Building on its successful HF Software Defined Radio (SDR) products, Codan Communications has now developed its latest SDR manpack, the Sentry-H 6110-MP, one of the smallest and lightest tactical manpacks on the military market, which incorporates all the key features of its predecessors while adding further improvements and refinements. It complements Codan’s other SDR products to address specifically the tactical defence market.
The Sentry-H 6110-MP shares the same SDR platform as the successful Sentry-H 6120-BM and is thus based on a proven capability already widely in use. It has evolved through extensive market research and consultations with both existing and potential customers. This included the consideration and evaluation of feedback on 26 data points, all of which have contributed to the current design.
Software Defined
As a true SDR incorporating field programmable gate array (FPGA) technology all the functionality in the 6110-MP is field upgradeable. Future improvements can be easily incorporated with no requirement for the equipment to be returned for hardware alterations. In addition, dormant features are available in the software and can be activated if and when a customer desires to expand the equipment capability simply by issuing a software code. This enables future technology developments to be integrated at little cost and provides a strong protection against being overtaken by those developments – so-called “future-proofing”.
Because the 6110-MP is an IP based radio it can be controlled remotely, offering a number of siting options to suit the tactical or physical situation. The radio can be linked either by Ethernet cable or by a point-to-point link to a remote antenna site to achieve better communications conditions or for tactical reasons. These could include siting the antenna outside or on the roof of a building while operating from inside, or displacing the antenna site from the headquarters site by some distance to reduce the headquarters’ electronic vulnerability and the exposure of its location to ECM detection of transmissions. The remote capability also enables the radio to be controlled via a LAN, which combined with Codan’s Virtual Control Point (VCP) software offers flexibility of control and allows HF network communications to be managed from workstations within a headquarters via a Windows PC or a tablet.
The 6110-MP can also be controlled using Codan’s Xtend software application on a smartphone or tablet. Xtend can be used in all commonly used voice modes and for text-based messages. It has the common icon-based user-interface, providing familiarity and consistency to the user.
Powerful and Lightweight
Considerable effort has gone into optimising the Size, Weight And Power (SWAP) of the 6110-MP, resulting in one of the lightest HF manpack radios designed for tactical operations available to military customers and one which Codan believes to be the best performing radio in its class.
The 6110-MP weighs less than 5kg including the battery, which is a common modular, continuously evolving military BB-2590 with full System Management Bus (SMBus) information.
The radio is robust and compact, built and tested to MIL-STD 810G and its durability exceeds that of the typical MIL-STD manpack.
Secure Digital Capability
The 6110-MP has up to 1000 channels, with 500 programmable contacts and 20 programmable networks. It includes Codan’s TWELP technology with a vocoder that offers rates from 2400bps to 300 bps, the latter being a lower rate than most equivalent radios, to provide communication when analogue voice cannot be used. It offers 2G ALE to MIL-STD 181 and 3G ALE to STANAG 4539, as well as Codan’s market-leading Voice Message Calling capability.
This new facility allows the transmission of digital voice messages over a channel where neither digital nor analogue voice communication works. The 6110MP supports a voice message duration of up to 100 seconds at 1200 bps digital voice rate or 50 seconds at 2400 bps. All received and sent voice messages are stored in the transceiver call log and can be replayed or forwarded to other stations at any time. The voice messages can also be optionally encrypted over the air with the AES256 encryption.
Global satellite navigation with GPS, GLONASS and BeiDou is embedded in the radio. An ECCM capability is provided with variable user configurable hopping sequences and bandwidth. Both AES-256 and CES-128 encryption is offered, both integrated within the radio. Using a standard H250 handset connection, external devices such as handset, headset, intercom and external encryption devices can be added in addition to the Codan 2230 smart handset. Combined with the Codan exclusive Secure Interoperability feature, programmed per channel, this gives the radio the unique ability to operate with three different COMSEC protocols which may be required for integration with existing or other agency communications.
Customisable and Tactically user friendly
The new user interface of the 6110MP has been developed based on the customer research programme and using Google’s Material design methodology. The customisable icon driven menu has been completely redesigned and it has been widely tested with a variety of environments and users to ensure that it is as intuitive as possible and useable even by operators who have little knowledge of technical terminology. It is practical and easy to follow.
The interface is currently available in up to 10 languages with additional options set for the future. The radio faceplate is a simple bolt on design to make the hardware language reconfiguration as simple as possible. This is a unique but simple approach to solving the problem of providing commonality of equipment for multinational and multilingual force deployments.
View Codan’s tactical communications and data interoperability product range and global impact here: www.codancomms.com/sectors/military.
