General Dynamics launches new SDR
URC-300 will be delivered to USAF in 2021
General Dynamics announced the launch of its URC-300 software-defined radio (SDR) on 29 October, describing it as ‘a versatile platform that supports multiple waveforms’ to support ground-to-air, LoS and other mission-critical applications.
URC-300 provides interference-free communications in highly congested environments and improves immunity to outside interference such as other airfield channels, Wi-Fi transmitters, and commercial FM broadcast towers.
General Dynamics will deliver URC-300 transceiver backpack systems in February 2021 to the USAF at Kadena Air Base in Japan to improve ground-to-air communications.
The SDR is specifically designed to enable future features and functions to be added in the field via quick and simple software upgrades. It is based on a flexible, core architecture ‘comparable to a commercial smartphone’, said Bill Ross, vice-president of General Dynamics Mission Systems. This removes the need for additional hardware retrofits.
Users can operate multiple URC-300s as close as 2m apart without interference, which General Dynamics argued is ‘an unprecedented capability compared to currently available tactical man-pack radios that require 50 to as much as 115 feet of separation’.
This close proximity capability enables rapid grab-and-go, multi-channel operations during emergency situations.
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