Hughes Rescues Floundering Project : Defense: Flaws are worked out of a mobile data communications network for the Army.
A year ago, Hughes Aircraft Co. was bogged down on a potentially lucrative program to develop a sophisticated radio system that was supposed to assist soldiers on the high-tech battlefield of the future.
The company’s Ground Systems Group in Fullerton was behind schedule in developing an Enhanced Precision Location Reporting System (EPLRS), a fancy name for a mobile data communications network that could secretly transfer orders, help troops find their location without relying on landmarks and pinpoint friendly troops.
In testing at Ft. Huachuca, Ariz., the control systems were proving unreliable, the radios were difficult to use and soldiers in different brigades weren’t able to communicate even when they were near each other on a mock battlefield, the company acknowledged.
“The radio systems had fatal flaws,” said Col. Leland Hewitt, project manager for the Army’s Data Distribution System program in Ft. Monmouth, N.J., which oversees the program. “There were detractors who wanted to kill the program, and we did not take the criticism lightly.”
So, in September, Hughes brought its radio system back from the Arizona desert to a research laboratory in Fullerton, where it began fixing the problems one by one, said Wayne Doughty, a Hughes program manager. Over the course of eight months ending in April, the company revamped the system software and installed a new computer system to control the network of radios.
Using new computer chips developed by American Telephone & Telegraph Co., the company has been able to increase the flow of data that can be transmitted on the radios several times over, reduced the number of components by half and cut costs of a key component by 25%, Doughty said.
In parks throughout Orange County, Hughes engineers set up mock battlefield tests of the radio systems.
Now Hughes and the Army say the flaws have been ironed out. The Ground Systems Group has been awarded a $107-million initial production contract to build 600 radios with options to build 1,243 more. If the Army exercises those options, the contract’s value would increase to about $210 million.
“The program is in good shape now,” Doughty said. “We’ve cleared a major hurdle.”
Doughty says that the contract, while not nearly as large as other programs at the Fullerton plant, is important because the 26-pound radios are to serve as the communications backbone for the Army, enabling battlefield commanders to pinpoint friendly troops and minimize the risk of fratricide, or casualties from friendly fire.
Hewitt and Doughty said they expect the program to survive despite cuts in the Pentagon budget and expected reductions in Army troop levels. But the program is likely to face possible cuts in procurement levels, they said.
Hughes officials hope that after a decade of research the work on the high-tech radio will pay future dividends if the Army decides to outfit all its divisions with the radio system. But a decision to go ahead with full-scale production wouldn’t guarantee Hughes a stream of future revenue, since the Army put the contract out for competitive bid.
In 1979, Hughes started development work on EPLRS as a new generation of a similar system the company built for the Marine Corps. A development contract was awarded in 1987, and the company proceeded on schedule until the test failures occurred during 1988 and 1989.
Hughes has 225 people working on the program in Fullerton.
Under the initial production contracts, Hughes will supply 1,843 radios and produce eight command shelters that coordinate the radio network. The Army plans to test the units in battlefield conditions in a massive troop exercise at Ft. Hood, Tex., in 1994.
Originally, the Army planned to order 14,000 radios at a cost of nearly $1 billion, said Hewitt, but the final order now is unclear because of Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney’s latest proposal to reduce Army troop levels by 25%. Doughty expects the Army to order at least 10,000 radios.
Next year, the Army will ask for bids to build the network control centers that will electronically link all the units. A contract for full-scale production will probably not be awarded until 1994, Hewitt said.
Meanwhile, Hughes expects to receive its first $50-million option to build radios using the AT&T; chips within the next 30 days.
Dan Reeder, a Hughes spokesman in Fullerton, said the program is out of any danger of cancellation. “This program will survive because information is power on the modern battlefield,” Hewitt said. “Whoever can move it fastest has an advantage.”
HIGH-TECH RADIO TRANSMISIONS
The Hughes system employes a variety of strategies to make it difficult, if not impossible, to intercept battlefield communications. Here’s how two such strategies, burst transmission and frequency hopping, work to enhance security.
BURST TRANSMISSION: ONE FRAME=one quarter second: One time slot: One burst= 80 bits
The unit measures time in quarter-second intervals called frames. Each frame is further divided into 128 segments known as time slots, each lasting just a few microseconds. Messages are broken into chunks of 80 data bits and trasmitted in a burst during a designated time slot. Different units can send messages virtually at the same time without interfering.
FREQUENCY HOPPING: As a message is transmitted, the radio unit skips from channel to channel up and down a range of frequencies between 420 and 450 megahertz. Someone trying to intercept communications by listening in on a single frequency will get a jumble of bursts from different messages.
Source: Hughes Ground Systems Group
