26 avril 2021 | International, Aérospatial, Naval, Terrestre, C4ISR, Sécurité
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18 octobre 2018 | International, Aérospatial, C4ISR
Air Force looks for help on new, hard-to-jam, satellite waveform
By: Adam Stone
In the face of a rising near-peer threat to electronic communications, the Air Force is pressing forward with efforts to develop a new, more resilient, harder-to-jam waveform that soldiers could use on the battlefield.
The service expects to receive responses from industry soon on a recent request for information around protected satellite communications. The request sought industry guidance on how best to implement a new, more resilient protected tactical waveform (PTW), which enables anti-jamming capabilities within protected tactical SATCOM.
“The Air Force is looking to protect our warfighter's satellite communications against adversarial electronic jamming,” the Air Force's Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC) said in a written statement to C4ISRNet.
The threat comes from “adversarial electronic jammers that are intended to disrupt and interfere with U.S. satellite communications,” leaders at SMC said. Protected tactical SATCOM is envisioned to provide worldwide, anti-jam communications to tactical warfighters in benign and contested environments.
The quest to solidify satellite communication links has taken on increasing urgency in recent years. As satellite communications has emerged as an integral component in the military's command and control infrastructure, potential adversaries have stepped up their ability to disrupt such links.
“Tactical satellite communications are vital to worldwide military operations,” the agency noted. “Our adversaries know this and desire to disrupt U.S. satellite communications. The Air Force is fielding Protected Tactical SATCOM capabilities to ... ensure warfighters around the globe have access to secure and reliable communications.”
Industry is expected to play a key role in the development and deployment of any new waveform. Officials at SMC said that early prototyping efforts will be conducted through the Space Enterprise Consortium (SpEC), which is managed by Advanced Technology International. SpEC acts as a vehicle to facilitate federally-funded space-related prototype projects with an eye toward increasing flexibility, decreasing cost and shortening the development lifecycle. The organization claims 16 prototype awards to date, with some $26 million in funding awarded.
Understanding the protected tactical waveform
Government documents describe PTW as the centerpiece of the broader protected tactical SATCOM effort, noting that it provides “cost-effective, protected communications over both military and commercial satellites in multiple frequency bands as well as broader protection, more resiliency, more throughput and more efficient utilization of satellite bandwidth.”
A flight test last year at Hansom Air Force Base suggested the emerging tool may soon be ready to deliver on such promises.
While SMC leads the PTW effort, Hanscom is working in collaboration with MIT Lincoln Laboratory and the MITRE Corp. to conduct ground and airborne terminal work.
Researchers from MIT's Lincoln Laboratory flew a Boeing 707 test aircraft for two and a half hours in order to use the waveform in flight. With a commercial satellite, officials gathered data on the PTW's ability to operate under realistic flight conditions. “We know this capability is something that would help our warfighters tremendously, as it will not only provide anti-jam communications, but also a low probability of detection and intercept,” Bill Lyons, Advanced Development program manager and PTW lead at Hanscom, said in an Air Force news release.
The test scenario called for the waveform to perform in an aircraft-mounted terminal. Evaluators were looking to see whether its systems and algorithms would function as expected in a highly mobile environment.
“Everything worked and we got the objectives accomplished successfully,” Ken Hetling, Advanced Satcom Systems and Operations associate group leader at Lincoln Laboratory, said in an Air Force press release. “The waveform worked.”
Asking for industry input should help the service to chart its next steps in the development of more protections. While the request does not specify when or how the Air Force intends to move forward, it is clearly a matter not of whetherthe military will go down this road, but rather when and how.
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28 août 2020 | International, Naval
US Navy wants to create a ‘hardware factory’
Andrew Eversden WASHINGTON — A new request for information from the U.S. Navy outlines the service's interest in launching a “hardware factory and hardware pipeline” to keep its fleet computing platforms up-to-date. According to an Aug. 25 request posted by the Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA), the sea service wants the factory as part of a broader effort to “architect, implement, and migrate” to a universally managed, infrastructure as a service environment for the sea service's surface fleet. NAVSEA wants the pipeline and factory ready for use no later than fiscal 2023. The Navy wants to use the hardware factory and hardware pipeline concept to use agile development to accelerate the development of its computing infrastructure. The new model is part of the Navy's effort to transition away from technology insertions and move toward continuous hardware refreshes aboard its current and future surface fleet. The request is for a program called Future Integrated Combat System Infrastructure-as-a-Service and Computing Infrastructure (FICS-CI), managed by NAVSEA's Program Executive Office Integrated Warfare Systems. “The Navy envisions a transition to a HW Factory and HW Pipeline Process continuously delivering IaaS to pace technology, eliminate obsolescence, and enable continuous design and development of [computing infrastructure] solutions that meet ship needs with minimal deviation from commercial standards and practices,” the RFI states. The program is part of an effort by the NAVSEA's PEO IWS to migrate systems to a “common, scalable intermittently connected edge cloud architecture” using IaaS to enable platform as a service. NAVSEA wants to deploy the computing architecture to large and small combatants, aircraft carriers, amphibious ships, and “other related programs including U.S. Coast Guard, AEGIS Foreign Military Sales, and proposed future ship classes.” The RFI lists several interest areas for the Navy: systems engineering; IaaS design and integration; technical data packages; production; diminishing manufacturing sources and material shortages, hardware, and software version release tracking; and integrated logistics support, maintenance and operations training. “The HW Factory and HW Pipeline will streamline component selection, qualification, integration, life cycle support and training for the Fleet, leading to accelerated infrastructure development and fielding,” the RFI states. “The Navy envisions a continuous CI refresh cycle rapidly delivering improved Lethality, Combat Capability and Capacity to the Surface Navy Fleet to confront an increasing array of Strategic, Operational, and Tactical Challenges.” https://www.c4isrnet.com/battlefield-tech/it-networks/2020/08/27/us-navy-wants-to-create-a-hardware-factory/
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3 août 2020 | International, Aérospatial
Webinar: Top Defense Aircraft Competitions
From the U.S. quest to replace its Apache helicopters to India's effort to replenish its air force fighter and naval rotorcraft fleets, every corner of the globe is looking for new military aircraft. Aviation Week editors highlight a few of those contests – to discuss how those are being affected by the COVID pandemic and how the fortunes of companies may rise or fall based on the outcomes. This webinar was sponsored by Raytheon Technologies Listen to the panel in the full recording. Panelists: Craig Caffrey, Senior Aerospace Industry Analyst, Forecast & MRO, Aviation Week Network Michael Tint, Senior Manager, Defense Research & Analytics, Aviation Week Network Steve Trimble, Defense Editor, Aviation Week Network Moderated by Jen DiMascio, Executive Editor, Defense & Space, Aviation Week Network https://aviationweek.com/ad-week/ad-week-webinars/webinar-top-defense-aircraft-competitions