Falcon® II: The radio of tomorrow…today
Harris Corporation, RF Communications Division
Kevin Kane, director of business development for the U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps
Mark Turner, director of multiband radio engineering
Defence Management Journal, Spring 2001
When Harris Corporation was selected by the Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS) Joint Program Office (JPO) of the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) for its Step 2B effort of validation activities, the task at hand was indeed very large. JTRS has been named the “DoD radio of tomorrow”, so determining the viability of this program during the validation phase is critical to the DoD communications of the future.
The DoD’s mission is to develop a family of software re-programmable radios sharing a common digital architecture that can be applied to multiple platforms and support multiple waveforms. The JTRS model is similar to the personal computer approach to software. Instead of a conglomeration of dedicated software loaded into single purpose radios, pieces of software can be loaded along with file configuration information that assigns significance to each software piece.
Today’s radio model has very little sharing of technology or code. The JTRS model will allow a standard waveform or set of waveforms to be applied to multiple platforms defining the infrastructure by a common architecture. Along with reprogramability and reconfigurability, a common architecture will allow the portability of waveforms across radio platforms. With a set of standard interfaces, manufacturers would be able to port the waveforms from an internal library or from the military. Manufacturing resources once spent on duplicating existing waveforms can then be spent on inventing new waveforms and new technologies. As a result, industry can support militaries more effectively by allocating new resources to enhance the communication capabilities of the warfighter on the digital battlefield.
While the undertaking of JTRS is ambitious, much technical advancement is likely to result from the program, benefiting not only government, but also commercial industry. Ultimately, the DoD seeks to migrate from single purpose legacy systems to an open architecture. The JTRS Step 2A Program is intended to define, specify and develop operational prototypes of the Software Communications Architecture (SCA), while the JTRS Step 2B Program is intended to provide independent validation of the SCA across a variety of radio platforms. The SCA is a specific set of rules, methods, and design criteria for implementing software re-programmable digital radios, and will become the basis for all future DoD tactical radio acquisitions. Harris is performing research and development to validate the emerging open standard SCA.
The Harris Falcon® II family of tactical radios, in full production today, is the world’s first family of software re-programmable digital radios. Falcon® II products now encompass the HF, VHF, and UHF frequency spectrum, and a large suite of waveforms and communications capabilities. The Falcon® II family of radios have been built on more than 12 years of Software Defined Radio experience at Harris. When Harris Corporation created its Falcon® II family of tactical radios, we essentially accomplished on a smaller scale what the government is seeking to achieve with the JTRS Program. Within the Falcon® II radio family we have built five individual radios, which span the frequency spectrum from 1.6 MHz to 512 MHz. These radios have been designed and built with a common architecture to utilize common hardware platforms and to share a tremendous number of common hardware and software components.
The AN/PRC-117F(C), is a multiband, multimission radio that represents the next level of radio design. Effectively three radios in one, the AN/PRC-117F(C) provides low-band VHF capabilities for combat net radio, high-band VHF functionality for public safety, and ground-to-air and UHF features for military ground-to-air and satellite communications (SATCOM). The AN/PRC-117F(C) is now the only 30-to-512 MHz radio that is fully NSA- and JITC-certified for DAMA and SINCGARS interoperability. The digital platform of the AN/PRC-117F(C) supports software upgrades of new features. The AN/PRC-117F(C) radio is being used as the basis for the Harris JTRS Phase 2B Program to design, implement and validate the JTRS SCA in a man-pack radio platform.
In addition to creating an open software architecture, one of the ideas driving the JTRS program is to create new waveforms that are more spectral efficient and have more data carrying capacity. The continued challenge of the JTRS program is to support new and emerging requirements, and not just duplicate and proliferate existing legacy waveforms.
An additional objective of the government’s JTRS Program is to facilitate the concepts and capabilities of JTRS into the commercial wireless industry. In support of this endeavor, Harris is an active member of the Software Defined Radio Forum (SDRF). The SDRF is dedicated to supporting the development, deployment, and use of open architectures for advanced wireless systems. This synergetic association has been a natural extension of Harris’ research and development of software programmable radios over the last twelve years.
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