General Dynamics launches Badger radio

General Dynamics Mission Systems (GDMS) launched its new Badger software-defined radio (SDR) on 2 August during the first day of the Navy League Sea-Air-Space Symposium in National Harbor, Maryland.

Badger is a compact, two-channel SDR designed to provide multiple independent levels of security for ship-to-ship and ship-to-shore voice and data communications.

It is 25% the size of the Digital Modular Radio from GDMS that provides secure communications aboard USN surface vessels and submarines.

Badger ‘was developed in collaboration with our customer to meet their requirements for smaller ships and platforms’, said Stan Kordana, VP of Surface Systems at GDMS.

The company claimed it is the only radio on the market with HF, VHF, UHF and SATCOM Mobile User Objective System (MUOS) waveform capability, as well as VoIP audio.

‘The integration of MUOS significantly enhances beyond line-of-sight, or satellite voice and data communications,’ GDMS added in a statement.

The software-defined, flexible open architecture with Badger enables waveform communications, embedded NSA-certified Type 1 encryption and advanced network connectivity to be easily incorporated without redesign, the company noted.

This approach allows new features and functions to be added to the SDR in the field, a similar way to commercial smartphone updates.