The Battlefield Airborne Communications Node (BACN) is an airborne communications relay

Repeater

A repeater is an electronic device that receives asignal and retransmits it at a higher level and/or higher power, or onto the other side of an obstruction, so that the signal can cover longer distances.-Description:...

 and gateway

Gateway (telecommunications)

In telecommunications, the term gateway has the following meaning:*In a communications network, a network node equipped for interfacing with another network that uses different protocols....

 system hosted on a variety of aircraft that provides flexible radio connectivity across the battlespace for airborne and surface operators. BACN enables real-time

Real-time computing

In computer science, real-time computing , or reactive computing, is the study of hardware and software systems that are subject to a "real-time constraint"— e.g. operational deadlines from event to system response. Real-time programs must guarantee response within strict time constraints...

 information flow between similar and dissimilar tactical data link and voice systems through relay, bridging, and data translation in line of sight

Line-of-sight propagation

Line-of-sight propagation refers to electro-magnetic radiation or acoustic wave propagation. Electromagnetic transmission includes light emissions traveling in a straight line...

 and beyond line of sight

Non-line-of-sight propagation

Non-line-of-sight or near-line-of-sight is a term used to describe radio transmission across a path that is partially obstructed, usually by a physical object in the innermost Fresnel zone....

 situations.


Because of its flexible deployment

Military deployment

Military deployment is the movement of armed forces and their logistical support infrastructure around the world.-United States:The United States Military defines the term as follows:...

 options and ability to operate at high altitudes, BACN can enable air and surface forces to overcome communications difficulties caused by complex mountainous terrain and range while performing as a key node for tactical networks. BACN provides decision-makers at all operational

Military operation

Military operation is the coordinated military actions of a state in response to a developing situation. These actions are designed as a military plan to resolve the situation in the state's favor. Operations may be of combat or non-combat types, and are referred to by a code name for the purpose...

 echelons with critical information and increases situational awareness by correlating tactical and operational air and ground pictures. For example, an Army unit on the ground currently sees a different picture than an aircrew, but with BACN, both can see the same picture.


On 22 February 2010, the Air Force and Northrop Grumman

Northrop Grumman

Northrop Grumman Corporation is an American global aerospace and defense technology company formed by the 1994 purchase of Grumman by Northrop. The company was the fourth-largest defense contractor in the world as of 2010, and the largest builder of naval vessels. Northrop Grumman employs over...

 BACN Team received the 2010 Network Centric Warfare Award from the Institute for Defense and Government Advancement.

Tactical data links

Individual tactical data links are just a part of the larger tactical data link network, encompassing tactical data links, common data links, and weapon data links.

BACN provides a communications relay and gateway. Flying at extremely high altitudes allows real-time information exchanges between different tactical data link systems.

An example would be an A-10 pilot communicating via BACN with special operations forces allowing them to call directly to the cockpit for targeting information in beyond line of sight range situations. This is a tremendous gain in mission effectiveness when troops are operating in mountainous, or other areas where line-of-sight is difficult or makes the mission more risky.

Background

Interoperability between airborne networking waveforms has been a persistent challenge. The solution was a 'universal translator' to move data from one network to another. The first concepts used lessons learned from ROBE, a pallet of equipment on a transport aircraft. (ROBE is Roll-On Beyond line of sight Equipment) In 2005, the USAF's AFC2ISRC and ESC

Electronic Systems Center

Electronic Systems Center is a product center of Air Force Materiel Command headquartered at Hanscom Air Force Base, Massachusetts. Its mission is to develop and acquire command and control, communications, computer, and intelligence systems. ESC consists of professional teams specializing in...

 created BACN as a technology demonstrator to provide interlink between aircraft in a single battle area. The four key principles were

• radio agnostic - it would support a variety of communication protocols
• platform agnostic - BACN could be mounted on a variety of aircraft
• un-tethered - unlike previous repeaters, which were hung from floating areostats, BACN has the ability to move within the battlespace
• Knowledge-based intelligence - the ability to sense waveform characteristics of sender and receiver and automatically route traffic

BACN was successfully demonstrated in Joint Expeditionary Force eXperiment (JEFX) 2006 and JEFX 2008 and selected for field deployment.

