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Real-time data, voice and video situational awareness information rides on high-availability terrestrial backbone.
Technologies developed for the new Network Centric Radio System will provide reliable, mobile and secure backbone battlefield communicalions. Designed for use with a maneuver force, the system's ad hoc capability dynamically reconfigures itself to maintain network connectivity automatically. Vehicles in the network can communicate routinely whenever within range of each other without manual configuration.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), Arlington, Virginia, is transitioning this wideband waveform network system with on-the-move communications and high data rates to the U.S. Special Operations Command, MacDill Air Force Base, Florida. The system operates as a gateway rather than as a router network, Dr. Larry B. Stotts explains. Stotts is the Network Centric Radio System (NCRS) program manager and deputy director of DARPA's strategic technology office. His background includes serving as the director of technology for U.S. Army and U.S. Navy programs as well as a previous assignment at DARPA.
This gateway technology allows interoperability among various existing and future communications systems via the network but not by using a radio. The gateway technology demonstrates that it is possible to have previously incompatible tactical radios, including coalition partner radios, communicate seamlessly even with more modern systems, Stotts says. He holds a bachelor's degree in applied physics and information sciences and a doctorate in electrical engineering, both from the University of California at San Diego.
Radio interoperability has been a problem plaguing the U.S. Defense Department for decades. Stotts points out that the new system's technical capability is based on using the Internet protocol (IP) layer of the network. "Harnessing IP technology offers a potentially more affordable path for military communications interoperability in the future."
The communications capabilities, networking technologies and architectures of this system support emerging warfighting concepts. The technologies and systems integration are demonstrating high-data-rate...