The Army’s Network Integration Evaluation (NIE) 15.1, now under way, is primarily focused on the Follow-on Operational Test and Evaluation (FOT&E) of the Warrior Information Network–Tactical (WIN-T) Increment 2, the program executive officer for command, control communications-tactical (PEO C3T), said.
The information gathered from FOT&E will be part of the information compiled for a full-rate production decision in the spring by the Defense Department’s chief acquisition officer, Maj. Gen. Daniel Hughes said at the Association of the United States Army annual conference Oct. 14.
Photo: U.S. Army
A top Army modernization priority, WIN-T,–a General Dynamics [GD] product–is the Army’s secure communications backbone network. WIN-T Increment 2 delivers secure command on the move. And, for the first time, dismounted soldiers are connected to the tactical network.
“Simplicity at every step,” is the concept Hughes has been reinforcing at the same time working to make the network better.
Sandra Wheeler, vice president of tactical network systems at General Dynamics C4 Systems, said overall improvements were made for the NIE.
“One of the things we worked on was the usability,” she said. “Initially when soldiers started the vehicle up, it took just about three minutes (for the system) to get power from the vehicle. Now it’s instant on.”
Another change was that operators had to not only sign in at the initial screen similar to the Windows log in, and then log in to other functions, now there is a single log in and an automatic connection.
“All the applications (are up) within four minutes versus 10-12 minutes” previously, she said.
Improvements came from soldier feedback she characterized as “it takes too long, I can’t focus on my job.”
General Dynamics worked with vendors to reduce the time it took to load a program, and added company-developed software to eliminate mistakes and move the burden from the soldier. Now, push a button and the software does it automatically. Turn on, log in once and soldiers are ready to go.
“It makes it very easy,” Hughes said. Software works behind the scenes.
Similarly, when they shut down the laptop, soldiers had to wait 10 minutes or so for the software to shut itself down properly. Soldiers are used to jumping out of a vehicle, and turning off systems. However, that meant sometimes the software wouldn’t restart properly or had a problem. Now, it’s push a button, you’re done, she said.
“This is Gen. Hughes’ mantra of simple, simple, simple,” Wheeler said. “ It is very intuitive.”
The WIN-T Increment 2 tactical network also has significant improvements to the Soldier Network Extension (SNE). Deployed to Afghanistan in 2013, soldiers used SNE as an information hotspot bringing the network to the company level, Hughes said. Soldiers could plug in, make calls and send and receive data from anywhere during a mission.
The SNE fits on company commander’s vehicle, and allows a satellite connection. For example, if there’s a mountain between two platoons, they can connect via satellite using WIN-T SNE, Hughes said.
Hughes said there are sound reasons why systems have to be simple. Soldiers today have smart phones and know how to use them, so the Army saves training costs when it introduces new equipment with similar interactions. Soldiers are already familiar with touch screens and apps. “They never had a class in how to use their iPhones–they figured it out.”