US ATC to get new portable emergency transceivers

The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has chosen General Dynamics Mission Systems to provide new URC-300E transceivers as part of its Emergency Transceiver Replacement program. The eight-year contract has a value of US$99 million if all options are exercised.

The URC-300E will replace legacy radios and provide both VHF and UHF operation for civil and military air traffic control (ATC) communications in the event of a catastrophic failure, such as a facility fire or natural disaster. It is designed to maximise RF performance and enable users to operate multiple URC-300Es as close as two metres apart without interference.

According to General Dynamics, the URC-300E, the FAA variant of the URC-300, is a software-defined platform that supports multiple waveforms for ground-to-air, line-of-sight and other mission-critical applications. It is designed with a flexible, core architecture similar to a commercial smartphone that enables additional features and functions to be added in the field via simple software upgrades as they become available.

Image courtesy General Dynamics