Joint support

Getting critical air support to troops in contact with the enemy supports our troops on the ground, as well as in the air.

This project is not just limited to combat operations. We provided the World Food convoy commander with “comms-on-the-move.” This capability allows convoys to stay in continuous contact with air support and around command channels in the complex, adverse terrain, mitigating exposure to attacks- they no longer needed to halt to establish communications.

Platforms

The BACN prototype was originally developed and tested in 2005 - 2008 on the NASA WB-57

B-57 Canberra

The Martin B-57 Canberra was a United States-built, twin jet engine light bomber and reconnaissance aircraft, which entered service with the United States Air Force in 1953. The B-57 was initially a version of the English Electric Canberra built under license. However, the Glenn L...

 high altitude test aircraft during Joint Expeditionary Force Experiments and other experimentation venues.

BACN was deployed on a test platform Bombardier BD-700 and operationally designated E-11A . The BD-700 was selected due to its high altitude, flight duration. These flight characteristics are critical in providing unified datalink and voice networks in the mountainous terrain encountered in the current theater of operations. Additional E-11As have been deployed to increase availability and flexibility.

BACN payloads have also been developed, installed, and operated on special variant EQ-4B Global Hawk aircraft to provide unmanned long endurance high altitude communications coverage. The combination of BACN payloads on E-11A and EQ-4 aircraft gives planners and operators flexibility to adapt to mission needs and increase coverage in the battlespace to near 24/7 operations.

Northrop Grumman is also developing BACN pods that can be temporarily mounted to various other aircraft.

Other High Altitude Long Endurance (HALE)

Unmanned aerial vehicle

An unmanned aerial vehicle , also known as a unmanned aircraft system , remotely piloted aircraft or unmanned aircraft, is a machine which functions either by the remote control of a navigator or pilot or autonomously, that is, as a self-directing entity...

 platforms are also being considered for use with BACN.

Problems emerge

The QDR's effects on the DoD were widespread. In retrospect, the performance of the Armed Services in Enduring and Iraqi Freedom tend to prove that the QDR got it right. The rapid liquidation of the Taliban and Iraqi forces during Blitzkrieg like advances shows that though significantly leaner than the force that fought in Desert Storm, the American military still retains a decisive and lethal force. However, it is now clear that the services need to re-think their approach to net centric warfare and command, control, communications for the future. This will likely include any necessary changes to force structure to support the full spectrum of operations expected. The September 11 Terrorist Attacks, the Katrina Hurricane disaster, and the ongoing counter insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan show where many communications seams exist both in the DoD and in other governmental functions to include intelligence, law enforcement, and emergency response. This became apparent soon after the September 11, 2001, attacks

September 11, 2001 attacks

The September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks (also referred to as September 11, September 11th or 9/119/11 is pronounced "nine eleven". The slash is not part of the pronunciation...

, when President Bush became irritated with Air Force One

Air Force One

Air Force One is the official air traffic control call sign of any United States Air Force aircraft carrying the President of the United States. In common parlance the term refers to those Air Force aircraft whose primary mission is to transport the president; however, any U.S. Air Force aircraft...

's inability to provide a live video feed to news organizations in the hours after the hijackings and subsequent tragic events.

BACN as a concept

BACN has been a controversial program within the DoD. This is caused by a number of issues including the personality clashes between the service people who conceived the project back in late 2004 and the traditional acquisition bureaucracy. This was particularly true between requirements developers at the former Air Force Command and Control Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance Center at Langley AFB, Virginia and their acquisition partners at the Electronic Systems Center (ESC) at Hanscom AFB, Massachusetts, part of Air Force Materiel Command

Air Force Materiel Command

Air Force Materiel Command is a major command of the United States Air Force. AFMC was created July 1, 1992 through the reorganization of Air Force Logistics Command and Air Force Systems Command....

.

