Communication is vital and critical to all military operations. The Combat Net Radio (CNR) is the mainstay of communications for the Indian Army in the battlefield. The contemporary CNR equipment in the Indian Army supports voice communication only and has limited or no data transmission capability.

To arm the soldiers with advantages offered by technology and equip them to fight a war in the net–centric battle space, the existing radios are to be replaced soon by indigenously developed Software Defined Radio (SDR), which have enhanced data transmission capability, enhanced voice clarity and data transmission accuracy in spectrally noisy environments, support multiple waveforms, greater system security and better communication survivability in clear and secure mode to meet the operational requirements of the Indian Army, the defence ministry said.

Indian Army is in the process to revamp its communication systems by procuring Very/Ultra High Frequency (V/UHF) Manpack SDRs under Make-II category. After successful evaluation of vendor responses, project sanction order (PSO) has now been issued to 18 Indian vendors to start prototype development. The contract will be placed with one of the firms post successful development of prototype as per provisions of Buy Indian-IDDM category of DAP 2020, the ministry said.

Development of V/UHF Manpack SDR under Make-II will be a game-changer for Indian Army. It is in sync with the “aatmanirbhar bharat” policy of the government which will lead to self reliance in advanced communication systems, the ministry added.