Communications Systems Meld for Greater Synergy

摘要

The desire to produce a truly joint radio for airborne, maritime and fixed station users has led two separate acquisition programs to merge. By combining their efforts, program managers hope to streamline the bidding and procurement process while creating more efficient equipment. Interoperability across all tactical communications systems is the goal of a U.S. Defense Department initiative to develop a family of software-defined radios. The devices will be able to operate all current U.S. military frequency formats while being flexible enough to accommodate new waveforms as they are introduced. By combining many radios into a single unit, warfighters and military vehicles will be freed from the burden of carrying multiple pieces of equipment. However, before these advantages are realized, some of the programs creating this new hardware may require structural changes.