The Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS) is a Department of Defense (DOD) program that would play a significant role in the U.S Army's proposed Future Combat System (FCS) program. (For a more detailed description of the FCS program see CRS Report RL32888, The Army's Future Combat System(FCS): Background and Issues for Congress, by Andrew Feickert.) JTRS, envisioned as a family of software programmable radios, has been described as the "backbone" of the FCS and is intended to link the 18 manned and unmanned systems that would constitute FCS. Two JTRS sub-programs managed by the Army -- Cluster One and Cluster Five -- have experienced developmental difficulties, delays, and cost overruns which calls into question their viability. This report will be updated on a periodic basis.

The Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS) is a Department of Defense (DoD) program that would play a significant role in the U.S. Army's proposed Future Combat System (FCS) program. JTRS, envisioned as a family of software programmable radios, has been described as the "backbone" of the FCS and is intended to link the 18 manned and unmanned systems that would constitute FCS. Two JTRS sub-programs managed by the Army -- Cluster One and Cluster Five -- have experienced developmental difficulties, delays, and cost overruns that call into question their viability. This report will be updated on a periodic basis. This report reviews the history of the JTRS procurement; current issues, including size and weight constraints and limited range, security, interoperability with legacy radio systems, Cluster One stop work order, JTRS alternatives, and Boeing's retention of Cluster One contract; experimentation and spin out one; program restructuring; program budget issues; recent Congressional actions; and issues for Congress, including the viability of the Cluster One Program, security, and JTRS alternatives. For a more detailed description of the FCS program, see CRS Report RL32888, "The Army's Future Combat System (FCS): Background and Issues for Congress," by Andrew Feickert.

This is a print on demand edition of a hard to find publication. The Future Combat System (FCS) was a multi-year, multi-billion dollar program at the heart of the Army¿s transformation efforts. It was to be the Army¿s major R&D, and acquisition program consisting of 14 manned and unmanned systems tied together by an extensive commun. and info. network. The FCS program has been characterized as a high-risk venture due to the advanced technologies involved and the challenge of networking all of the FCS subsystems together. Contents of this report: (1) Program Origins; (2) Program Overview; Current FCS Program Status; Army¿s Modernization Strategy; Budget Issues; (3) Issues for Congress: MGV Cancellation; Army Modernization Strategy and Spin Outs; Proposed Ground Combat Vehicles. Illustrations.

The DoD has spent an estimated $12 billion on the dev¿t. and production of tactical radios over the last 5 years -- about as much as was spent producing Virginia Class submarines ($10.8 billion) in the same period. Survivability and lethality in warfare are increasingly dependent on superior information and communication capabilities. DoD is counting on the Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS) to deliver the breakthroughs in this area. At the same time as it is developing JTRS, DoD wants to ensure that current forces are equipped with sufficient legacy radios. This report addresses: (1) how planned investments in key tactical radio systems changed over the last 5 years; (2) why these changes occurred; and (3) the challenges ahead. Illustrations.

It is not yet clear if or when the Army and LSI can develop, build, and demonstrate the information network that is at the heart of the FCS concept. The Army is faced with significant management and technological challenges that place development of FCS's network and software at risk. Almost 5 years into the program, the Army and LSI have not yet fully defined how the FCS network is expected to function, how they plan to build it, and how they plan to demonstrate it. The Army and LSI have identified and need to address numerous areas of high risk such as network performance and scalability, immature network architecture, and synchronization of FCS with the Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS) and Warfighter Information Network Tactical (WIN-T) programs, which are having difficulty with technology maturation and are at risk of being delayed or delivering incomplete capabilities to FCS. Software being developed for the network and platforms by the LSI and software developers is now projected to total about 95.1 million lines of computer code, which almost triples the size since the program began in 2003. A June 2006 report issued by the Secretary of Defense s Cost Analysis Improvement Group found that the FCS program is at risk of higher costs due to, among other things, the size and complexity of the FCS software development program. This group also said the development schedule is highly likely to take several years beyond the Army s plan, and the network is at risk because it is tied to JTRS and WIN-T programs that could cause delays in FCS s development schedule. Similarly, a recent study by the Institute for Defense Analysis found that the FCS program would likely experience additional growth in unplanned software effort, unplanned rework before and after operational testing, and additional work to address system of systems integration, validation, and test after the critical design review point.

2011 Updated Reprint. Updated Annually. US Future Combat & Weapon Systems Handbook

As part of the Army's Future Combat Systems (FCS) transformation effort, the newly redesigned Small Unmanned Ground Vehicle (SUGV) is required to use a common radio for communication between the SUGV's operator and the FCS network environment. FCS has proposed using the Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS) Soldier-level Integrated Communications Environment (SLICE) radio operating with the Soldier Radio Waveform (SRW) as the SUGV radio solution. In the 2007 Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (C4ISR) On-The-Move experiment, the FCS Network Analysis and Integration Laboratory (NAIL) conducted initial experiments to simulate the teleoperation of a SUGV-class platform using an implementation of this radio system called the Wearable Soldier Radio Terminal (WSRT). Working with NAIL representatives, U.S. Army Research Laboratory (ARL) engineers integrated the WSRT radios onto an ARL-modified PackBot system so that relevant real-world data could be collected. This report examines the integration effort that took place to allow the WSRT to control the ARL PackBot system, including the hardware and software used, and focuses on performance results, comparisons with the existing ARL radio solution, and initial conclusions.

In today's environment of rapidly evolving conflicts, the Army's goal is to have units that have the combat power of heavy units but that can be transported anywhere in the world in a matter of days. To address concerns about the armored vehicle fleet's aging and the difficulties involved in transporting it as well as to equip the Army more suitably to conduct operations overseas on short notice using forces based in the United States the service created the Future Combat Systems (FCS) program in 2000. A major modernization effort, the program is designed in part to develop and purchase vehicles to replace those now in the heavy forces; the new vehicles would be much lighter, thereby easing the deployment of units equipped with them. In the analysis presented in this report, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) examined the current status of the Army's fleet of armored vehicles and assessed the speed of deployment of the service's heavy forces. It also evaluated the FCS program, considering the program's costs as well as its advantages and disadvantages and comparing it with several alternative plans for modernizing the Army's heavy forces.