National Defense > Blog > Posts > Joint Tactical Radio System Could See Early Fielding, Will Be Installed on Army Helicopters

2/25/2010

Joint Tactical Radio System Could See Early Fielding, Will Be Installed on Army Helicopters
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla -- The war in Afghanistan has prompted the program manager of the joint tactical radio system to accelerate the delivery of the first versions of the new communications hardware and software.

Tony Gehr, technical director of the airborne maritime/fixed JTRS for Lockheed Martin, said there is no stated timeline to deliver the technology into the field. However, JTRS program officials have asked the company to deliver 24 pre-production models six months ahead of schedule so they can be integrated onto selected aerial platforms for testing.

The small airborne radios will be integrated into Army AH-64D Apache helicopters first. Those will be delivered in August. Previous schedules called for delivery in January 2011, he told reporters attending the Association of the United States Army winter symposium. There is no time line yet for fielding the system to combat units.

The JTRS system is an encrypted, IP-enabled network designed to provide voice, video and data communications.

In remote areas like Afghanistan, JTRS will be more dependable than current point-to-point radio communications because it can create meshed-networks using different nodes to ensure that data gets through. Ultimately, plans are for the system to be integrated into 100 U.S. military platforms. It will be compatible with legacy radios as well, Gehr said.

The other early adopting aircraft will be the CH-47F Chinook and UH-60M Blackhawks as well as Air Force C-130 AMP and AC-130U fixed-wing aircraft. There were plans to have small airborne radios in the Class IV Fire Scout unmanned helicopter, but that program was cancelled earlier this year. There have been some discussions to place them on Army Shadow unmanned fixed-wing aircraft, he said.
Posted at 1:14 PM by Stew Magnuson | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

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