The Army’s tactical networking radios are unable to connect to its satellite-based battlefield internet if soldiers are out of sight, but the reason is budgetary not technological.
Both the Army and industry agree that using an “air tier” such as an unmanned aircraft outfitted with a repeater antenna can overcome line-of-sight communication issues between dismounted soldiers and their superiors at satellite-connected command posts.
That air tier was a central requirement of the Warfighter Information Network-Tactical (WIN-T) Increment 3, which for budgetary reasons has been tabled. It would have “helped to mitigate that challenge,” Paul Mehney, a spokesman for the Army’s Command, Control, Communications-Tactical program office, told sister publication Defense Daily.
When WIN-T was restructured in 2014, some requirements for Increment 3 were folded into the second increment currently being fielded. The air tier and hardware needed to support it were set aside until adequate funding was available.
“The WIN-T Inc. 3 program restructure deferred the acquisition of hardware necessary to support the functionality of a network air tier and the Joint Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (JC4ISR) radio,” Mehney said in an email. “The air tier would have off loaded network traffic from the satellites. Requirements for these deferred capabilities are still valid and assigned to the WIN-T program, but due to fiscal constraints these capabilities are not being developed or procured at this time.”
Both the WIN-T, referred to as the “upper” tactical network, and the various vehicle and soldier-carried radios, the “lower” network, are under scrutiny because of concerns they do not have sufficient range and are too vulnerable to hacking and jamming to survive and operate in combat against a near-peer adversary.
The upper tactical network is supposed to seamlessly mesh with the lower tactical network dismounted soldiers never lose touch with their commanders, Dennis Moran, a senior vice president with radio manufacturer Harris Corp. [HRS], told sister publication Defense Daily in an interview
“We have proven multiple times out at the network integration exercises that that is a relatively straightforward interface, and that traffic flows seamlessly from the lower tactical internet up into the command posts that are serviced by WIN-T,” Moran said.
A director of test and evaluation report on Army networks pointed out the line-of-sight shortfall with the WIN-T network, which among other issues was the basis of a recent exchange during congressional testimony between Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley and Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.) where both were critical of the systems.
In a recent tour of the Taunton, Mass., facility where General Dynamics [GD] builds WIN-T components, Bob Lennox, senior vice president of strategy and Customer Engagement at GD Mission Systems, pointed out the limited range of the networking radios but suggested the gap could be bridged with new waveforms like the Mobile User Objective Systems (MUOS) that the Marine Corps has tested for expeditionary communications.
Moran agreed that MUOS could provide connectivity between distributed dismounted soldiers at the upper network and would require essentially a software upgrade.
“You can connect a set of radios with MUOS and bring those back to a WIN-T node that’s appropriately equipped with a MUOS-capable tactical radio and … relatively easily interface into the broader infrastructure,” Moran said.
The software-defined networking radios and WIN-T components have open architecture interfaces that can accept new software upgrades as they are developed. As new waveforms with superior electronic warfare capabilities come online, they can be introduced to the system with little disruption.
“The software-defined nature of these radios is absolutely key,” Moran said. “These radios have the capacity, under that architecture, to take software changes either in an operating system that improves the cyber resilience of the system, or the operator interface of the system or, most importantly, can accept new waveforms that either provide new capability” or improve functionality.
Porting in new waveforms and other software upgrades could also be the answer to Milley’s main concern, which is the resilience of legacy waveforms and communication links to jamming, spoofing and detection by sophisticated enemies
Milley has been very vocal about preparing the Army for a future fight with a near-peer competitor with the ability to challenge the U.S. military in all domains. The Army cannot rely on its legacy communication systems in an environment where the enemy has sophisticated electronic warfare capabilities.
While current communication waveforms like SINCGARS – the primary voice waveform – are capable in uncontested war zones like Afghanistan, they are not sufficiently hardened against electronic attack to work reliably on a contested battlefield, Moran said.
The Army wants to upgrade SINCGARS so that it can survive in a very demanding electronic warfare environment. The service also recognizes the need to harden both the soldier radio waveform and the wideband networking waveform or replace them with a more resilient waveform, Moran said.
“The beauty of all that is the hardware platforms that are going to be delivered for the HMS, leader radio, and maneuver program are all capable of running those future waveforms,” Moran said. HMS stand for handheld, manpack, small-for-fit.