Voice over Blue Force Tracking

The United States Army Aviation community requested that MITRE examine the possibility of transmitting beyond line of sight (BLOS) voice over the preexisting blue force tracking (BFT) infrastructure for properly equipped Apache A model helicopters. BFT is a low bandwidth satellite based command and control system originally intended to provide situational awareness for the platforms and command centers possessing this technology. By slightly enhancing the current BFT transceiver configuration on the helicopter and at the ground units while integrating a low data rate audio processing unit, MITRE proved successful in transmitting intelligible audio in pseudo real time utilizing less then 1300 bps