March 2, 2006 – ASTi recently delivered two Digital Audio Communications Systems (DACS) and a Telestra Satcom Server to the Boeing Phantom Works’ Warfighter Systems Integration Lab, a human factors laboratory supporting Future Combat Systems (FCS) experiments. The ASTi system provides operators with a high fidelity simulated radio environment featuring:

• Audio and control interfaces for two crew members, two command and control stations and a test conductor station. ASTi voice networking software will link operators located in disperse locations, including Washington and California.
  
  
• ASTi’s Telestra Satcom Server, in conjunction with the DACS systems, is used to model the effects of radio communications over satellite links, including:
  • Transmitter to receiver voice delays of up to several seconds for each link
  • Support for up to 255 simultaneous links (this system is configured for 2 links)
  • Ability to serve satellite effects to multiple ASTi radio models working in multiple exercises
  • Ability to simultaneously model multiple satellite systems, each with realistic characteristic effects. System types include: dedicated channel, DASA and DAMA
  • Separate uplink and downlink frequencies are modeled, providing simulated full-duplex communications channels
  
  
• A Touch Screen Display (TSD) terminal, with custom embedded software provides the test conductor with realtime controls for setting: end-to-end satellite voice delays, signal-to-noise figures and other features. The TSD acts as an economical embedded host computer, communicating directly with the DACS over ethernet.
  
  
• The system is configured with a host interface to meet the customer’s future requirement for an interface to Multi-Function Display (MFD) panels.
  
  
• The system also includes additional audio and discrete digital control interfaces, to meet a future requirement for integration with a ‘virtual operator’ station, comprised of a customer computer with speech synthesis and voice recognition capability.

ASTi provided engineering services to develop the turnkey system, integrating communications models with satcom effects and the TSD operator control interface.