The challenge of upgrading to software defined radios will reduce the need to overcome issues with upgrading traditional hardware for Asian militaries.
Tactical radio technology is becoming increasingly capable and sophisticated, with industry pushing for more complex and integrated packages. But for Asian defence forces the most important features continue to be compatibility, weight, ease of operation, and cost.
Regional users also have disparate requirements, considering the wide range of operating environments from the thick foliage of Southeast Asian jungles to the vast mountain ranges of the Himalayas. Moreover, compatibility is taking on greater importance with military operations and training being conducted in coalitions. However, these efforts are hampered by legacy products that need to be included, as well as by several competing integration standards.
Radio-based communications can also be unreliable with environmental and technical challenges impacting on performances. Tactical networks for voice, data and video communications can be versatile and reliable, but a lack of international standards in communication architecture introduces several challenges, especially with ageing legacy systems that were not designed to connect to modern, data-enabled internet-protocol (IP) networks.
Regional forces are also beginning to adopt software-defined radios (SDRs), which not only enable additional capacities to be incorporated via software updates rather than replacing hardware, but also allow these forces to develop customised waveforms for enhanced security. Interoperability among radio sets is potentially increased because the same waveform software can be adopted to other SDR systems within the same standard.
Indonesia
The Indonesian Army (Tentara Nasional Indonesia-Angkatan Darat, or TNI-AD) soldiers are typically equipped with a tactical handheld or manpack radio during military operations.
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