Boeing Completes
Successful FAB-T Preliminary Design Review
(17 October 2006) The Boeing Family of
Advanced Beyond-line-of-sight Terminals (FAB-T) program has successfully
completed a Preliminary Design Review, a key milestone as the program moves
forward.
Attended by more than 150 Boeing, senior government and
industry officials, the review, held in Anaheim, Calif., in September,
demonstrated that Boeing and its industry team have successfully incorporated
schedule and requirement changes that are part of the program's new baseline.
The four-day review included presentations from systems, software and hardware
teams.
"We're on track to execute this program," said Jim Dodd, Boeing
FAB-T program manager.
The FAB-T family includes software-defined
radios, antennas and associated user interface hardware that will provide the
government with a powerful system capable of hosting a multitude of waveforms
that accommodate data rates in excess of 300 megabytes per second. Once
operational, FAB-T will provide critical, secure beyond line-of-sight
communications capability for warfighters via various satellites that support
military forces.
FAB-T also is the first survivable Software
Communications Architecture (SCA)-compliant communications system. SCA
compliance enables waveforms developed on the FAB-T program to be ported to
other SCA-compliant radios and FAB-T to host waveforms provided by other
parties. The benefits to the government of an SCA-compliant terminal result
from savings associated with the elimination of new hardware and software
development costs previously incurred to support new applications and requisite
waveforms.
FAB-T is designed to provide strategic forces with a
multi-mission capable family of software-defined radios that use a common open
system architecture to link to different satellites and enable information
exchange between ground, air and space platforms. The initial development phase
involves creating a FAB-T system that will fulfil operational terminal
requirements for the Milstar and Advanced EHF satellite systems. Increment 2
will develop terminals to support Wideband Gapfiller System operations on
surveillance aircraft including Global Hawk and Predator, with other platforms
to follow.
(source: Boeing)