UNDERSTANDING ARMY ACQUISITION


RAPID NETWORKING


PEO C3T leverages rapid acquisition and prototyping to improve network management for new sof tware-defined radios.


by Maj. Nicholas Milano, Keith Whittaker, George Senger and Amy Walker


T


he Army has been fielding new software-defined radios, such as the 2-Channel Leader Radio, to enable voice and data exchange across U.S. Army, joint and coalition forces on the battlefield, at extended ranges and with greater capabil- ity than ever before. However, once deployed, Soldiers began asking for easier


and faster ways to perform the initial, labor-intensive networking tasks required to enable these advanced radios to communicate across the battlespace.


To address their request, our team at the Program Executive Office for Command, Control and Communications – Tactical (PEO C3T) leveraged the Army’s rapid acquisition proto- typing processes and reduced the time it takes to conduct these networking tasks for a brigade’s worth of radios from four weeks to just minutes. Tese once labor-intensive tasks include:


• Radio initialization, which prepares the data products needed for the unit to run on the network, including unique identifiers, roles and Internet Protocol addresses, and takes into account a unit’s mission, personnel footprint and mix of networked mission command systems.


• Radio planning, which designs the radio networks and provides needed planning infor- mation such as location data, configurations and settings.


• Loading all of the data and software into each radio.


Along with speeding these tasks, the new user-friendly software prototype tools (see “Inte- grating Elements to Expand Capabilities,” Page 80, for specific software prototypes) are less complex compared with the Army’s current capability in use today, which means


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