JTRS AMF: Airborne & Maritime Awards

The US military’s JTRS program began in the late 1990s as an attempt to unify its underlying communications infrastructure. The program was visionary – and very ambitious. Ongoing requirements creep was thrown into the mix, and the resulting delays and cost overruns eventually led to the complete restructuring of the program. The part of the program that aimed to create radios for aircraft and ships – the Airborne, Maritime/ Fixed Station Joint Tactical Radio System (AMF JTRS) – saw pre-system development and demonstration contracts issued to Team Boeing (Boeing, BBN Technologies, Harris, L-3 Communications, Milcom Systems Corporation, Northrop Grumman, Rockwell Collins) and to Team Lockheed (Lockheed Martin, BAE Systems, General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon) back in 2004, with an extension in 2006 that brought the totals to about $75 million each. Team Lockheed won the $766.2 million AMF JTRS development contract in March 2008. AMF JTRS: Platforms and Prognosis The idea behind JTRS was to create a family of radios for troops, vehicles, ships, et. al. that all shared a similar underlying architecture, could use Internet Protocol for data, and was a “software-defined” platform that relied on software rather than hardware to handle communication protocols. This would eliminate the Iraqi […]