Harris Corp. radio demonstrates high-capacity airborne communications during CAPSTONE II

MELBOURNE, Fla., 10 Feb. 2009.Harris Corp., an international communications and information technology company, has demonstrated the ability of its advanced Highband Networking Radio to provide high-capacity air-to-air and air-to-ground communications--including streaming video--at ranges of up to 130 nautical miles and at altitudes up to 24,000 feet during the U.S. Air Force CAPSTONE II exercise.

The event, conducted at Patuxent River Naval Air Station in Maryland, was designed to validate the performance and interoperability of technologies that are candidates for future military airborne communications platforms.

The Highband Networking Radio (HNR) hosts the Harris-developed Highband Networking Waveform, which implements robust, agile, full mesh, ad hoc networks for terrestrial and airborne applications. The Highband Networking Waveform (HNW) enables autonomous selection of the best communications path, creating a self-forming, self-healing network where nodes can enter and exit without need for fixed network infrastructure or operator intervention, explains a representative.

"The results of the CAPSTONE II exercise validate the capabilities of the waveform and its use for mesh networking in air-to-air and air-to-ground applications at long ranges," says Wes Covell, president of Defense Programs for Harris Government Communications Systems. "This test also is the first to demonstrate these capabilities on board aircraft that are operationally relevant to U.S. Air Force and Navy platforms, and to show the ability to interconnect airborne platforms to the U.S. Army's Warfighter Information Network-Tactical (WIN-T) and Future Combat Systems (FCS) platforms."

During CAPSTONE II, two HNRs provided high-capacity, mobile ad hoc communications onboard the Air Force's Paul Revere aircraft and a Navy RC-12 aircraft operating over the Atlantic Ocean and Chesapeake Bay. Two other HNR nodes were deployed at Patuxent River Naval Air Station and at Wallops Island, Va. It was the first time the HNR - HNW combination was used in an air- to-air application.

A Harris prototype long-range, Ku-band antenna was used to demonstrate the HNW's full mesh capability and long-range network functionality. During the testing, the HNR interoperated with several different systems, including Tactical Common Data Link (TCDL) and Tactical Targeting Network Technology (TTNT).