Tech delivers video recon to warfighter radios

Editor’s Note: Contrary to an initial report, the Joint Tactical Radio System Handheld, Manpack, Small Form Fit (HMS) radios do handle video feeds directly from unmanned aerial vehicles and small unmanned ground vehicle programs, said officials with General Dynamics C4 Systems, which is the prime contractor on the JTRS HMS program.

This aspect is a requirement on the JTRS HMS program, they said. The Common Data Link waveform is not intended for UAV and SUGV platforms under the Brigade Combat Team Modernization effort, the officials said. 

Government and industry are searching for ways to make it possible for users of the Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS) to view video beamed from unmanned aerial vehicles over the common data link waveform through auxiliary devices, reports Keith Button at Defense News.

Military labs are funding research and development to gauge the feasibility of auxiliary devices to receive JTRS waveforms and, most important, the Common Data Link (CDL) waveform.

The dilemma that labs and contractors are trying to overcome is that the video waveform was not included in the waveform library established for the $37 billion program designed to put interoperable radios in the hands of all U.S. military forces.

Opinions differ on why video waveform was not included in the JTRS waveform library. One notion is that the CDL waveform was omitted because it was beyond the bandwidth specifications envisioned for JTRS radios when the Defense Department started the program in 1997. The other is that computer technology of the 1990s could not support CDL in a mobile battlefield setting.

At this time, the only way for users of the JTRS to view video received over the CDL is to receive it on another device, such as the Rover or Video Scout computer, and then feed the digital output into the JTRS network via a plug-in device. To do this, troops would have to carry both a JTRS radio and a video receiver.

To remedy this, defense contractors are scrambling to come up with small, lightweight devices to receive JTRS waveforms and the CDL form. The R&D work is being done outside of the JTRS program.

The CDL waveform isn’t currently being considered by the JTRS team because it is a higher frequency waveform functioning above 2 gigahertz.

For its part, Cubic Defense Applications has rolled out CDL receivers and transmitters that are the size of a paperback book. And Harris Corp. has built a handheld video intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance receiver.

Interestingly, Lockheed Martin's Airborne, Maritime/Fixed Station (AMF) version of JTRS, which completed a critical design review in December, might offer a solution as well. Its network capabilities are defined digitally, and signal processing is handled by a programmable computer, thus enabling the AMF radios to communicate with today’s radios, waveforms and systems negating the heed for hardware upgrades.