Harris [HRS] is offering its production ready military radio called Harris Airborne Multi-Channel Radio (HAMR) to expand the Army’s growing network from the ground to the air.
HAMR can bring wideband networking among helicopters, unmanned aerial vehicles and ground troops, a top company executive said.
“It’s time to bring the network into the air,” Dennis Moran, vice president, Government Business Development, Harris RF Communications, told sister publication Defense Daily
at the Association of the United States Army Winter Symposium in Huntsville, Ala., last week. “Technology from the ground is going into airborne form factors, and Harris has a family of radios that run the required wavelengths…and has a flexible architecture.”
The Harris Airborne Multi-channel Radio (HAMR) displayed at the symposium. It will be the company’s offering for the small Airborne Networking Radio (SANR) program. SANR is designed as a two-channel radio for the Gray Eagle unmanned aerial vehicle and AH-64 Apache, CH-47 Chinook, UH-60 Black Hawk and OH-58 Kiowa Warrior helicopters.
HAMR extends the 20 kilometer range Soldier Radio Waveform (SRW) beyond line of sight by transmitting over the Wideband Networking Waveform, Moran said.
The multichannel radio provides two channels of wideband communications in the same size, weight and power configuration as a single-channel radio. Having two encrypted channels enables the military to communicate using voice, high-speed IP-networked data, and full-motion video in air-to-air and air-to-ground communications at 100 times the speed of legacy narrowband radios.
HAMR is based on, and is interoperable with, the Harris Falcon III® AN/PRC-152A multiband handheld radio, which is Joint Tactical Radio System certified to operate as part of the Defense Department architecture for battlefield networking.
For legacy waveforms, HAMR offers VHF/UHF interoperability, including AM/FM line-of-sight, SINCGARS and Havequick I/II, as well as the newer wideband networking waveforms such as the Harris Adaptive Networking Wideband Waveform and SRW.
Tying ground and air together “improves survivability for soldiers on the ground and increases lethality,” Moran said.
HAMR is interoperable with the family of Falcon tactical radios used by ground troops around the world.