Vijay Mohan
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, November 14
As the battlefield environment gets more information intensive and digitised, the Army has drawn up plans to upgrade its tactical communication systems to handle greater volumes of data transfer, but is unable to proceed ahead as it has not received a suitable response from the industry.
The Army is in the process of introducing high-capacity radio relay (HCRR) systems to provide reliable communication at ranges of 25-40 km in tactical deployment, which will complement and eventually replace the existing communication network that apparently has limited capacity to handle high data volumes.
The Directorate General of Signals at Army Headquarters had issued a request for information (RFI) for procurement of HCRRs in February this year. A few days ago a fresh global RFI was floated for the same which stated the qualitative requirements have not emerged clearly from the details made available by vendors in response to the earlier RFI.
Stating that today’s battlefield is characterised by simultaneous operating of a plethora of hi-tech electronic systems that include communication, non-communication, weapon control, surveillance and intelligence systems, the RFI points out that digital and data communiactions have become more pre-dominated in the battlefield. Since there is a growing need to converge voice, video and data applications on a single platform, a tremendous increase in bandwith is required.