On Some Software-Defined Radio Failures

Abstract

The Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS) should play, as was planned, an important role in the U.S. Army’s proposed Future Combat System (FCS) program. Starting in 1997, JTRS was an attempt at unifying military radios by digital signal processing. It is a set of software-defined radios (SDRs). The idea was to use this system as the core element of the FCS to link all of its 18 manned and unmanned systems. This was one extremely ambitious project, and this was a basis for the strategic “Joint Vision-2010” plan oriented to the Network-Centric Warfare concept. In 2009, the FCS program was ceased. One of the reasons for the failure was the immaturity of SDR technology, especially in terms of the MANET concept. Unfortunately, the FCS Network, predicated on a MANET implementation, employing ground and air systems as nodes, was thus being designed without a foundation of fundamental results. The JTRS program was projected to replace the 25 to 30 families of radio systems used in military systems. After 15 years and spending $15 billion, the JTRS program failed to deliver radios to the battlefield and was canceled in October 2011. We are not aware of any attempts to analyze modern state of radio technologies, especially MONET technologies. However, the analysis of the described applications shows that the MANET approach has proven to be the most vulnerable point in military communications. During these past 14 years, SDR technology has matured, thus is thoughtful to hope for a revival of the SDR approach.