Booster Amplifiers Maximize Warfighter Situational Awareness

By AR Modular RF

To effectively conduct both offensive and defensive operations, military units in the field must be able to shoot, move, and communicate. Take away any of those elements, and both the mission and lives may be in danger. For this reason, maintaining situational awareness (AKA battle space awareness) is critical. Clear, reliable communications — enabling contact with command and outlying posts, as well as other units “outside the wire” — are key to that awareness.

Radios using booster amplifiers to communicate farther and more clearly are a vital aspect of tactical communications, as much as antennas and the operators themselves. The right amplifier can extend mission range, reduce man-pack burdens (e.g., carrying additional antennas and/or batteries), and minimize logistical and personnel burdens (e.g., adding range by using an intermediary to collect and retransmit a signal).

Battle Space Awareness Requires Careful Planning

Soldiers require, when they move out on foot or in vehicles, that the battalion signals officer has their radios ready to roll. They must be able to trust their equipment without fearing it will fail them. When discussing operations outside the wire, that means enabling constant contact between units on the move and whomever is “behind,” keeping them aware of the unit’s position until it is able to establish contact with the next listening post, command post, etc. Soldiers always anticipate that next “handshake,” because a dead space in communications is an unnerving and dangerous place to be.

Accordingly, signals play a key role in every operations order (OPORD), which comprises five main sections Situation, Mission, Execution, Administration & Logistics, and Command & Signals. Situation details circumstances surrounding the mission. Mission addresses five questions — who, what, when, where, and why — all guided by the commander’s intent (i.e., in the absence of leadership, soldiers are expected to take the initiative to act on the mission and the commander's intent).

Execution explains how the mission is to be carried out, while Administration & Logistics outlines coordination between individuals and units (e.g., where to pick up batteries for radios or collect an air drop, etc.). Command & Signals entails who is in charge and how communication will take place, as well as which radios and frequencies will be used.  

When units are on the move, they rely on phase lines/check lines where they are required to call in. Mission planning includes signals annex wherein phase lines are drawn based upon the mission’s communications capabilities: repeaters, overhead support (e.g., drones), etc. Planning also involves line-of-sight analysis on the terrain to help determine where communications might encounter a dead spot. This planning discussion also touches on amplifier usage, plus antenna positioning and height.

Radios are the cornerstone of battle space awareness because, while backup communications exist (e.g., civilian cell phones, satellite phones), their usefulness depends on a permissive environment, and they should be considered a secondary or tertiary communications option. A permissive environment example might be Iraq during the Gulf War: an MCI cell network existed, and more than half of combatants captured had cell phones. However, that enemy had no viable means of intercepting or jamming U.S. communications.

The current conflict in Ukraine represents a non-permissive environment, in that the urban landscape is not conducive to line-of-sight communications and larger assets among the Russian forces likely have an embedded signals intelligence company operating signal-jamming technologies. Moreover, communications infrastructure (e.g., cell towers) was targeted early in Russia’s campaign in that nation.

Booster Amplifiers Support Awareness

Regardless of the equipment used, the first tenet of effective communications is that soldiers are well-trained to understand and employ various equipment and methodologies. Otherwise, their signal will be undermined by user errors, terrain, or the enemy. For this reason, signals personnel train and retrain in situational environments, refit as needed, and continue the cycle until they rotate into an operational environment. This training includes instruction on working in combined (i.e., across military branches) and joint (i.e., with allied forces) operations.

Next, soldiers need turnkey, plug-and-play operation. Radio field deployment is not and should not be difficult. It gets more complicated at the rack-mounted level, but at that point equipment is being set up by a veteran signal officer experienced in setting up radios and establishing a communications network in and around a theater. This philosophy extends to booster amplifiers, as well: ideally, a user should be able to plug into a battery, plug in the signal input/output, and be good to go.

Additionally, all communications elements must be reliable and maintainable, meaning remove-and-replace in the event of an issue must be simple. A booster amplifier’s quality, in this respect, can be gauged in terms of length of service and life cycle cost. Mean time between maintenance actions and mean time between failures figures should be high, indicating the overall system likely has a low failure rate and can be trusted to operate reliably. This is vital because, if an amplifier goes down, the communications system loses a significant portion of its capability. 

Utility, too, is important. An amplifier must be capable of radio- and waveform-agnostic operation, contributing to its adaptability across numerous platforms. Consider that, while the U.S. Army deploys countless man-pack or Humvee-mounted radios, the U.S. Air Force utilizes more fixed-wing aircraft and the Marine Corps leverages a lot of rotary-wing platforms.

In that same vein, an amplifier’s robustness is paramount to survivability and reliable operation in various environments and on different platforms. As one popular military adage states: if you want to see if something is breakable, hand it to a soldier. If a radio or amplifier frequently breaks, goes out of tune, or calibration is hard under such conditions, soldiers lose trust in it because it creates such a burden — they constantly are working on the communications equipment.

Utility must be weighed against form when considering ease of transport and deployment. Consider, for example, a unit setting up an antenna (e.g., OE-254/GRC, RAMI254) to improve its line-of-sight communications to a rearward position. That equipment is big and bulky — difficult to carry without a vehicle — and requires an operator once set up.

Alternatively, if a unit could use an amplifier in lieu of that antenna to boost the signal to the same degree, it saves time, effort, and possibly lives by forgoing an intermediary to collect and transmit the signal and eliminating the need for a significant logistical backbone. That unit still gains distance, but from a solid-state, durable amplifier that requires minimal training to plug in and use.

Power draw is a critical consideration for units outside the wire. Batteries in military equipment usually are big and heavy, and somebody has to carry them. Improving signal quality and extending communications distance both draw more power from those batteries than “standard” use. But an internal amplifier that can push the signal farther without consuming exorbitant amounts of battery power enables soldiers to continue their mission longer. By conserving battery life while extending range, they are granted more time on the ground, more time on target.

Final Thoughts

No matter the type of radio operator, a military unit’s immediate mission is likely to be influenced by the reach of its radios, someone who can retransmit the signal, or repeaters that can push the signal farther. Booster amplifiers, used in support or in place of other technologies (e.g., supplemental antennas) are a cost-effective, SWaP-conscious, field-proven tool to extend communications ranges in tactical situations and help to maintain overall situational awareness. To learn more, visit us at www.arww-modularrf.com.

About AR Modular RF 

AR Modular RF is a global leader in broadband, sub-band, and discrete frequency non-EMC RF amplifiers and amplifier systems. Its products are used in military communications, electronic warfare, homeland security, high-tech medical equipment, and more. The company is a member of the AR family of companies that includes AR RF/Microwave Instrumentation and AR Europe.

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