Rockwell Collins has been selected by the U.S. Army Program Executive Office C3T to produce 101 Handheld, Manpack, and Small Form Factor (HMS) manpack radios and ancillaries beginning in August. This is a follow-on award to a contract signed with Rockwell Collins the previous year, qualifying the company to compete for the Army’s HMS Manpack radio program, which has a potential 10-year value of $12.7 billion.
The follow-on award results after production and testing of 50 AN/PRC-162 two-channel, military communications radios incorporating flexible software-defined-radio (SDR) technology, which enables modification of basic radio operating parameters by means of software programming. The tactical radios are based on the company’s TruNet networked communications family of products.
“For decades, Rockwell Collins has been the premier provider of VHF/UHF airborne radios for the Department of Defense. With our TruNet family of products, we are confident that our AN/PRC-162 will bring the same level of performance excellence to the ground domain,” said Troy Brunk, vice president and general manager, Communication and Navigation Solutions. The next step in the radio evaluation (next year) will involve field-based risk reduction testing of the HMS Manpack radios.
