Rockwell Collins has successfully completed qualification testing (QT) as part of its competition for the US Army’s Handheld, Manpack and Small Form Fit (HMS) program.
As part of QT, Rockwell Collins delivered 30 AN/PRC-162 two-channel, software-defined military communication radios, which are based on the company’s TruNet™ networked communications solution family of products. The competition now moves on to the more rigorous Customer Test (CT) phase of evaluation, which increases network complexity and validates interoperability with various radio systems.
As part of this contract award, the Army is authorized to buy in excess of 60,000 radios throughout the 10-year acquisition program and expects full-rate production to commence in fiscal year 2017.
Rockwell Collins’ AN/PRC-162 hosts multiple waveforms, both narrowband and wideband, point-to-point data, and next-generation SATCOM (Mobile User Objective System) in a software-defined radio architecture.
“For years, we’ve delivered secure communications with the ARC-210, the most widely fielded radio in the airborne market,” said Troy Brunk, vice president and general manager, Communication and Navigation Solutions. “The AN/PRC-162 benefits directly from this technology baseline as well as our proven experience integrating networked communication across the battlefield. Our TruNet product line represents a complete turnkey system solution utilizing both air and ground assets and using many common assemblies, parts, and manufacturing processes between them.”