"These tests mark an important step toward the goal of spinning out networked equipment sets to the Brigade Combat Teams," said Lieutenant Colonel John Matthews who is overseeing the integration and validation of tests, "The ability to transmit vital situational awareness data over the network will be key to how these brigades will fight, and the recently completed first series of TFT events assisted Army engineers in gathering technical details of how that will happen."
Data gathered from the early TFT events will factor into network and product development improvements as the network and equipment move to the next level of evaluations. "These capabilities are in a continual state of testing and evaluation, which will cumulate in late summer with the Limited User Test (LUT)," Matthews said. A successful LUT will help inform a production decision in early FY 2010.
Recently, Soldiers of the AETF, a special unit set up to test the Modernization equipment, participated in various stages of the TFT. "Until recently it has largely been the engineers who had the interaction with the assets and the network," Matthews said. "This marks the first time in this test series that Soldiers were outfitted and tasked with passing data through the network in a field environment."
Test cases in the TFT included passing target and image data taken from networked equipment transitioned from the Future Combat Systems program to the new Army Brigade Combat Team Modernization plan. The equipment includes the Small Unmanned Ground Vehicle (SUGV), the Class 1, Block 0 Unmanned Air System (UAS), Unmanned Tactical and Ground Sensors (T-UGS and U-UGS) and the Non-Line of Sight Launch System (NLOS-LS).
Images and data from these assets were captured and sent in real time to a High-Mobility Multi-Purpose Wheeled Vehicle (HMMWV) containing a Network Integration Kit, a key component to ensuring battlefield sensor and target acquisition data can be transmitted across the Brigade Combat Team. These networked HMMWVs contain an Integrated Computer System consisting of multiband antennas, a ground mobile radio suite from the Joint Tactical Radio System family, Wideband Networking and Soldier Radio Waveforms. The waveforms allow for secure image transfer to the onboard integrated computer system.
Notable in this configuration is that the integrated computer works with the current force battle command software equipment and can pass up to higher echelons from there in real time providing ground and air situational awareness to those who need it. "We are rapidly integrating this technology with the network to provide Soldiers down to the platoon level with the kind of important battlefield situational awareness that is needed in such complex operating environments as Afghanistan," Lieutenant Colonel Matthews said.