U.S. Army selects Rockwell Collins for HMS Manpack radio follow-on contract
NewsAugust 03, 2017
CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa. Rockwell Collins officials received a follow-on contract from the U.S. Army Program Executive Office C3T to produce 101 Handheld, Manpack, and Small Form Factor (HMS) Manpack radios and ancillaries beginning this month.
The contract award comes after customer testing that included the production and testing of 50 AN/PRC-162 two-channel, software-defined military communication radios, based on the company’s TruNet networked communications solution family of products. Part of the evaluation involved increasing network complexity and validating interoperability with various radio systems.
The previously awarded contract last spring qualified the company to compete for the 10-year, $12.7 billion HMS Manpack radio program.
Next year, HMS Manpack radios will undergo field-based risk reduction testing, Rockwell Collins officials say. During this test event, radio compliance with delayed threshold requirements and other performance attributes will be evaluated in order to down-select the competition to two vendors for full rate production.
Read more on software-defined radios:
Software-defined radio: To infinity and beyond
Software-defined radio is key to seamless and effective military communication
SCA-based software-defined radios: Vision, reality, and current status
