WASHINGTON — Harris Corp. has developed a flying radio combining its Rifleman radio technology with a small quadcopter, according to retired Army Maj. Gen. Dennis Moran, the company vice president of Defense Department business development.
The Harris booth at the Association of the US Army had a different look than years past, following its acquisition of Exelis. The company is showcasing an explosive ordnance disposal robot, an individual soldier system and, hanging from the ceiling, an unmanned aircraft system.
"It's a totally different story," Moran said Monday at AUSA.
The quadcopter — the Embedded Modular Radio (EMR) — weighs about 3 lbs and can fit easily into a backpack.
"From an airborne perspective, the reason this guy is so darn interesting is as radios get smaller and smaller, they don't lose their capabilities, they just get smaller and smaller," Moran said, "and so what we found is we have a capability to put a radio that will do a variety of waveforms in a pretty small form factor."
Moran envisions the quadcopter for the platoon or individual team level. A radio on a UAS that comes with a camera or another sensor could do "a couple of things," Moran said. "You always have the link that is controlling the copter to go up and go down, but if you are doing something on a sensor, you have to get that off of the quadcopter so you can use our radio to bring it down to a ground station."
The radio on the UAS can also be relayed in order to extend range, Moran said.
By taking the heart of the Rifleman radio, which Harris mass produces for the Army, and incorporating it into an inexpensive small quadcopter, the price is "reasonable," Moran said. "It is a pretty good value especially if you are going to have it down at the platoon or team level, you've got to have something that has a lot of capability with a reasonable price point."
While information about existing customers is classified at this time, "we've had a number of customers both international and within the DoD that are pretty interested in that," Moran said.
Jen Judson is an award-winning journalist covering land warfare for Defense News. She has also worked for Politico and Inside Defense. She holds a Master of Science degree in journalism from Boston University and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Kenyon College.
