Joint Tactical Radio System, Ground Mobile Radios (JTRS GMR)

JTRS Ground Mobile Radio

The Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS), considered a pivotal transformation program within the Department of Defense (DoD), is a joint service initiative that addresses the growing need for integrated air, ground, and sea communications systems, which enable a network-centric capability for joint taskforces and multinational coalitions to conduct efficient and effective military operations.

Scalable to Thousands of Nodes

As part of the JTRS program, BBN is designing and implementing the next generation field able mobile ad hoc network, with up to 1620 moving nodes per self-forming, self-configuring, self-healing network. Called the Wide Band Networking Waveform (WNW), this networking stack will initially tie together all Army vehicles in a dynamic multi-hop network, and will later be extended to directional links and other platforms such as those for the Air Force and Navy. The WNW represents the state-of-the-art in terms of balancing quickly realizable networking protocols for today’s Army as well as incorporating DARPA-level innovations that allow the network to easily scale to thousands of nodes.

BBN Contributes Networking Expertise

BBN has provided Boeing and the Ground Mobile Radio (GMR) WNW Team with Intranet/Internet Networking Software support that meets JTRS SCA Version 2.2. The base BBN offering includes JTRS GMR WNW Intranet Software that supports efficient network formation, topology control, ad hoc routing, forwarding, dynamic healing, and range extension. This base offering also includes providing integration support with the JTRS GMR WNW target software and hardware environments and includes interface requirement definitions between Intranet and Internet Resources. In addition to supporting JTRS GMR WNW fundamental networking requirements, new Internet Networking Software functions are included to support multicast functions including Protocol Independent Multicast Ð Dense Mode (PIM-DM), Protocol Independent Multicast Ð Sparse Mode (PIM-SM), ROSPF and Network Management Agents.

On the battlefield WNW provides:

  • An open architecture designed to support DoD communications from the ground to the space environment.
  • A software-programmable, multi-band, multimode radio, interoperable across the spectrum of operations and across services.
  • Improved connectivity through link availability and reliability.
  • Optimized bandwidth utilization while maintaining high security requirements; security through use of HAIPE (high-assurance IP-based encryption).
  • A capability-based technology-insertion migration path due to modular, scalable design that reduces lifecycle costs.
  • Network management, with rerouting and retransmission, that improves operator efficiency, reduces errors, and results in increased situational awareness, enabling rapid access to forces.
  • Full multimedia communications: voice, data, and video throughputs unavailable in current systems.