August 11, 2005 – ASTi’s Synapse Radio-to-Network Bridging systems participated in the latest three-week Air Assault Expeditionary Force (AAEF) exercise conducted at the McKenna Military Operations on Urban Terrain (MOUT) site, Ft. Benning, GA. These Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) AAEF exercises allow the U.S. Army to test and evaluate the effectiveness of new battlefield technologies under their ongoing Future Combat Systems (FCS) program. Some of these FCS technologies include: unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), various unmanned ground vehicles, satellite feeds, etc.

The ASTi Synapse systems are used at the McKenna MOUT site to transport live radio transmissions to the Army Simulation Center’s Dismounted Battlespace Battle Lab (DBBL) over their computer network. At the DBBL, 20 Digital Audio Communication Systems (DACS) distributed among four buildings are used by virtual radio operators for communication with live assets in the field at McKenna. The DBBL configuration also allows remote facilities to participate via the DIS network, further expanding the joint training capabilities of these exercises.

For more information about this latest exercise, see: “AAEF continues testing new technologies”