NETWORK MARKETPLACE: OPEN FOR BUSINESS AND GROWING


SHOOT. MOVE. TALK. A Soldier from the 101st Airborne Division, wearing a portable, tactical radio, prepares his next move during a live fire rehearsal in April at the Peason Ridge Training Area of the Joint Readiness Training Center, Fort Polk, Louisiana. Soldiers at the team, squad and platoon levels carry handheld Rifleman Radios, some of which will be procured under contracts awarded by the Army in April 2015 to Harris Corp. and Thales Defense and Security Inc. (U.S. Army photo)


Over the past three years, as more and more radio vendors successfully loaded government-owned waveforms onto their new radio platforms,


the Army imple-


mented its radio marketplace acquisition approach, which aims to lower costs and deliver radios more quickly using NDI products. Tis approach, which was approved by the Office of the Secretary of Defense, relies on industry to pro- vide already developed, mature radios that can meet specific requirements and are compatible with government-owned waveforms.


Using the NDI strategy, radios will be fielded more quickly and at a lower cost, since vendors do not have to cre- ate their own waveforms. Instead they will use existing waveforms from the Joint Tactical Networking Center Wave- form Information Repository. With government-owned waveforms, vendors can focus on developing their radio hard- ware and pushing technology forward, and it ensures interoperability across the services, since the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps can use Army-developed waveforms.


Recent examples of successful NDI com- petitions include the Army’s contract


14 Army AL&T Magazine July-September 2016


awards to multiple vendors to procure the Manpack and Rifleman radios after full and open competition. Te Army worked closely with industry to refine requirements by hosting industry days and one-on-one forums, allowing vendors to ask questions and gather information. Meeting with various vendors


enabled


the Army to learn about new technologies in the commercial environment. It also meant vendors were tied into the develop- ment process sooner than ever before.


Now that contracts have been awarded for the Manpack and Rifle- man radios, qualified vendors will compete for smaller-quantity delivery orders on a regular basis to fill the hard- ware requirements, while using existing government-owned waveforms


that are


maintained in the Waveform Informa- tion Repository. Tis structure enables the Army to choose from numerous tech- nologies and to release a new contract if radio technology changes significantly after the initial contract award.


Vendors whose technologies mature after the initial competition and opera- tional tests can join the competition, and vendors that do not pass qualification testing will be removed. Te consistently


competitive


acquisition


strategy


is


expected to reduce radio procurement costs as the Army continues to modern- ize the network amid fiscal constraints.


PEO C3T’s project manager for tactical radios (PM TR) is employing a similar construct for future procurements. Tis includes the potential development of a two-channel Rifleman radio and air- borne radios.


While the Army procures the next gen- eration of software-defined radios using the radio marketplace, it is also evolving the software waveforms, which provide the link for the radios to communicate. Tese networking waveforms are integral to continuously improving the Army’s tactical communications network by con- necting to network infrastructures, such as Warfighter Information Network – Tactical (WIN-T).


BUILDING TO A COMMON, PREDICTABLE ENVIRONMENT Perhaps the best fit for the marketplace concept


is with mission command—


where stand-alone, hardware-based systems are already beginning to be replaced by software applications.


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