General Dynamics (GD) has been awarded a contract for the delivery of additional AN/USC-61(C) four-channel digital modular radios (DMR) to the US Navy.
Awarded by the US Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command for the Department of Navy Research, Development and Acquisition, the $35m order forms an option to the original contract secured by GD in 2010.
Under the new contract, GD will supply an additional 53 DMR radios for installation on the navy’s newly constructed ships, submarines and onshore facilities.
General Dynamics C4 Systems president Chris Marzilli said the DMR radios had proven to be reliably cost-effective since entry into operational service in 1998.
"With these hardware modifications, the DMR will provide even greater cost savings as it becomes interoperable with the US Department of Defense’s next-generation radios," Marzilli added.
As well as delivering the new radios, GD will also modify the navy’s existing DMR hardware to enable integration of government-owned networking waveforms.
Equipped with embedded type 1 encryption, the AN/USC-61(C) is a compact, multi-channel DMR designed to provide sailors with simultaneous, secure short-range and global communications at the tactical edge in the 2MHz to 2GHz frequency range.
The modular radio supports integration of future waveforms and advanced network connectivity, and is compliant to communicate with ultra-high frequency SATCOM, single-channel ground and airborne radio systems (SINCGARS), line-of-sight and high-frequency radios on the naval surface and subsurface platforms.
AN/USC-61(C) DMR became to the first software-defined radio to be certified by the National Security Agency (NSA) for communications up to top secret level in October 2004.
Since 1998, more than 500 DMR radios have been delivered by the company for installation on US Navy vessels.
