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BATTLESPACE met up with Ken Peterman, President of ITT Communications Systems, at AUSA Winter in February, to discuss the ITT’s Communications strategy and to discuss the recent realignment of ITT’s defense businesses reported earlier this year.
On January 5th ITT Corporation announced a strategic realignment of its defense segment, a move designed to better align the company with the emerging needs of its expanding global customer base, which is increasingly integrated and network-centric. The realignment will enable better integration of its product portfolio, encouraging a more coordinated market approach and reduced operational redundancies.
“We are positioning ITT to support our customers' emerging technology needs, while also greatly enhancing our ability to stake out new markets,” said Steve Loranger, ITT's chairman, president and chief executive officer. “We believe this move will also allow ITT to achieve greater operating efficiencies and optimize our cost structure, which will help drive successful business strategies for continued top-line growth.”
The company's defense segment was renamed ITT Defense and Information Solutions. Its current organizational structure, comprising seven separate business units, will be consolidated into three larger ones.
* The Electronic Systems and Communications Systems divisions, as well as a portion of the Intelligence & Information Warfare division, were merged to form a more versatile Electronic Systems division, based in Clifton, N.J. This division will deliver advanced protection measures that work together to help ITT's customers defend their networks and disable enemy networks. It will shift its focus from producing separate, point-of-use products to secure, networked communications systems and powerful sensing, surveillance and reconnaissance technologies that address the entire spectrum of electronic warfare.
* The Space Systems and Night Vision divisions were merged to form Geospatial Systems, based in Rochester, N.Y. The new center will focus on providing networked sensors, such as next generation imaging, including space and air sensors, image/infrared/digital sensors and air/ground/space systems, which transition the company's capabilities from disparate image acquisition to image processing and distribution across the network.
* The Advanced Engineering & Sciences and Systems divisions were combined with a portion of the Intelligence & Information Warfare division to form the Information Systems division, based in Herndon, Va. This division will focus on networked decision support solutions through the combination of large system operations and maintenance capabilities with the sophisticated techniques of information integration and protection, such as next-generation air traffic management solutions, national intelligence networks and cyber security. This combination will expand the capabilities that have made ITT a leading systems developer for high-priority needs.
“This reorganization is a strategic action to better address the evolving needs of our customers, the cyclical nature of defense spending and the need to continue to deliver value to our shareholders, while maintaining ITT's most critical investments and competencies,” said Dave Melcher, president of ITT Defense & Information Solutions. “We remain very proud of our premier defense technologies that serve the needs of our fighting men and women wherever they may deploy, and we are equally excited about the opportunity to better leverage the growing strength of our portfolio in adjacent markets, such as air traffic management, cyber security and global intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance."
“How does this reorganisation affect your Communications segment?” The Editor asked
“What the reorganisation has done is to realign our business with other key areas of technology such as EW and counter-IED development to allow ITT Defense & Information Solutions to offer a complete capability across the board. The new Electronic Systems Value Center is a more versatile operation. The value center will have its Headquarters in Clifton, N.J., but Communications will remain centralised in Fort Wayne as a business area. The Electronic Systems Value center is now, in effect, a $2.6 billion division of ITT Defense & Information Solutions, its largest, with 5000 employees. This gives ITT Defense & Information Solutions the ability to prime contracts, rather than be a First Tier supplier to the Primes. We now cover products over a much wider spectrum including tactical radios, antennae, integrated EW systems, airborne pods, IED jammers, ATC radios, underwater acoustic systems, bomb racks and components and radar systems.” Ken Peterman said.
“Have you also broadened your technology spread?”
“Yes, we’ve moved into new areas of technology in recent years. We have now supplied moire than 500,000 SINCGARS radios, of which 50% are less than four years old and we’ve made several technological innovations available on these new radios. This gives a huge base on which to grow capability and technology. For instance we are now building Iridium radios at Fort Wayne and have developed a Network On the Move Active Distribution (NOMAD)system. This is a Ku-band satellite communications on-the-move system, supplying mobile networks for an array of military and government agency vehicles. The next stage, which our engineers are looking at, is to miniaturize the system, which is currently housed in a rugged container, and integrate it seamlessly into existing legacy systems.”
