Boeing representatives point to last week’s demonstrations in Australia as a milestone in demonstrating “for the first time the ability to deliver streaming video over a mobile, ad hoc tactical network from an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) to a Chinook helicopter and ground troops.”
The network-centric demonstration took place March 16-18 at the Boeing Defence Australia Systems Analysis Laboratory in Brisbane, Australia, where personnel from Australia’s Army, Navy and Air Force viewed the new network’s capabilities on actual “flight representative” hardware.
According to Tom DuBois, Boeing Rotorcraft Systems architect and Technical Fellow for Avionics and Software, the demonstrations grew out of Boeing’s participations in the Battle Command on the Move demonstrations held at Fort Dix, New Jersey, in July 2008.
Acknowledging that these demonstrations are frequently dubbed “C2 on the Move,” DuBois clarified that “command and control is just one of the many applications that could work on this tactical communications network. My key message is that these ‘net ready’ technologies are available today.
They may not address 100 percent of the U.S. Government’s Global Information Grid (GIG) requirements but they are good enough to get out there; they are good enough to put into the field; warfighters can use it for advantage in fighting their wars’; this stuff is near term; and we are proving it.”
Part of the demonstration included the integration of this new networking capability onto existing platforms.
“We can provide an add-on kit,” he said. “In fact, we actually brought what that kit that would be in the back of the Chinook would look like, displays and all. We also brought the device that would go into the UAV. In our case we picked the Scan Eagle UAV because it was in the Australian Defence Forces inventory, and we packaged a radio down to about 3 lbs, where it fits as a cylinder. And then we had another station that could be in a Tactical Operations Center to see the ‘God’s Eye View’ of everything that is going on across the mission, since everybody would be basically networked together.”
Although a Scan Eagle was not flown for the demo itself, video was taken from a Scan Eagle flight at China Lake. That video file was placed on a laptop computer with the computer output going to the radio package, which then posted it to the network.
“We also had ground troops hooked in, represented by multiple laptops that we had in the laboratory there. And we also had some handheld units. So we basically demonstrated how a UAV would post its video to the network and how a ground troop could pick up that video on their handheld display. And the same kind of information would be shown in the back of the Chinook,” DuBois said.
The “backbone” of the network was a Harris “Sea Lancet” radio, which provided a minimum of 10 megabits per second.
“That was great, DuBois added, because that supported up to four video streams simultaneously.”
The Future Combat Systems SOSCOE [System of Systems Common Operating Environment] provided the ‘middleware’ for the demonstration architecture.
He continued, “One of my other points is that we are really showing a tactical communications network here. This is not ‘point to point’ data links. Right now, if you were a customer and you wanted to get your UAV to talk to your helicopter or ground troops, you have to buy a special point-to-point datalink system to do that. We found a way where you don’t have to do that, which is the beauty of this whole system. It’s a true network. It’s not just a point-to-point datalink like a TCDL or something like that. Basically anybody on the network can post information for anybody else to pick up.”
Asked about comparisons to the U.S. VUIT-2 system now deployed in theater, DuBois responded, “Right now that VUIT-2 services Apache and the UAV quite nicely, I would imagine. But it doesn’t put anything on the network. There’s no real network there.
Who else is about to tie into it? Who else can see what that video has on it? Only the people in that Apache. If we get the need to use a VUIT-2 we could look at interfacing to it. But my answer would be, ‘Use our network instead.’ It takes the UAV video; posts it to the network; gives you everything that VUIT-2 does, with a network.”
One of the “issues” raised by the networking capability involves the expansion of “Level IV” UAV control to the ground forces.
“By virtue of this system you can do that,” he said. “Now we ran into an operational issue with the Australians. They did not want to relinquish [UAV] control to just anybody. They wanted to make sure that control was with whoever had control of the UAV and was putting in the waypoints for it.
We actually had to turn that feature off…That information is done through what is called metadata. And the metadata we can send to a UAV has the GPS coordinates as well as the command and control for what the aircraft goes and where you want to point the sensor. So we can do all those things from anybody on the network, because everybody can send that same metadata anywhere.”
He added, “If you do this, someone can say, ‘Hey, you on the ground, I’m going to let you take over this UAV and point it to where you want. Go take it. It’s yours.’ And he can just put in the waypoint commands and where he wants to point the sensor. If he’s on the network he can do it.”
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