With each passing day, nations are learning the extent and impact of advanced adversarial Electronic Warfare (EW) capabilities, especially countries in Central and Eastern Europe.
Identifying a critical real-world requirement for resilient wideband communications, L3Harris Technologies developed a secure, survivable, interoperable waveform package with the flexibility to deliver robust connectivity for a myriad of use cases.
“Our latest waveform offerings are designed to evade both enemy EW attempts and congested radio-frequency areas – such as dense, urban environments – to get information to those who need it, when they need it, regardless of where they are,” said Chris Aebli, L3Harris president of Tactical Communications. “In order to protect troops across the battlespace and be truly resilient, communications enabled by these waveforms diminish adversaries’ ability to jam or otherwise impede communications.”
The L3Harris Vanguard™ and Vapor™ waveforms are now available as a package to nations around the world, delivering resilient interoperability to the RF-7850 Family of Radios.
The New Members of L3Harris’ Resilient Waveform Library
The new L3Harris Vanguard waveform, named after the lead element of military formations, is a resilient soldier waveform. Vanguard provides communication survivability across the tactical edge, even in the presence of heavy jamming or interference, with the ability to push both voice and data, including maps and standard-definition video, out up to 4 kilometers at 1 Mbps.
The resilient video Vapor waveform, like its namesake, is “omnipresent, but very difficult to disrupt,” Michael Wolfe, L3Harris Product Management lead, said. Delivering high data throughput up to 3 Mbps, Vapor is ideal for Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance use cases. “Because Vapor is resilient, any type of adversarial EW would be very hard-pressed to be able to jam that signal. It’s truly resilient against jamming coming from the sky or from the ground.”
Delivering Real Frequency-Hopping Resilience
The package of Vanguard and Vapor is a real game-changer, delivering reliable, survivable connectivity and supporting a variety of frontline missions in the most challenging operational environments. These waveforms answer an immediate, real-world need for coalition forces, according to Wolfe, who also noted that L3Harris tests its waveforms against advanced EW threats during development.
“Both waveforms have the ability to hop freely and continuously across the entirety of 225 MHz to 2.5 GHz over 4-plus kilometers,” Wolfe said, noting that both voice and data can hop as many as five times, significantly extending network reach. “The ability to cover that distance in wideband without being confined to tightly banded waveforms is definitely significant for fighting forces. Real-world observation proves that frequency hopping resilience is minimally effective against EW when confined to tight, selective frequency bands.”
Offering Flexibility for Numerous Use Cases
Covering the lower Ultra High Frequency into L and S bands also opens opportunities for nations that do not have access to particular bands within UHF to take advantage of resilient wideband connectivity, Wolfe said.
“This range in spectrum coverage provides more opportunity to utilize the waveform and to the fullest extent of its capability,” he said. “That flexibility is huge – from a useability and deployability standpoint, but also in terms of leveraging additional frequency-hop sets and similar considerations.”
Innovating Fast for a Real Need
L3Harris was originally approached in 2022 about a quickly developing need for resilient wideband communications for its 7850 family of radios – both on the ground and in the air – to withstand advanced adversarial EW technology. Leveraging information on known EW capabilities in the region and decades of experience in waveform development, L3Harris was able to rapidly and effectively answer this urgent need, according to Wolfe.
In the end, L3Harris enhanced existing foundational waveforms proven successful in the field and proliferated globally by introducing variable frequency-hopping capabilities to them, Wolfe said. Due to the company’s ingenuity and recognition of an urgent, real-world requirement for real resilience, the engineering team rapidly mobilized to deliver the new capability in unprecedented timelines.
