High-capacity, secure battlefield communications links between all elements of the U.S. military forces are one step closer to truly being connected. The Lockheed Martin team has delivered a Small Airborne Joint Tactical Radio Engineering Development Model (EDM) to the C-130J and C-5 System Integration Laboratories in Marietta, Georgia.

This is the second EDM delivered to the U.S. Air Force to support platform integration activities of the Airborne and Maritime/Fixed Station Joint Tactical Radio System (AMF JTRS).

AMF JTRS will link Airmen and Sailors with Soldiers on the ground, enabling secure (NSA Type 1) voice and data communications across diverse military units, and also providing compatibility with legacy equipment already in the force.

"This is yet another successful milestone as we move to link Air Force, Army and Navy communications," said Mark Norris, vice president for Joint Tactical Network Solutions with Lockheed Martin's IS and GS-Defense.

"This delivery of an official EDM Joint Tactical Radio hosting Link-16, coupled with the earlier delivery to the U.S. Air Force of a pre EDM supports platform integration risk reduction efforts for both C-130J and C-5 and further demonstrates the ability of a software defined radio to meet the evolving communications needs of our warfighters."

The EDM delivered to the C-130J lab is integrated with Link-16 Waveform functionality and will be used to support integration and architecture validation activities, within the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) Mobility Air Forces Airborne Networking Installation and Integration program.

It also provides the US. Air Force the opportunity to perform numerous networking, avionics and software checks prior to integration. Nine C-130 models, including C-130J, C-130 AMP, AC-130U, HC-130 and MC-130, are projected to incorporate AMF JTRS.

The AMF JTRS network will provide an order of magnitude improvement in allowing Warfighters in disparate areas to seamlessly communicate.

To validate the difference, Lockheed Martin conducted warfighting simulations using the AMF JTRS variant being developed for aircraft and warships. Compared with existing communications gear, AMF JTRS delivers a significant gain in situational awareness and speed of command.

In addition, JTRS networking waveforms provide an enormous increase in transmission capacity in any given period of time for vital targeting information and intelligence. Compared with existing communications gear, AMF JTRS delivers a significant gain in situational awareness and speed of command.

In addition, JTRS networking Waveforms provide an enormous increase in transmission capacity in any given period of time for vital targeting information and intelligence.