FCC: frequenze per il campo di battaglia futuro

Leggo sulla newsletter di Gonsett Consulting che la FCC ha assegnato una licenza sperimentale "to operate in 1850-1865 MHz and 1930-1945 MHz for demonstrating a Battlefield Airborne Communications Node (BACN) for the U.S. Air Force". La piattaforma BACN non è una "radio" ma un complesso gateway, un software di integrazione di diversi sistemi di comunicazione terra-aria che prevede una componente aviotrasportata ad alta quota. Una super-cellula telefonica per il campo di battaglia. Di avionica e sistemi militari non ci capisco molto, ma ho trovato un po' di materiale sul sito d Northrop Grumman, l'azienda di sistemi elettronici e avionici che ha vinto la commessa della USAF. Non ho bisogno di dire che il software defined radio è il fondamento tecnologico di un approccio di questo tipo.

Questo è il comunicato originale sul lancio dell'iniziativa BACN:

RESTON, Va., June 22, 2005 -- Northrop Grumman Corporation has been selected by the U.S. Air Force Electronic Systems Center to develop and integrate an airborne communications relay and information server that will provide warfighters with critical battle information.
Battlefield Airborne Communications Node (BACN) will provide a bridge for linking communications among legacy radios and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance systems for U.S. Department of Defense networks.
"BACN's ability to translate and share data from all battlefield communications channels using Internet protocols will resolve interoperability problems, provide warfighters with a predictive battle-space-awareness capability and give commanders greater flexibility and faster response time in executing the theater air plan," said Barry Rhine, vice president and general manager of Northrop Grumman Mission Systems sector's Defense Mission Systems business unit.
The Northrop Grumman team won the $25.7 million, 17-month contract by integrating the technology and experience of four Northrop Grumman sectors -- Mission Systems, Space Technology, Integrated Systems and Information Technology -- and its government and industry partners. The win leverages Northrop Grumman's leadership in network-centric operations and will provide low-risk technology insertion of the Common Link Integration Processing (CLIP) and JTRS capabilities.
The Defense Microelectronics Activity awarded the contract under its Advanced Technology Support Program. The program is designed to give the government access to a broad range of technologies, capabilities and expertise it can rapidly apply to improve the operational readiness of fielded Defense Department systems.
The Northrop Grumman team will develop an aerospace-networking payload composed of Internet protocol-based radios, Gateway Manager, software-defined radios and Advanced Information Architecture (AIA(TM)), which will be managed by an airborne executive processor. Northrop Grumman developed the Gateway Manager and AIA.
During the demonstration the payload will be carried aboard a NASA WB-57 aircraft, which was selected because of its unique high-altitude flight capabilities. The experiment will assess the ability to adapt BACN capabilities to unmanned air vehicles, including Northrop Grumman's Global Hawk. The Northrop Grumman team will demonstrate BACN's capabilities during Joint Expeditionary Force Experiment '06 (JEFX) in the spring of 2006.
"The BACN demonstration during JEFX '06 will showcase the ability to provide an Internet protocol-based airborne network infrastructure," said Mike Twyman, vice president of the Mission Systems sector's Communication and Information Systems business unit. "BACN will provide digital and voice communications relay and information services to systems connected to the airborne network, and will close capability gaps in theater air planning and dynamic execution, use of Internet protocol for tactical networking, fusion of information for predictive battlespace awareness and interoperability with homeland security and homeland defense organizations."
The Northrop Grumman team includes the NASA Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas; Raytheon Solipsys, Laurel, Md.; L3 Communications, Salt Lake City; Vanu Inc., Cambridge, Mass.; Rockwell Collins, Cedar Rapids, Iowa; and ViaSat Inc., Carlsbad, Calif. Integration will be performed at Northrop Grumman Mission Systems' facility in San Diego, Calif.

E questo è invece un lungo articolo di Jane's Defence Weekly (questo il link alla versione completa) L'articolo inizia dipingendo un quadro eloquente: un futuro non lontano in cui un soldato dal campo di battaglia sarà in grado di inviare un sms al pilota di un F22. E immagino che non sarà per commentare l'ultima partita dei Mets.

