ARTICLE

April 2004

Air Force Takes Lead in Net-Centric Operations

by Steve Callicutt and Larry McKee

The U.S. military services have made significant progress in networking their weapons systems and sharing battlefield data during the last 10-15 years. But more work is needed to ensure seamless information flow and to improve joint command-and-control.

The Air Force Command and Control, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Center is embarking on a campaign to deliver a capability to permit shared situational awareness.

The AFC2ISRC is the lead organization in charge of Air Force C2 and ISR integration—bringing together stovepiped systems into a C2 system of systems. This will enhance the “shared situational awareness” that war fighters have lacked in previous conflicts.

In 1991, during Operation Desert Storm, shared situational awareness in air operations required physical co-location with the Air Operations Center. The Air Force subsequently made a significant investment in integrating air operations and sharing information. This paid dividends during Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom as the Theater Battle Management Core System (TBMCS) made its wartime debut. TBMCS sought to migrate applications from a stand-lone or client-server model to a more integrated, web-enabled architecture to make data available to globally distributed users.

Among the lessons learned in recent operations is the expense associated with hard-coding applications to databases. There are hundreds of user interfaces linked to the air operations database, so even a small change in the database or associated message sets results in substantial costs as user interfaces are re-coded.

After Desert Storm, the Air Force upgraded its tactical communication systems. Yet, not all nodes are link-equipped or net-enabled.

The Air Force has plans to connect the majority of airborne nodes by 2012. These networked nodes will lay the physical foundation for shared situational awareness. Additional integration and interoperability are required to establish the standards for dynamic information exchange. Users should be able to publish and subscribe to information. This requires increased connectivity and bandwidth between network nodes such as buildings, vehicles, ships, and people.

Ensuring the data are tagged properly will allow greater flexibility in exchanging information. Providing a data services layer between applications and databases is one way to permit increased flexibility at reduced costs, thus allowing databases and applications to keep pace with operational requirements. In addition, users will have the ability to mine data selectively for the specific information they require. Information management—to include correlation and fusion—will be critical in ensuring information depth is consistent with the varying needs of users at the tactical, operational and strategic levels.

The AFC2ISRC created a Technology Transition Office to maintain awareness of innovation and experimentation efforts underway within the services and industry. This team is responsible for identifying useful network-centric capabilities and transitioning them to the users.

This summer, the AFC2ISRC Air Force Experimentation Office will conduct the 2004 Joint Expeditionary Force Experiment, or JEFX. One of the key initiatives—directed by Gen. John P. Jumper, chief of staff of the Air Force—is to connect air (F-15, AWACS) and ground (AOC, tactical controllers, Patriot) nodes. Both the Air Force and the Army are collaborating on this effort.

The exchange of data, including aircraft status, weapon load-release and fuel, will be provided to the AOC in near real-time. JEFX 2004 also will experiment with new ways to track and identify forces, and share that information. The overall intent is to identify and assess the capabilities available when operational and tactical nodes are connected in a near real-time environment.

Following JEFX 2004, the Air Force will pursue those capabilities deemed “good enough” by war fighters. JEFX lessons learned will be applied at the AFC2ISRC C2 Battle Lab and Air Force C2 Transformation Center. These two organizations will further mature network-centric and shared situational awareness capabilities in preparation for JEFX 2006. The AFC2TC also will work with the other services to integrate and test network-centric capabilities with fielded systems.

JEFX 2006 will be a large-scale experiment with a network-centric focus. Attention will continue on tactical situational awareness, including new and improved data link connectivity. The AFC2ISRC and AFEO also plan to emphasize network and information management concepts of operations.

Future forces will be networked in a way that will encompass the tactical and operational users, but the details will be transparent to both. Users will collaborate and share information in a seamless environment, to include joint and coalition forces.

Continuous experimentation is needed to achieve this vision. The AFC2ISRC is working with research institutions including the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Air Force Research Laboratory and industry. The AFC2ISRC also collaborates with the Joint Forces Command and the Army, Navy, and Marine Corps, to develop joint architectures and concepts for network-centric operations. Ultimately, an integrated, network-centric force will be the foundation for combat capabilities in the 21st century.

Steve Callicutt is the senior technical director to the commander of the Air Force C2ISR Center, Langley Air Force Base, Va. Larry McKee is a senior partner with Select Innovation LLC and currently serves as a technical analyst to the AFC2ISRC.

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