The Joint Network Emulator (JNE) project is used to model and develop a wide array of tactical radio technologies that span the joint services of Army, Navy and Airforce under Project Manager Joint Tactical Networks (PMJTN). This program aims to develop and enhance all joint networking waveforms with common network managers. Scalable Network Technologies first developed the project as the JTRS Network Emulator before the official project expired and the company continued its development of radio technologies with PMJTN.
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History
This program grew out of a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) project to design and develop Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS) waveforms and supporting equipment that was sponsored by the Joint Tactical Networking Center (JTNC) in 2009. JTRS is an attempt to network multiple weapon system platforms and forward combat units so that different branches of domestic and allied forces, as well as their respective civilian counterparts, can always depend on intra- and inter-service communications even in dynamic environments such as disaster areas. The JTRS specifications use software-defined radios to cover dozens of waveforms so as to connect with the vast array of “legacy” radios still used by the many different services in order to ultimately transition from the many “legacy” communications systems to JTRS-based equipment. However, given that such a switch takes time, economics, and logistics, the army contracted Scalable to find a way in which impacted parties could engage in planning, testing and training with the JTRS-based equipment with a simulation. In 2011, the Joint Program Executive Office, Joint Tactical Radio System (JPEO JTRS) awarded SCALABLE a SBIR phase III contract with an estimated value of $11 million to transition the research into an operational product to be deployed throughout the DoD. The funding has since expired, but the JNE project has continued as a program to develop and model radio technologies for all branches of the military under PMJTN.
Functional Overview of JTRS Network Emulator
The Joint Network Emulator enables real-time emulation of large-scale radio-based communication networks, as JNE can interoperate with a live JTRS radio such that all the radios seems to be live transmitting and receiving with users of the live JTRS radio unaware that they are communication with one or more simulated radios. JNE can simulate missions that involve air assets, urban operations, cyber intrusion and other elements so saving dollars and manpower that would come with conducting integration tests of such a scale. Thus, the JNE allows operational managers to experiment in a high fidelity, realistic construct of hundreds of JNE systems so that they can meet mission objectives if they cannot yet afford to buy live systems, understanding how the communications technology will perform out in the battlefield.
Functional Overview of Joint Network Emulator
The Joint Network Emulator program grew out of the JTRS Network Emulator project and is still used to design and test joint networking waveforms and provide a common network management framework that can operate in different hardware transport solutions for programs of record systems and commercial radios. The program functions under PMJNT to support a government-controlled open architecture that can work in support of combatant commanders’, military services’ and coalition interoperable network mission requirements.
PMJTN manages all joint networking waveforms and network managers developed under JPEO JTRS and provides value to the military by promoting competition among vendors to drive down costs and enabling different new technology to enhance joint networking products. PMJTN as a whole enables a high level of joint interoperability for tactical wireless networks utilizing software-defined waveforms while encouraging advances in commodity-based hardware solutions to foster a competitive marketplace.