U.S. Army gives Harris Corp $66.3 million to supply falcon III AN/PRC-117 manpack radios for tactical network
Posted by Skyler Frink
ROCHESTER, NY, Oct 14, 2011. Harris Corporation (NYSE:HRS), an international communications and information technology company, has received a $66.3 million order from the U.S. Army via the GSA, FAS Assisted Acquisition Services to provide Falcon III® AN/PRC-117G multiband manpack radios in support of the modernization of Brigade Combat Team tactical communications.
The Harris radios will become an integral part of the Army's emerging tactical network to connect all levels of the battlefield to robust, secure voice and wideband data communications. The AN/PRC-117G delivers enhanced command and control and situational awareness through applications such as streaming video, collaborative chat, biometric enrollment and secure network connectivity. The Army has identified development of the tactical network as its top modernization priority.
"This order validates the effectiveness of the Army's Network Integration Evaluation, which was created to identify and speed the delivery of tactical networking solutions to the edge," said Dana Mehnert, group president, Harris RF Communications.
At the first NIE in June and July at Fort Bliss, Texas and White Sands, N.M., Harris deployed 20 and 30-node AN/PRC-117G wideband networks that connected a range of military vehicles to company command post platforms and provided access to applications such as TIGR, FTP and combat chat. Harris is currently working with the U.S. Army to integrate the AN/PRC-117G and other radios into the second NIE, which starts this month, and third NIE, scheduled for March 2012.
In addition to AN/PRC-117G radios, Harris is providing AN/VRC-114 vehicular amplifier adapters, spare radio kits, training and installation to the Army in connection with its rollout of a broad network-centric battlefield communications system.
The AN/PRC-117G, deployed by all branches of the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), provides situational awareness on the battlefield by delivering critical real-time information to warfighters on the move. Software-defined and upgradeable, the radio enables mobile ad-hoc networking, voice and high-bandwidth data applications. These capabilities support a growing number of network-enabled missions such as intelligence reporting and analysis, route planning, MEDEVAC and convoy tracking.
The AN/PRC-117G is the first wideband manpack radio system to receive both JTRS Software Communications Architecture and NSA Type-1 certification. It also boasts fully integrated and NSA-certified High Assurance Internet Protocol Equipment (HAIPE) networking encryption.
Harris has shipped more than 16,000 AN/PRC-117G radios to the U.S. DoD and allies such as Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, other NATO nations and Australia.