BACN divides military planners and acquisition bureaucrats on two main fronts. First, how will an "Airborne Network" evolve beyond the existing tactical data links on today's platforms. Second, the BACN effort presupposes that the capability will initially be "outsourced" to commercial companies that will provide an "airborne network" as a service to the DOD for the foreseeable future.

The evolution of airborne networking

Airborne Networking

An Airborne Network is defined to be the infrastructure that provides communication transport services through at least one node that is on a platform capable of flight.-Definition:...

With few exceptions, today's military aircraft, in any service, are not networked. While many platforms have implemented tactical data links that allow some measure of collaboration between flights of aircraft, very little information is passed between command and control elements and attack aircraft at the tactical edge. Since 2001, the DoD has made significant progress in "linking" platforms together. This would include some degree of cross service interoperability but within common groupings like ground attack aircraft and fighters. USAF F-15s and US Navy F/A-18s can link together using Link 16

Link 16

Link 16 is a military tactical data exchange network created and used by the United States and adopted by some of its Allies and by NATO. Its specification is part of the family of Tactical Data Links....

 and share some limited information between flights like target data, fuel and weapons status. On the other hand, USAF bombers like the B-52 and B-1 are not equipped with data links and cannot interoperate with either F-15s and F/A-18s. Furthermore, half the USAF fighter force based in the Air National Guard (ANG)

Air National Guard

The Air National Guard , often referred to as the Air Guard, is the air force militia organized by each of the fifty U.S. states, the commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the territories of Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the District of Columbia of the United States. Established under Title 10 and...

 are equipped with Situational Awareness Data Link (SADL) gear that cannot interoperate with Link 16 unless there is a "gateway" which has radios for both data links, and a computer system that can interconnect them and translate the data. While the deployment of data links to fighter aircraft has aided flights of aircraft to coordinate their attacks locally, these systems are constrained by line of sight and cannot reach command and control centers that are often hundreds, if not thousands, of miles distant from where the fighting is taking place. While the USAF has taken the lead to field "gateways" that can handle both connecting dissimilar links and relaying data over satellite back and forth to connect command and control to the tactical

Engagement (military)

A military engagement is a combat between two forces, neither larger than a division and not smaller than a company, in which each has an assigned or perceived mission...

 edge, the platform that carries the gateway is more often than not dedicated to another mission (like air refueling) that consumes limited resources and sub-optimizes some other critical theater activity.

There are unfortunately bigger problems with linking aircraft together with data links. While ground attack aircraft are increasing linked, they cannot interoperate with attack helicopters or ground forces with any service. In an age where there is zero tolerance for even a single "friendly fire"

Friendly fire

Friendly fire is inadvertent firing towards one's own or otherwise friendly forces while attempting to engage enemy forces, particularly where this results in injury or death. A death resulting from a negligent discharge is not considered friendly fire...

 death, attack aircraft from either the Navy or the Air Force use the same sensors to prevent fratricide that were used World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

 -- their eyeballs.

Late in the last decade of the Twentieth Century, defense planners began to think beyond simply "linking" forces to "networking" them and fundamentally changing the information model at the tactical edge from one that required a priori knowledge of required information to employ forces, or "push" model, to one in which the information required was globally available and could be "pulled" as required by warfighters engaged in combat. This new model came to be known as "Network Centric Warfare (NCW)."

The drive towards NCW began in earnest with the arrival of the Bush Administration. Former Defense Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld

Donald Rumsfeld

Donald Henry Rumsfeld is an American politician and businessman. Rumsfeld served as the 13th Secretary of Defense from 1975 to 1977 under President Gerald Ford, and as the 21st Secretary of Defense from 2001 to 2006 under President George W. Bush. He is both the youngest and the oldest person to...

, drove a transformation of the DoD so that it would be capable of meeting the needs of the 21st century. This DoD-sanctioned technology push became the perfect incubator for pursuing a networked force. On Rumsfeld's recommendation, President Bush appointed a number of industry leaders to key positions within the DoD that brought with them their experience in the technology revolution that exploded in the 1990s.