Roadblocks ahead for joint tactical radio: among the challenges are aircraft integration costs and antenna technology.

• Author: Erwin, Sandra I.
• Position: Defense Technology

One of the Pentagon's largest-ever military communications programs is getting off on a slow start, hindered by the sheer scope of the project and the inherent difficulties in consolidating up to 25 families of radios into one.

Under the Joint Tactical Radio System, the Defense Department plans to field a single family of software-programmable radios, to replace more than 750,000 devices now used by the military services.

Software-defined radio is viewed as the holy grail of military communications, a technology that promises both efficiency and seamless interoperability among the U.S. services and foreign allies.

A software-defined radio box functions much like a PC. The software radio applications, called waveforms, are based on common standards, but designed to meet each service's specific needs. The basic operating software is the SCA (Software Communications Architecture), the equivalent of Windows on a PC.

The first segment of the JTRS program, called Cluster 1, got under way more than a year ago, with the selection of a Boeing-led contractor team to produce up to 106,000 JTRS boxes for Army aircraft, ground vehicles and Air Force forward air controllers.

Under Cluster 2, the Defense Department is developing handheld radios for the U.S. Special Operations Command. The contractor, Thales Communications, is adapting SOCOM's multi-band intra-team military radio, known as MBITR, to make it SCA-compliant.

Yet to be awarded are contracts for Cluster 3 (maritime radios), Cluster 4 (radios for all Navy and Air Force aircraft) and Cluster 5 (portable radios for dismounted troops).

The JTRS program office also is considering a Cluster 6 version, for high data rate transmission (up to 200 megabits per second). Additionally, the JPO is evaluating bids for a law-enforcement version of JTRS.

The entire JTRS program is estimated to be worth at least $3 billion in U.S. military contracts. Industry officials speculate there is potential for another $3 billion in international sales.

Experts generally agree that the JTRS program is both technologically demanding and difficult to implement at an affordable cost, given the diversity of requirements. The program office already is facing significant schedule slips and cost overruns in Cluster 1, sources said. Driving the cost growth are larger-than-expected price tags for installing the radios aboard older aircraft and ground vehicles.

The U.S. Air Force, meanwhile, is struggling to figure out how to fit the development and procurement of JTRS into its overall aircraft modernization plans. The Air Force plans to spend $1.5 billion in the next l0 years on Cluster 4.

The JTRS program has been a "really hard sell" in the Air Force, said Col. Charles Whitehurst, a requirements officer at the Air Combat Command.

With 124 different types of radios, the Air Force could stand to save lots of money by adopting a single family of JTRS radios, Whitehurst said. The AWACS warning and control radar aircraft, for example, would go from 30 radios (1,500 pounds) to four radios (875 pounds).

The problem is that most senior officers in the service are not convinced that the benefits would outweigh the cost of retrofitting hundreds of aircraft, especially when JTRS dollars will be competing with more pressing funding priorities.

"Users wanted GATM (Global Air Traffic Management) and Link 16, but not JTRS," Whitehurst told a conference of the Institute for Defense and Government Advancement, in Alexandria, Va.

JTRS introduces a...