Posted by Courtney E. Howard
LOS ANGELES, 13 May 2011. Scalable Network Technologies Inc. (SNT) in Los Angeles, Calif., won an $11 million contract from the Joint Program Executive Office, Joint Tactical Radio System (JPEO JTRS). The phase III contract award is for a JTRS Network Emulator (JNE) to be used by numerous U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) programs/agencies. SNT is the first phase III contract recipient from a field of more than 80 SBIR grants in the JTRS program alone.
JNE is a virtual laboratory that supports real-time emulation of large-scale communication networks of current and future force radios and associated waveforms. Based on SNT's EXata emulation engine, JNE is used to create "hybrid" networks that can emulate the intensity and distribution of traffic typical of battlefield deployments, and perform with all the complexity and realism of an actual large-scale network, explains a representative. Its high degree of fidelity makes it possible to integrate a JNE network into live exercises using real hardware, real users, and real applications connected to operational networks.
JNE will be an urgent capability player in the Army's upcoming series of brigade-level network integration operational test exercises at Fort Bliss, Texas, and White Sands Missile Range, N.M. The Army is implementing a new approach to large-scale operational test events to accomplish the integration of six programs-of-record and various technologies into one large tactical network that realistically mirrors the complexity of modern theaters. The new approach, spearheaded by Gen. Peter Chiarelli, Vice Chief of Staff of the Army, physically brings together new systems to test and compare the performance of the next-generation networks under realistic battlefield conditions.
The Army is mitigating costs by using the SBIR-developed JNE to represent (in software) critical radios that are not physically present. JNE emulates JTRS and other waveforms with realism; it virtually sizes the network to a scale representative of the intensity and distribution of network traffic typical of battlefield deployments without the need for large numbers of actual live radios and their human operators. It becomes possible for brigade and larger missions that involve air assets, urban operations, cyber intrusion, and other complicating elements to be played out realistically without the need for actual levels of equipment or human assets.
"As the core of the Battle Command Network Integration and Simulation, the JTRS Network Emulator is the culmination of more than a decade of focused development, and the first time this capability will be used in operational testing," says U.S. Army Operational Test Command commanding general, Brig. Gen. Don MacWillie.
"BCNIS gives operational testers the ability to accurately replicate a large scale network at a fraction of the cost," says Maj. John Morning, operations chief, Test Technology Directorate, USAOTC. "In a time of constrained budgets, this is one program that will definitely save the Army and taxpayers money, now and in the future."
According to Michael DiGennaro, Battle Command Network Integration and Simulation manager, USAOTC: "JNE is really a perfect success story of how the DoD does R&D at its best, bringing critical new technologies to bear on pressing challenges. We started as a research project, furthered the design through technical testing, adapting to changes in network technology along the way, and are fielding an exciting solution that is supporting the deployment of robust netcentric communications for the warfighter."
