Today’s threat scenarios require battle-proven, highly reliable systems such as multi-band, secure anti-jam voice, data imagery transmission, and network-capable communications. (Illustration courtesy of BAE Systems)
Key communications requirements from the Defense Department include resilience in contested radio frequency environments, distributed connectivity across platforms and domains, enhanced security, and rapid upgradability. BAE Systems has demonstrated novel capabilities in these areas to include a software-based waveform for land-to-space communications and sharing of electronic warfare data across tactical datalinks.
Breaking Defense talked with Amber Dolan, product line director for Adaptive Communications and Sensing at BAE Systems, about the challenges and complexities of fielding new capabilities on existing platforms and across multiple domains.
Breaking Defense: What are the threat scenarios that necessitate next-generation communications for terrestrial and space applications?
Amber Dolan is product line director for Adaptive Communications and Sensing at BAE Systems.
Amber Dolan: The threats continue to become more capable, and they’re spread out over broader geographies and reach longer distances. They have expanded from physical threats into aspects that attempt to disrupt our ability to communicate.
Warfighters need to stay connected and share a significant amount of critical information in real time across different types of networks and multiple domains.
When I say domains, I mean two things. The physical domains: sea, land, air, space, and cyber. And security domains: sharing data in such a way that they can securely pass and receive information even in contested and congested environments.
These scenarios require battle-proven, highly reliable systems such as multi-band, secure anti-jam voice, data imagery transmission, and network-capable communications.
What is the demand signal from the DoD in this respect? What are they asking for?
Summing it up into themes: resilience, distributed, secure, and rapidly upgradable.
Resilience is the ability to adapt and stay connected to provide persistent communications in harsh conditions. One example of adding resilience is integrating anti-jam capabilities into the systems.
Regarding distributed, the DoD is looking for solutions for multi-domain operations and the ability to connect across heterogeneous platforms and different physical domains.
There is a continued emphasis on crypto modernization and enhancing our secure communications – protecting our data from adversaries. Our customers depend on our products to be their eyes and ears.
This goes along with the theme of upgradable.
Our systems need to be able to adapt to the evolving threats and rapidly incorporate software and firmware updates, preferably in the field. With your iPhone, for example, you want to update your operating system in real time as soon as an upgrade is available. You don’t want to send it back to the store every time there is a change or a new feature.
The DoD is also looking for multi-functionality within a software-defined radio that can be reconfigured within a mission or over its lifecycle. Any time we can upgrade a capability or integrate a new one in the field versus having to send a system back – if it’s a software-firmware only update rather than requiring a change of hardware – it’s much more efficient and lower cost.
That’s what customers are looking for in our software-defined radio and comms solutions – flexibility, cost, speed, and interoperability.
Describe the work you’re doing on new solutions with small form factor and multi-function capabilities. How are you demonstrating some of these?
Small form factor has a key role in the DoD’s kill chain strategy and their affordable mass goals, and we leverage our software-defined radio designs to be a key enabler here, getting mission-critical information to the warfighter faster.
One example of this is our small-form-factor FireNet radio which supports full Link 16 connectivity. It’s a scaled down version of our legacy Link 16 radios and leverages common hardware from our prior radios. This allows us to integrate some of our proven, advanced features from those systems onto FireNet. An open architecture allows for future upgrades, as well, and FireNet also addresses critical SWaP-C demands that we’re seeing on current and future platforms.
We recently completed a demonstration in our System Integration Lab sharing EW information over Link 16. This customized mission technology can be used on a smaller UAS-type platform. This highlighted our multi-function capability – integrating it in a scalable multi-function processor and distributing that information over one of our legacy datalinks.
BAE Systems is also demonstrating the latest state-of-the-art software-based waveforms capable of communicating from land to space and back. The significance of this is increased resiliency for the warfighter. Many of our waveforms are developed with a combination of software, firmware, and hardware. Since this is a software-only based waveform, configured and developed quite rapidly, we’ve been able to integrate and test it quickly to meet mission needs.
What are the challenges associated with accomplishing what you’ve described?
If you think about developing and integrating new capabilities on a platform, it’s not about just providing products that can meet a mission. You’ve also got to think about the requirements of that platform. What kind of apertures are available on the platform? What does the lifecycle sustainment look like? Can I easily provide upgrades and sustain it and adapt it for future missions, environments, or needs?
Regarding the warfighter mission, we want to be able to distribute our solutions on as many platforms as possible. The affordability piece of that is key. For the smaller, unmanned platforms, we can put many more of those into operation and get that capability dispersed that much more efficiently. We’ve got to have systems that are scalable and can fit on smaller, distributed platforms.
Another area is the need to get upgraded performance out there and installed on platforms at the pace requested by our warfighters. There’s a long effort after development to get it qualified, fielded, and integrated on a platform.
We have a significant install base and have delivered over 100,000 radio systems globally for the U.S. and coalition forces. Our focus is to leverage that existing footprint to make updates to provide additional capabilities versus introducing new systems.
An example of that is the Link 16 waveform I’ve mentioned that’s already widely fielded and used broadly on many different platforms. We’re making enhancements to that particular waveform, providing new features with software and firmware versus introducing brand new hardware, or a new waveform that needs new apertures and takes decades to get developed and fielded.
Describe the BAE Systems technology that is part of these modernization efforts.
The work we’re doing involves upgrades to tactical datalinks, and multifunction capabilities that are fusing comms, electronic warfare, and signals intelligence, and allowing for rapid fielding, lifecycle extension, and accelerating the kill chain.
Comms is a critical element of that, and some of the systems that we are modernizing include our MIDS JTRS (Multifunctional Information Distribution System – Joint Tactical Radio System) radios. They provide common communication across multiple platforms and can provide secure gateways through contested scenarios.
We’re also developing software-defined radios for the AHFRM (Airborne High Frequency Radio Modernization) program, which provides a secure alternative for satellite communications.
Our Network Tactical Common Data Links support situational awareness and multiple simultaneous networked operations.
We also have our ARC family of radios. The AN/ARC-231A radios mainly for rotary platforms enable sharing of mission-critical information with the latest secure waveform, which can be tailored per mission. The ARC-232A radio provides the SATURN waveform for the Republic of Korea. SATURN is the Second-generation Anti-jam Tactical UHF Radio for NATO.
Tell us about your radiation-hardened solutions and how those techniques can help bring new capabilities to space communications.
BAE Systems has been providing radiation-hardened electronics for more than 50 years for civil, commercial, and national-security space missions. More recently, customers have been seeking rad-tolerant solutions for low-Earth orbit.
To meet the customer need, we have adapted technologies and processes with size, weight, power, and cost at the forefront. This allows the technology developed for rad-hard applications to be used and applied to lower-cost, rad-tolerant capabilities. Compared to rad-hardened, this eases requirements on the type of hardware that you need and the environment that it needs to be able to work in.
Our objective is to provide solutions that can provide multi-band global communications access, and persistent encrypted connectivity for our warfighters.
