Rise of Smartphones may sound death knell for old push-to-talk radios.

• Author: Magnuson, Stew

Push-to-talk radios--as generations of U.S. troops have known them--are on their way out.

Handing an infantryman a device the size and shape of a brick that can only perform one task, voice communications, may soon be akin to issuing him a musket.

The Army is pressing ahead with experiments that marry new software-defined radios to commercially available devices such as Androids and iPhones. But that is only an evolutionary step, military communications experts have said.

Manufacturers who supply the military with communication devices said they are preparing for the day when radios not only look more like the smartphones that have become ubiquitous in the civilian world, but perform a multitude of tasks.

Dennis C. Moran, vice president of government business development at Harris Corp.'s RF Communications group, said even the word "radio" may soon be outmoded. He prefers "network device" to describe what troops may be carrying into future battlefields.

"We acknowledge that this is the way the department is going and we are making the appropriate investments in products and capabilities," he said.

"What the soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines are looking for is a rich, multi-media experience with some type of data device that gives them easy access to relevant operational and intelligence information," he added.

But it is not as simple as running down to the local Best Buy and snapping up a pallet of iPhones. Adapting commercial products for military use never is, said Niranjan Suri, a research scientist who is studying the issue at the Florida Institute of Human and Machine Cognition.

The consumer market has driven the development of devices that are small, with high-resolution displays, reasonably powerful storage and processing capabilities, and that are power efficient. They can also host a large number of applications that can be developed very quickly, Suri said at the Milcom conference in Baltimore.

What's not to love about them?

"If you talk to users in the DoD community, they will always ask, 'why don't I have this in my device?'"

There are multiple reasons why they don't, he said.

First and foremost perhaps is connectivity. Unless the device is connected to a network, it is useless. Smartphones were designed to work on commercial cellular infrastructures, which probably won't be available to troops in foreign lands. They also don't do point-to-point communications-In order to talk with a fellow squad member a few yards away, a soldier's transmission would have to travel back to a cell tower, then come back to their location.

Another major issue is security. The military has invested a great deal of resources to ensure that enemies can't intercept radio communications or jam their signals. That is not the case with commercially based phones running on Android or Apple operating systems.

There are also issues with the devices themselves. They must be rugged enough to operate in extreme conditions.They can't employ exotic batteries. And their touch screens should work even if a user has dirty hands, there is excessive sun glare or he is looking at them with night-vision goggles.

And lastly, there are still questions to be resolved on tactics, techniques and procedures, Sun said. "What does using such a device do to war fighting operations? Will they be distracted looking down at their arm?" he asked.

Skeptics are also questioning whether every man in a platoon must have a multi-functional communication device. And if they do, what kind of applications will they need? No one is suggesting they be allowed to install Angry Birds, but what are the real requirements?

The Army...