The Air Force has approved Northrop Grumman’s [NOC] Theater Deployable Communications (TDC) Wireless Distribution Module (WDM) for production, the company said. There are 140 WDM suites entering production for the Air Force Electronic Systems Center at Hanscom Air Force Base, Mass., following successful environmental and operational testing
TDC WDM, which is designed for two-person teams, provides a line-of-sight extension of a local area network and a radio-frequency link extension of local Internet Protocol- based traffic to distribute network capability to warfighters in remote areas.
“The successful completion of first article testing brings the next-generation of wireless networking one step closer to the warfighter,” said Claude Hashem, vice president and general manager of the company’s Network Communications Systems business at Northrop Grumman’s Information Systems sector. “WDM extends expeditionary communications and information to remote users over greater distances, with more bandwidth, and in a smaller and lighter package, enabling the Air Force to be more effective in achieving its mission.”
WDM is a new component of the Air Force’s TDC, a ground-to-ground communications infrastructure that transmits and receives voice, data and video communications securely, to or from wireless, satellite or hard-wired sources. The TDC system is mobile and modular. The equipment is packaged in kits and modules that are installed, transported and operated from transit cases and can be tailored to meet specific mission needs.
WDM is the next evolution of wireless IP networking, consisting of a single radio that operates in both the commercial and NATO frequency bands. A single radio reduces lifecycle and training costs and decreases the logistics footprint.