The importance of fast, reliable and secure communications across the joint battlespace cannot be understated, as government and industry work together to bring developmental efforts like the Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS) to operational readiness and into the hands of warfighters quickly.

JTRS, considered a pivotal transformational Department of Defense program, is aimed at solving interoperability issues across the battlespace, caused by stove-piped systems with insufficient bandwidth to meet present and future communications challenges. JTRS will bring Internet-like capability to the tactical battlefield, dramatically improving interoperability between mobile military users on the ground, in the air and on the sea.

Boeing is currently under contract with the U.S. Army to develop the first iteration of JTRS radios for Army, Air Force and Marine Corps ground and airborne users under the Cluster 1 program, along with the Software Communications Architecture, 23 legacy waveforms and new Wideband Networking Waveform (WNW) considered to be the “heart” of JTRS. A Boeing-led team also was recently awarded a 15-month, $54.6 million contract by the U.S. Air Force to develop system architectures and initial designs for an airborne/maritime/fixed (AMF) station variant of the JTRS under the JTRS program.

“JTRS will provide a critical network-centric capability to warfighters – particularly those fighting in ‘non-traditional’ operational environments like the urban settings seen in Iraq – whose very lives depend on reliable, secure and timely communication,” said Alex Lopez, Boeing director of Network Communication Systems.

“Boeing and our industry partners are working closely with the military services to better understand operational requirements and to deliver superior networked communications capability that will provide joint and coalition forces with a distinct advantage on the battlefield.”

The AMF JTRS program is under joint Air Force and Navy oversight with the Air Force’s Electronic Systems Center at Hanscom Air Force Base, Mass., having the initial lead. The program development will be carried out in two phases. The first is a 15-month pre-System Development and Demonstration phase with a Preliminary Design Review held at month 11. The ensuing System Development and Demonstration phase will involve a full and open competition with contract award anticipated in the fourth quarter of 2005. Once operational, radios developed under the AMF JTRS program will be integrated into more than 150 airborne, shipboard and fixed station platforms, enabling joint forces to communicate with greater efficiency across the battlespace.

The Boeing-led team includes Rockwell Collins of Cedar Rapids, Iowa; Harris Corporation of Rochester, N.Y.; L-3 Communications of Camden, N.J., Salt Lake City, Utah, and Greenville, Texas; Northrop Grumman of Reston, Va.; BBN Technologies of Cambridge, Mass.; and MILCOM Systems Corporation of Virginia Beach, Va.

The AMF JTRS contract builds on work Boeing is conducting on the JTRS Cluster 1 contract.

The JTRS Cluster 1 team, comprising of Northrop Grumman, Rockwell Collins and BAE Systems with support from Harris Corporation, celebrated the delivery of the first integrated pre-Engineering Development Model JTRS radio in August – five days ahead of schedule. The radio is one of several being used to integrate the operating environment and selected waveforms. In total, 28 pre-engineering development models and 264 EDM radio units will be delivered for Early Operational Assessment testing, slated to begin in December 2004 as planned.