Fort Wayne – Researchers for Fort Wayne-based ITT Communication Systems have been honored for work on a battlefield system to protect soldiers from friendly fire.
James C. Isaacs and his team at ITT won the 2009 Philo Farnsworth award from Fort Wayne’s Science Central. The award was named for Philo T. Farnsworth, a Fort Wayne inventor who held patents that facilitated the development of the TV.
Isaacs and his team developed ITT’s Radio-Based Combat Identification system, which automatically tells combat aircraft whether they’re about to shoot friendly forces.
ITT spokesman Tim White said the system is well beyond the prototype stage, but the Defense Department hasn’t given ITT the go-ahead to start retrofitting communications systems with it.
Isaacs said he began work on the system to protect against friendly fire in the early 1990s.
After the Persian Gulf war, the Defense Department started looking for ways to protect soldiers from friendly fire, which was responsible for 35 of the 148 American battlefield deaths in that conflict. The military has said the rate of friendly fire deaths has since dropped, but up-to-date numbers are hard to find.
A group of defense companies first tried to develop a laser that would tell aircraft battlefield locations of friendly forces. But the technology didn’t work well in the desert because tanks would kick up dust that disrupted the systems, Isaacs said.
So the ITT team developed a solution to work with ITT’s Single Channel Ground and Airborne Radio System, the Fort Wayne-made battlefield communication network used by the Army.
As helicopter pilots approach possible targets, they can use ITT’s new system to query the battlefield. It sends out an encrypted message with coordinates of the targets, and the radios of friendly forces automatically warn pilots if their coordinates match.
“The user doesn’t have to do anything except turn on his radio,” White said.
If the Army approves the system, it won’t mean many jobs for Fort Wayne because software for the system can be installed when SINCGARS radios get routine service, White said.
ITT helps sponsor the Philo Farnsworth award, but White said the judging was independent.
