The Marine Corps plans to field a lighter, smaller version of the
Army’s new airborne command post. A suite of digital radios
and computers would be installed on Huey helicopters to replace
outdated Vietnam-era consoles.
A prototype of the system—called the improved airborne command
and control capability (IAC3)—recently passed a critical design
review and continues to be tested at the Naval Research Laboratory,
in Washington, D.C. The NRL was the original designer of the Army’s
helicopter-based command post, called the A2C2S (Army airborne command
and control system). The host platform for the A2C2S is the UH-60L
Blackhawk.
The Marines, however, were not interested in the A2C2S, because
that system requires a dedicated helicopter platform to serve in
that role. Instead, the Marines wanted a removable bolt-in kit that
could be installed by Marine mechanics on any Huey, right on the
flight line. With a small inventory of Hueys (about 107), the Corps
is reluctant to assign any of them as dedicated airborne command
posts, officials said.
The weight of the A2C2S also was a problem, at about 1,500 pounds.
The Marine IAC3 is expected to weigh 250 pounds.
The command-and-control console currently in the Huey, the ASC-26,
was designed 30 years ago. It only provides line-of-sight voice
communications, so aircrews have to rely on maps and other devices
to navigate and obtain battlefield intelligence. According to an
internal Marine Corps memo, the “ASC-26 is unreliable, cumbersome,
and not compatible with the current generation of frequency-hopping
tactical radios. It has no provisions for receiving or transmitting
digital data.”
Lt. Col. Lloyd Wright, coordinator of Marine Corps aviation programs,
is a Huey pilot and knows first-hand how limiting it can be to fly
missions when the only means of communication is a single-frequency
voice radio.
Wright said he believes that the IAC3 is ideally suited for Marine
missions. “We want to upgrade our aviation command-and-control
capabilities,” he told National Defense. In addition to over-the-horizon
communications and high-speed data links, IAC3 will have a tactical
display, so aircrews can locate and track friendly forces on the
ground. “This gives the commander a mobile command and control
platform,” Wright said. “The mission would not be disrupted
by the absence of information.”
What makes this program attractive, he added, is that much of the
technology already had been developed at NRL for the A2C2S. “The
timing was right,” said Wright. “We had the opportunity,
through NRL, to leverage off the common architecture components
[of the Army system] to give us a similar capability.”
“The basic building blocks developed for the Army are the
same pieces being applied to the Marine Corps’ system,”
said C. Chris Herndon, head of tactical technology development at
NRL. The lab had been involved in the A2C2S program for several
years and built the first two prototypes. The Army awarded a $110
million contract to Raytheon Systems Co. last year for the production
of A2C2S. The service plans to buy up to 100 systems.
The IAC3 prototype was put together in nine weeks, Herndon said
in an interview. But the system will not be fielded for several
more years, because the Marines still are “refining”
the requirements, while NRL continues the research and development
work, Wright said. Operational testing could begin in 2004.
Unlike the A2C2S, the Marine system has a digital software-programmable
radio that NRL designed, also for the Army’s airborne command
post. The current A2C2S operates existing tactical radio frequencies,
such as SINCGARs and Have Quick, but does not have the NRL radio,
called JCIT. The Joint Combat Information Terminal employs an open-system
hardware and software architecture. It is essentially a precursor
to the Joint Tactical Radio System, currently in development for
all U.S. military services.
The Marine Corps decided to use JCIT in the IAC3, in order to make
it easier to upgrade the system when JTRS is deployed, later this
decade, said Herndon. “When the JTRS production radios become
available, we will have already done the homework.”
For IAC3 to work, it needs the JTRS software-programmable radio,
stressed Herndon. “A lot of the requirements in this program
are tied to JTRS, which is a program we don’t control. That
is obviously a risk.”
NRL officials have dubbed the JCIT radio “JTRS pathfinder,”
because they view it as an interim solution, until JTRS is developed.
Herndon, however, cautioned that the first batch of JTRS radios,
called Cluster 1, are largely tailored to Army aviation and ground
vehicles, so they may or may not fulfill every Marine requirement
for the IAC3. “My concern is that the Marines’ share
of the JTRS radio Cluster 1 is small enough that they will not be
able to directly influence things that may be needed” for
the IAC3 program, said Herndon. “If there are any Marine-unique
requirements that come out of our pathfinder activities, I’m
not sure the Marines will have enough leverage to directly influence
the Cluster 1 radio.”
JCIT is not officially participating in the JTRS program, even
though NRL often exchanges information with the JTRS project office,
noted John C. Moniz, program officer at NRL. But he acknowledged
that JCIT has not been fully developed. “I believe that the
JTRS will meet the Marine requirements pretty darn well,”
he said. “It’s just a good engineering practice to worry
about the ‘what-ifs.’
“To their credit, the Marines are thinking ahead,”
said Moniz. They want to make sure that the IAC3 can be successfully
integrated with a JTRS-like radio, before JTRS is even fielded.
Upcoming Exercise
In addition to the IAC3 prototype being tested at NRL, another suite
is being assembled, in preparation for flight tests scheduled for
this summer—during the so-called Millennium Challenge exercise,
sponsored by the Joint Forces Command. The exercise will help the
Marines flesh out the tactics and procedures for the employment
of IAC3, said Maj. Richard Hardin, project officer at the Marine
Corps Warfighting Laboratory, in Quantico, Va. The exercises will
aim to show how the IAC3 improves a commander’s “operational
tempo and ability to command and control his forces,” said
Hardin.
Before the exercise, the Naval Air Systems Command must certify
that the IAC3-equipped Huey is flight-worthy. Navair engineers are
building a mounting plate for the helicopter, so it can support
the additional weight.
The antennae are mounted on the skids, explained Bernard Coski,
NRL’s program manager for IAC3. They include two VHF (very
high frequency) Whip antennae, a UHF (ultra high frequency) blade
antenna, a GPS (Global Positioning System) antenna, a 802.11 antenna
and a SATCOM (satellite communications) antenna.
The IAC3 does not require additional power generators. It draws
the required power from the aircraft.
The computers in the current IAC3 prototype are laptops, but the
next system will have them embedded into a rack. There are five
radio waveforms programmed in the JCIT, but that can be changed
via software, Coski noted. There is also an external PSC-5 software-programmable
radio, for non-line-of-sight voice and data communications over
a satellite link. One of the radios will be an intelligence receiver,
performing similar functions as the Joint Tactical Terminal.
If the integration with the Huey aircraft goes well, the Marines
may consider incorporating the IAC3 into other helicopters or the
Osprey tilt-rotor.
The technology easily can be adapted for ground vehicles, Herndon
said. His office recently installed the IAC3 architecture in a Light
Armored Vehicle. The same could be done in a Humvee truck, he said.
The LAV prototype at NRL is the command variant, which has a distinctive
“top hat.” The vehicle was set up with the same components
used in IAC3, “but we have more space in the LAV,” Herndon
said. That means it can accommodate a crew of five, versus only
three in the Huey.
“We can do high-speed satellite link in the ground vehicle
while in motion, but not in the helo, because of the antenna limitations
in the aircraft,” he said. The LAV system has a multiprocessor
unit—made up of several computer boards—that is exactly
the same as the one used in the Army A2C2S, except for the case.