Airborne network to link sensors, shooters, decision makers

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HANSCOM AIR FORCE BASE, Mass. (AFPN) --  Electronic Systems Center officials here are working on a new airborne network that will revolutionize airborne communications and bring network-centric warfare to the air.

"The intent ... is to translate information superiority into combat power by linking sensors, decision makers and shooters to share all available information," said Dave Kenyon, technical architectures and standards division chief. The system will employ an Internet-based airborne network to allow information-sharing among large numbers of users in the air and on the ground, he said.

Today, aircraft exchange information via data links, which communicate specific information to specific radios in specified message formats, said Marc Richard, the division’s chief engineer.

In contrast, network connectivity provides global access to information and the ability to pull or push information to all others connected to the network. If two aircraft are connected to the network, they will be able to exchange information, even if they do not have a direct connection, officials said.

“The challenge for the airborne network is to make what works easily in a ground-(based) environment work in an airborne-dynamic environment,” Mr. Richard said. While wires and fiber optic cables provide the “backbone” for ground-based networks, space-based optical lasers and aircraft carrying advanced communications systems will form the backbone of the airborne network, he said.

“We envision that larger aircraft and possibly unmanned air vehicles, equipped with greater communications capability and connections to space and ground, will form the backbone-in-the-sky,” Mr. Kenyon said. “This network will be constantly (reconfigured). Every platform is a user as well as a service provider, meaning capabilities increase as additional aircraft enter the network.”

Smaller tactical aircraft, with limited space, will be equipped with terminals that can transmit, receive and relay data among each other and to the larger backbone aircraft, officials said.

Making these connections and reliably sending data are key challenges toward creating a self-forming, self-healing airborne network, officials said. While much of the equipment needed for the network is in various stages of development, the airborne network is still in the foundation stage, they said.