there are encryption software programs, called
“crypto keys,” that must be updated daily, said Michael
Chester, business development manager at Raytheon.
“If anyone tampers with the box, it will dump all the crypto
key materials,” he said. Only the briefcase JTT comes with
a battery backup for the crypto key.
As is the case with many defense technologies, JTT is not without
critics. One industry expert who did not want to be quoted by name
said that this program is “sort of strange,” because
the hardware and the software are being developed separately—on
different timelines—by the Army and the Air Force, respectively.
“JTT/IBS begs for a holistic approach,” he said. The
program was broken up that way, he said, “for political reasons.”
Digital Radio
In the years ahead, Raytheon officials expect that there will be
a “migration path” from JTT to the Joint Tactical Radio
System, the Defense Department’s next-generation software-based
radio. “JTT could be the intelligence link for JTRS,”
said Pat Luna, Raytheon’s program manager. “To migrate
to JTRS compliance, we want to stay in lockstep with the IBS waveform,”
he said during a roundtable with reporters. It will take several
years, however, for the IBS technology to be ready for JTRS integration,
he said. “Intelligence waveforms are part of JTRS in the out-years.”
According to Col. Nelson, “JTRS will use components from
the JTT program to flesh out the intelligence structure within the
JTRS program. However, he said, “The exact acquisition strategy
hasn’t been clarified.”
Meanwhile, there are other, more pressing, challenges that the
JTT program will confront in the foreseeable future, such as how
to co-exist with a potentially competing technology, the Embedded
National Tactical Receiver, on ENTR.
ENTR is a miniature receiver that can be installed in a PC and
pick up classified intelligence data over the Tactical Data Dissemination
System and the Tactical Information Broadcast System.
The ENTR technology was developed by the Navy’s Space Warfare
Systems Command and L-3 Communications.
Luna said that Raytheon does not yet view ENTR as a competitor
to JTT, because ENTR—a receive-only PC card—does not
have access to every portion of the IBS, only parts of it. But for
those military units that do not require every waveform, the ENTR
replaces the need for the full-up JTT terminal.
Some JTT users, for example, are considering acquiring ENTR as
an additional receiver capability, because it can be installed in
a PC, thus saving the soldiers or Marines from having to bring an
additional terminal to the field.
The card has four UHF-SATCOM (secure satellite link) receivers
and has a crypto key to decode the IBS broadcast. At 5 inches long
and 3 inches high, it plugs into a computer just like a modem card.
The tactical communications division of Raytheon currently is working
on a miniaturized version of ENTR, said Richard E. Hitt, business
development director.
“We have a project in Raytheon that takes the PC card and
goes even smaller,” he said. The program is called the PENTR—or
PC ENTR card. “ENTR replaced a whole box with a board. PENTR
replaces the board with a much smaller board,” Hitt explained.
Some JTT customers, such as the Marines, want to receive certain
parts of the IBS broadcast, he added. “They can do that with
JTT or with ENTR. JTT has more modes. But ENTR for many people is
perfectly OK.”
Hitt said it makes sense for Raytheon to invest in this technology,
because it could be fielded much sooner than the handheld JTT. “A
handheld would be a wonderful thing, but it’s going to take
a while,” he said. “If you look at the PC ENTR project,
you could easily make that into a handheld unit.”
Raytheon has been working on the PC ENTR for two years, Hitt said.
“We probably have another year before it’s ready for
prime time.”
Another system that can perform JTT-like functions is the Joint
Combat Information Terminal (JCIT), a digital radio developed by
the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) for the U.S. Army’s airborne
command and control system.
The Special Operations Command has expressed interest in the intelligence
broadcast capabilities of the JCIT, said C. Chris Herndon, head
of tactical technologies development at NRL. “The functionality
of JTT is embedded in this radio. … It does the JTT function.”