Seamless airborne networks are becoming a reality thanks to bridging technology

Systems such as BACN use software to translate data between different waveforms and formats

By Stephen Trimble
Jane's Defence Weekly
January 24, 2007

By the year 2010, a US soldier on the ground should be able to use cellular phone technology to text-message a pilot flying a Lockheed Martin F-22A Raptor. Even in the age of network-centric warfare, this should come as a startling development on a number of levels. For one, the F-22A was designed to be nearly network-silent, lest a data transmission give away the stealthy fighter's electronic signature. The airframe carries for now a low-probability-of-intercept Intra-Flight Data Link (IFDL): an isolated channel that can be received only by other F-22As. Moreover, the F-22A is not due to receive a conventional datalink until some time after Fiscal Year 2008 (FY08). The US Air Force (USAF) has decided to install an IP-based, wideband networking waveform - namely, the Rockwell Collins Tactical Targeting Networking Technology (TTNT) - but the implementation strategy has not been decided. Finally, and at a broader level, a working airborne network using Internet Protocol (IP) standards was not supposed to be operational until well into the next decade. Realising that concept was supposed to require the invention of a new class of software-defined radios. Also, a new family of satellites beaming vast quantities of data through laser channels was deemed necessary. Both the Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS) and the Transformation Communications Satellite (TSAT) system remain in the early stages of development. Both have already suffered delays due to budget cutbacks and technical glitches, but continue apace. As the cellular phone-compatible F-22A example shows, however, there is a seamless, IP-based, airborne network becoming a reality even now.
The USAF has demonstrated that a different kind of technology can be exploited to establish a live IP network above the battlefield. Rather than introducing a new class of communications technology built to be inherently interoperable, the emergent network instead functions by bridging the wide mix of incompatible radio signals in use today, with an IP-based network overlaid. Embodying this capability in the immediate near term is the Northrop Grumman Battlefield Airborne Communications Node (BACN). It is not in itself a radio or a new waveform, but a bridge, or gateway, between different radios.
BACN uses software - a package called the Joint Translator Forwarder (JxF) - to translate radio signals transmitted on different frequencies and in different messaging formats or protocols. The BACN payload can receive messages from one user in any of several major waveforms, translate the messages into a different datalink format and relay the information to the intended receiver. In more concrete terms, the technology allows aircraft equipped with Link-16, such as the Boeing F-15, to communicate with, for example, a Lockheed Martin F-16C Block 30 operated by the US Air National Guard (ANG), which is on the Situational Awareness Data Link network. Today, the pilots in both aircraft can communicate with each other using the cockpit voice radio, but the idea of passing on target co-ordinates or radar tracks is not an option without the use of compatible datalinks.
By integrating receivers for signals used by different services - such as the Have-Quick and the Single-Channel Ground and Airborne Radio System (SINCGARS) - the USAF pilot of a Fairchild Republic A-10 can communicate directly with a US Army pilot flying a Boeing AH-64 Apache Longbow.
Another BACN feature is a Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) cellular base station. By circling overhead, the BACN payload can create a cellular phone network for users on the ground. Alternatively, a cellular caller on the ground can use the BACN payload to communicate with a fighter aircraft or helicopter pilot, with the cell frequency bridged into the UHF or VHF radio format. BACN also incorporates the range-extension technology for line-of-sight radio systems deployed under another Northrop Grumman payload - the Roll-on/roll-off Beyond-line-of-sight Extension (ROBE) - flying aboard a 20-aircraft sub-set of the Boeing KC-135R tanker fleet. The ROBE Spiral 2 software is being integrated into the BACN payload.
Finally, a terabyte server derived from the Northrop Grumman Airborne Information Architecture (AIA) is stored in the BACN payload. The server allows BACN to function as a forward-based intelligence centre. Users can search for imagery or data they need and download the results or upload data collected by their own sensors for access by others.
Perhaps the most significant advantage offered by BACN, however, can be found nowhere on the specification documents. In operation, the gateway system creates a network using the radio and datalinks already installed on the users' platforms. No new radio systems or waveforms need to be developed, tested and certified on the platforms using it to make the capability a reality.