Spawar to upgrade communications platform
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The Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center has placed a $9.8 million order for pre-production sets of the next generation of aircraft radio terminals, based on the Joint Tactical Radio System software-defined radio and its waveforms.
The Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center (Spawar) has placed a $9.8 million order for pre-production sets of the next generation of Multifunctional Information Distribution System terminals, moving military aviators one step closer toward having software-defined radios in their cockpits.The current generation of MIDS terminals are a decade-old system called the Low Volume Terminal. MIDS-LVT is a single-channel communications platform on aircraft as well as ships and ground forces primarily dedicated to the Link 16 waveform, though it also supports the Tactical Air Navigation waveform through time-share technology. Link 16 is a frequency hopping ultra-high frequency waveform highly resistant to jamming ' it makes 77,000 hops per second through 51 discrete UHF frequencies ' used as a communication, navigation and identification system, otherwise known as 'situational awareness.'Spawar's order, placed with California manufacturer ViaSat, will make available 18 flight-qualified MIDS-Joint Tactical Radio System pre-production terminals for aircraft testing and integration, said Jim Gosnell, ViaSat MIDS-JTRS director.As the name indicates, the MIDS-JTRS system is compliant with the software communications architecture developed by the Joint Tactical Radio System, a joint military program for decoupling radio signal processing from hardware and making it a function of software. The goal behind JTRS is for a single tactical radio to process multiple waveforms, which is a catch-all term for how radios transmit the messages that go into one radio and come out from another. MIDS-JTRS will replace MIDS-LVT systems in Navy and Air Force aircraft and flight support organizations, said Steven A. Davis, JTRS joint program executive office spokesman.MIDS-JTRS will have four channels ' one for current MIDS-LVT capabilities, as well as up to three additional waveforms in the spectrum between 2 megahertz and 2 gigahertz. Which waveforms will be added onto MIDS-JTRS systems 'will be driven by customer requirements.,' Davis said, adding that the system is designed to host all nine waveforms in current JTRS requirements documents. MIDS-JTRS will not entirely replace MIDS-LVT, Davis said, because some legacy platforms don't have the infrastructure for it. SPAWAR placed a $52 million order for more MIDS-LVT terminals in June. More than 5,000 terminals have been delivered or are on contract, Davis added.Once in production, the cost of MIDS-JTRS systems will cost considerably less than the approximately $55,000 per terminal SPAWAR paid for the 18 pre-production terminals, said Jay Kaufman, ViaSat director of MIDS-LVT. The MIDS-JTRS program currently has two vendors cooperating on terminal development ' ViaSat and Data Link Systems, which is a joint venture between Bae Systems and Rockwell Collins. The effort started as a Navy effort to migrate MIDS-LVT to a JTRS-compliant system, 'and they added the capability of three extra channels,' said David Jacobs, ViaSat chief system engineer. The two companies will compete for orders once the program enters production.MIDS-JTRS are meant to be easily swappable with MIDS-LVT units. On F/A-18-E/F aircraft, all that's required to replaced an old unit with a next generation one will be 'a minor modification to cable connectors carried out by operational level maintenance personnel,' SPAWAR's Davis said.MIDS-JTRS is currently scheduled for a pre-production and development ('Milestone C') decision in March 2009 with terminals becoming available for customers approximately 12 months after receipt of orders.
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