By Ann Roosevelt
Boeing [BA] demonstrated several advances in network-centric operations during the Army’s largest-ever Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (C4ISR) On-The-Move (OTM) 08 summer exercise, officials said.
The company was able to participate in several areas, “demonstrating how we combine platform expertise with communications on the move capability,” Tom DuBois, Boeing Rotorcraft Systems Architect and Technical Fellow for Avionics and Software, said during a Nov. 13 briefing. “We demonstrated improved mission effective capabilities in actual field experiments…[and] proved networking technology is mature enough to offer today.”
The capabilities were demonstrated using Boeing’s CH-47Chinook surrogate, an AH-64 Apache and A160T Hummingbird. Additionally, the company demonstrated how a version of the Wideband Networking Waveform (WNW), the technology behind the Internet-like capability of the Joint Tactical Radio System Ground Mobile Radio (JTRS GMR), transmitted data and video.
A CH-47D/F Chinook helicopter surrogate showed the simultaneous operation of WNW, the Soldier Radio Waveform (SRW) and the System-of-Systems Common Operating Environment (SOSCOE).
For the first time, the A160T Hummingbird unmanned aerial vehicle used an electro-optical/infrared sensor to increase intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance and situational awareness for other airborne and ground assets while bridging and strengthening air/ground communications networks.
An AH-64D Apache helicopter, using Block III architecture and the Open System Gateway, successfully exchanged Variable Message Format messages with ground forces via the SRW. The Apache crew also routed electro-optical sensor video and data through the A160T as well as directly to the tactical operations center.
JTRS surrogate radios, running a subset of the WNW, passed data between the Chinook surrogate and the tactical operations center, and supported Chinook logistics, chat, Tactical White Board and aircraft situational awareness.
Additionally, high data-rate video was streamed over the WNW to a rotorcraft cockpit display.
The demonstrations showed technology maturity and “now we’re really moving along,” DuBois said.
The Product Manager, C4ISR On-The-Move of the Communications and Electronics Research, Development and Engineering Center under the U.S. Army’s Research, Development and Engineering Command, conducted C4ISR OTM Event 08.