NOMAD has a Raysat low-profile antenna, offering data rates of up to 2 Mbps, mounted on a vehicle. NOMAD is a ruggedized system, consisting of a satellite antenna and a baseband transit case which can be installed on a various vehicle types including HMMVs, MRAPs, MATVs, Strykers and commercial SUVs for paramilitary and government usage. The system uses an open architecture approach using COTS components to provide a system that is agnostic to line-of-sight radios and satellite modems. NOMAD provides full duplex communications over satellite, to include voice, data and video. When coupled with UHF and VHF radios, such as SINCGARS and the Embedded GPS Receiver (EGR), Blue Force Situational Awareness can be fed directly into the Common Operating Picture. This not only allows for the potential reduction in the numbers of antennas on the vehicles, but reduces the overall equipment footprint internal to the vehicle.
“Another good example of building on our technology base is the work we have been carrying out with Thales Communications, Inc. As part of our recent SINCGARS recomplete order for 58000 radios, there was a requirement for 12,000 radios to be JTRS compatible in the ‘G’ Configuration. We worked with Thales to insert their AN/PRC-148 JEM JTRS SCA compliant architecture module into our SINCGARS to give it JTRS compatibility. This includes a modern crypto which we are working together to fulfil customer needs.”
Thales is the prime contractor for Joint Tactical Radio System Enhanced MBITR (JTRS JEM), evolving the battle-proven AN/PRC-148 Multiband Inter/Intra Team Radio (MBITR) into the AN/PRC-148 JTRS Enhanced MBITR, or JEM. The AN/PRC- 148 JEM, the first JTRS-approved product being used on the battlefield today, is the smallest, lightest, most power-efficient multiband, tactical, handheld radio in use. The JEM’s SCA-compliant platform hosts all of today’s key waveforms and enables the integration of future waveforms and advanced capabilities via simple software upgrades. Downloadable features, both current and future, include ANDVT, HAVEQUICK I/II, SINCGARS Frequency Hopping 1/2, High Throughput Waveform 56 kbps, voice priority in SINCGARS, Project 25, SATCOM IW, MELP, and Over-the-Air-Cloning. The JEM is the cornerstone of a complete system solution providing warfighters with advanced, reliable communications capabilities for both mounted and dismounted operations. The AN/PRC-148 JEM and ancillary equipment are available to all U.S. military services.
“Has the delay in JTRS implementation benefitted ITT?”
“As you know, we are a Company continually developing communications solutions either for our customer requirements or for our own systems applications with our own dollar. To this end, ITT is very flexible about what it does and how it does it. We also have the flexibility of the largest radio production facility in the world so we have the capability to ramp up production when required. To give you an example, we were supplying 6000 radios a month at the height of the UOR requirements. Thus, to answer your question, JTRS is just one technology which we are addressing. The Soldier Radio Waveform for JTRS is being developed by ITT on time and on schedule and we recently installed the low-rate voice mode waveform for the U.K. Bowman system into the JTRS waveform library. This product and technology base allows ITT to address the short to medium term requirements of our customer at the same time as addressing the longer term JTRS issues. Given that SINCGARS will stay in service until 2030 and JTRS looks set for 2014, we are likely to see continued fielding of ITT radios for some time to come, even as JTRS is fielded. We also continue to develop our SpearNet Radio designed primarily for the international market. The Army has a tactical architecture which it is developing over a 10 to 15 year term. This architecture will include JTRS and legacy products such as SINCGARS which can now be seamlessly connected to other systems such as NOMAD and other satcom products which makes the network far more flexible.”
“What is ITT doing to help counter IED attacks?”
“The Joint IED Defeat Organization (JIEDO) is one of the key organizations in the U.S. military and is holding a number of briefs this week. The growth in IED technology, and our technology base in this area is key to the success in defeating the IED. We have discussed the key IED technologies brought in with the EDO acquisition, but merging this technology into our Communications area means that we can develop much better systems which operate in harmony. It is not just IED technology but also new systems such as CIRCM which we are developing using this pooled technology. The new structure will ensure that this technology flows right across every part of the new defense structure.” Ken Peterman concluded.
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