Raytheon has received a contract worth $406 million from the U.S. Army for the ARC-231A radio system. The ARC-231A is a fully compliant, high performance, fully qualified, low risk solution for any airborne platform. The contract, which will be executed over the next five years, includes upgrades, production and support for up to 5,000 radios. Because the ARC-231A is software-defined, it can accommodate rapid upgrades without requiring the radio to be removed from its platform. The latest version of the system recently gained NSA Type 1 certification and delivers secure, classified communications on the battlefield.
The AN/ARC-231 is an Airborne VHF/UHF/LOS and SATCOM Communications System. This system supports Department of Defense (DoD) requirements for airborne, multi-band, multi-mission, secure anti-jam voice, data and imagery transmission and provides network-capable communications in a compact radio set. The ARC-231 Radio System is fully qualified to appropriate Military Standards (MIL-STD) through Environmental, Reliability, Electromagnetic interference (EMI)/ Electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) and Joint Interoperability Test Command (JITC) testing that ensures interoperability across the tactical environment and is Air-Worthiness certified.
The Radio System operates from 30 to 512 MHz, AM/FM Very High Frequency (VHF), Ultra High Frequency (UHF) Line-of-Sight (LOS) with frequency agile modes Electronic counter-countermeasures (ECCM), UHF Satellite Communications (SATCOM), Demand Assigned Multiple Access (DAMA), Integrated Waveform (IW), Air Traffic Control (ATC) channel spacing is operator selectable in 5, 8.33, 12.5, and 25kHz steps. Standard Ship-to-Shore Maritime operation is also available.
According to Barbara Borgonovi, VP of Raytheon Integrated Communication Systems, these radios are the backbone of rotary-wing communications. It enables U.S. forces to maintain the edge in secure communications, whether they're flying in contested or congested environments. The new radios will be installed on a variety of Army platforms, including the UH-60 Black Hawk, UH-72 Lakota utility helicopter and the AH-64 Apache attack helicopter.
