L3Harris has secured full-rate production orders amounting to nearly $300 million to supply cryptographic-compliant multi-channel radios to the US Army. The orders encompass two advanced radio systems: the AN/PRC-158 and the AN/PRC-163. These new technologies significantly enhance interoperability across tactical and aerial operations, particularly in challenging environments such as those encountered during electronic warfare.
Both radio systems are designed to meet modern cryptographic standards, ensuring secure communications that operate at both secure but unclassified-encrypted levels and higher assurance encryption levels. “Effective, resilient communication dictates the operations tempo, and our solutions support the required comms-on-the-move to enable Combined Joint All-Domain Command and Control,” stated Sam Mehta, L3Harris Communication Systems President. He emphasized that the company’s battle-proven resilient communication systems deliver cutting-edge capabilities that are essential for countering emerging threats on the modern battlefield, providing military commanders with greater operational flexibility.
The L3Harris AN/PRC-158 Manpack radio is notable for its ability to offer dual-channel connectivity across a broad frequency range of 30-2500 MHz. Its compact and lightweight design is tailored for tactical communication needs in the field, allowing the use of narrowband, wideband, and fast-hop waveforms. The dual channels and crossbanding technologies integrated within the radio facilitate communications redundancy while ensuring secure voice and data sharing across various networks.
On the other hand, the AN/PRC-163 Leader radio boasts enhanced capabilities, including integrated GPS, inline encryption, and satellite communications. This system provides real-time intelligence transmission from command to squad level by crossbanding satellite, line-of-sight, and beyond-line-of-sight networks. It ensures reliable voice and data sharing, even among isolated units, and is equipped with a mission module featuring full-motion video capabilities that can support up to 200 users simultaneously.
These recent orders are a key component of the US Army’s Handheld, Manpack & Small Form Fit program, which aims to equip battalions with robust tactical networks for efficient information exchange utilizing the newly developed Leader and Manpack radios. L3Harris Technologies, alongside Collins Aerospace and Thales Defense & Security, stands as one of the principal contractors involved in this pivotal program aimed at modernizing army communications.
