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Harris Custom Solutions

Harris puts the talents of more than 3,000 electrical, mechanical, software, systems, logistics, and advanced manufacturing engineers, scores of specialized scientists, and state-of-the-art technical facilities, tools, and equipment to the task of solving unique and sophisticated problems in a large number of domains. Below are only a few examples of our vast range of expertise in "everything" communications. If you need a solution to a communication problem, please contact us.

The ultimate weapon: complete, accurate, and timely knowledge about the threat, the terrain, the weather, the status and location of single or multiple foe and friendly forces and resupply. General experience with the Internet offers a hint of the possibilities: data, pictures, voice, and video drawn from vast storage banks or from real-time input and sent halfway around the world in fractions of a second. Harris expertise in wireless communication, compression techniques, high-rate data links and high-speed modems is bringing the best of the Internet to the combat arena.

Military communications are complicated by a multitude of factors: weather, environmental stress on operators and equipment, high traffic loads, enemy jamming and other forms of electromagnetic interference. Harris brings an exceptional range of skills and experience to providing assured communications under the most adverse conditions. Robust waveforms permit communications below the threshold of residual noise. Signal processing techniques overcome jamming, whether intentional or from channel overcrowding. Channel-access protocols support simultaneous communications on the same frequency. Harris developed a $1.7 billion telephone switching system for the FAA, linking 25 centers with such built-in redundancy and error correction that it will not allow more than one second downtime throughout the network in any given year.

Customers needed the ability to deploy and establish secure, wireless computer networks in remotes areas worldwide. An 8-ounce, enhance a PCMCIA card and Sierra security module from Harris will provide the bandwidth and power to turn laptops into a multifunction LAN.

The standard approach involved applications-specific encryption systems as separate, standalone plug-in units. In the mid-80s, Harris undertook a new approach: to develop a generic, multipurpose, programmable encryption system on a microchip. Along the way, Harris solved a series of major challenges. First, the chip had to meet high Government standards. Second, it had to be secure from reverse-engineering. Third, the chip had to be producable on a commercial basis and at a reasonable cost. Fourth, the chip had to be programmable to accommodate a wide range of security requirements. Fifth, Harris had to create a range of alternate software for international customers who were not eligible for U.S. Type 1 security.

The Harris electronic-beam-steered arrays have no moving parts and can be smaller, lighter, and more reliable, making them well suited for the combat environment, but too costly for widespread application — until now. Harris has applied design and manufacturing improvements to reduce the unit cost of production of one model array by 90%, which opens the door to a broad range of military and commercial applications. For example, installing fiber-optic cables in developed urban areas is so difficult that today only 5% of close to 750,000 office buildings have been "wired" for state-of-the-art communications. Wireless transmission tends to fill the air with communication-inhibiting electronic smog. A cost-effective phased array solves those problems, is easy to install, and offers pin-point, direct, selective, and programmable communication links.

Working with Sextant, Harris has developed the next-generation in-flight entertainment system: Live TV. Passengers may choose from as many as 24 channels of real-time video plucked from a satellite and delivered to each seat-back video screen on an aircraft flying 400 mph at 35,000 feet. In this array, some components change position moment-by-moment to hold the signal.

Harris is a world leader in image processing, with exceptional experience on both classified and unclassified programs. The Harris Digital Moving Map is on many major U.S. advanced military aircraft.

The U.S. Government needed a method for speedy 3-D modeling of urban areas. The Harris answer is RealSite — breakthrough technology that creates affordable, geospatially accurate images. RealSite is so accurate that it can replace manual surveying in such applications as placing microwave antenna towers. It is so dynamic that it can provide military planners with almost real-time views of potential targets — including the spatial relationships of terrain features and structures — or allow assault troops to preview dangerous missions.

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