Defense Technology International - July 2007 - (Page 34)

CONNECTIVITY BATTLEFIELD FUTURE SPEAK Adaptive technologies may improve reception of software-deﬁned radios PETER BUXBAUM•BETHESDA, MD. nce touted as a key program in the Pentagon’s efforts to to individual computer applications that are run on the radio comtransform the military, the Joint Tactical Radio System puter on top of the operating system. An important advantage of SDR over traditional military radios fell on hard times around two years ago. Cost overruns and production problems caused Congress to mandate a pause in is interoperability. Old-type military radios were designed with hardthe development of the software-deﬁned radios while telling the wired circuitry and could generally only communicate with other Pentagon to re-examine the program’s direction. radios that had compatible hardware. But with the common SDR JTRS dates back to the late 1990s, when it was inaugurated to operating system and the waveforms developed to run on SCA, any replace 30 groups of specialized radio systems used by the U.S. two radios that run the same waveform can communicate with one military to cover distinct functions such as navigation, position- another. ing, location, identiﬁcation and satellite, air-to-ground, air-to-air “Software-deﬁned radios are a new type of communications and ground-to-ground communications. JTRS was to replace all of device because their functionality is deﬁned and implemented in these with one standard softwaresoftware,” explains Murat Bicer, operated radio system. product marketing manager at But JTRS emerged from its Mercury Computer Systems Inc., an SDR software developer in reorganization pared down, its Chelmsford, Mass. “Traditional original mission of radio reradios include hardware chips deplacement abandoned, at least signed speciﬁcally for the wavefor now. The program is now foform used on that device.” cused on quickly delivering comThis engineering design differmunications interoperability to ence also means that upgrading warﬁghters by adapting existing software-operated radios is less technologies. expensive and time-consumThose technologies are collecing than upgrading traditional tively known as software-deﬁned radio, or SDR. Software radios, hardware, says Greg Giaquinto, which have been used by the U.S. a senior analyst at Forecast Intermilitary since the mid-1990s, are national, a consultancy service in actually computers that can be Newtown, Conn. configured to operate on dif“Upgrading a software-operferent networks with different ated radio entails installing new waveforms. The technology is software,” he explains. “Upgradbasically a two-way equivalent of ing a hardware-operated radio digital broadcast radio, in use by requires building an entirely new Sirius and XM satellite radio serradio.” vices and new terrestrial services Sincgars, the Single Channel worldwide. Ground and Airborne Radio SysWaveforms are software com- Sincgars from ITT is the oldest software-deﬁned tem, designed and manufactured ponents that integrate radio- radio in the U.S. military. Updates improve for the military by ITT, is one of frequency signals with radio func- operation and assure its use with JTRS. the oldest software-based radios. tions. The original JTRS concept Originally an analog radio system called for dozens of new waveforms designed to facilitate sophisti- and ﬁrst deployed in the early 1990s, Sincgars was redesigned as a cated networking capabilities. The scaled-down JTRS emphasizes software-based radio in 1995. Sincgars, however, is stuck with some limitations due to the backwards compatibility with existing software radios. It is likely that the future of SDR in the military will include roles for both original requirement. “Sincgars was conﬁned to a narrow portion the earlier, simpler and less expensive software radios, and the more of the radio-frequency spectrum,” says Larry Williams, director of business development at ITT. “Accommodating different waveexpensive and sophisticated JTRS units. SDRs, being computers, include hardware and software com- forms was not a requirement.” ponents. The radio set itself is the hardware. The operating system However, because Sincgars radios are software programmable, is Software Communications Architecture, or SCA. SCA was de- they could be loaded with different waveforms, within limitations. veloped jointly by SDR manufacturers, after which the Defense For the same reason, Sincgars capabilities can be enhanced with Dept. adopted it as the JTRS standard. Waveforms are analogous software upgrades. ITT is in the process of incorporating combat 34 DEFENSE TECHNOLOGY INTERNATIONAL JULY/AUGUST 2007 ITT O www.aviationweek.com/dti http://www.aviationweek.com/dti

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Defense Technology International - July 2007

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