Posted by John McHale
While watching a demonstration of the Airborne and Maritime Fixed (AMF) Station portion of the Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS) program at the Lockheed Martin booth at AUSA Winter in Fort Lauderdale, I kept thinking JTRS is a misnomer. The AMF demo showed a system disseminating not just voice communication but real-time video such as battlefield action and video of wounded warfighters transmitted to doctors for remote triage.
I should note this was a simulated demonstration. The AMF JTRS is just entering testing phase after completing the critical design review phase, says Mark Norris, vice president AMF JTRS Program at Lockheed Martin Information Systems & Global Solutions in San Diego.
The demo showed multiple aircraft, ground vehicles, and dismounted soldiers communicating voice, video, and data over long distances.
The simulation was put on by Alexander Moore, systems engineer senior at Lockheed Martin Information Systems & Global Solutions. Moore is a retired Army officer who served in Iraq. He also was a captain for the Army football team at West Point and was featured in an article online at ESPN.
Thanks for the demonstration and thanks for your service, Mr. Moore.
The demo continues tomorrow at AUSA Winter at the Broward County Convention Center in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
John,
ReplyDeleteYou seemed to miss the history of radio. It started using Morse code not voice. It has been as been the conduit of TTY, Morse Code and other forms of data as much as voice throughout it's history. Joint Tactical Radio describes the media the voice/video/data network rides which is Radio Frequency broadcasts. Joint because going to international data standards allows all services and even allies to communicate using equipment based on the same standards. So it's not a misnomer but aptly named.
E. Matus, ETC(SW) USN ret.bimet