• Military Menu                       

• Introduction
• Systems
• Facilities
• Agencies
• Industry
• Operations
• Countries
• Hot Documents
• News
• Reports
• Policy
• Budget
• Congress
• Links

• WMD
• Intelligence
• Homeland Security
• Space

Battle command network to be tested at WSMR

Apr 14, 2010

By Drew Hamilton, WSMR, N.M.

WHITE SANDS MISSILE RANGE, N.M., April 14, 2010 -- Members of the Program Executive Office for Integration and the Future Force Integration Directorate are preparing for an extensive test mission on White Sands Missile Range and Fort Bliss that will see the use of new tactical and communications equipment.

The Limited User Test for the 2010 fiscal year, scheduled to begin this September, will see the extensive field testing of pieces of emerging technologies, including an advanced battle command network that will allow Soldiers and commanders to better share information and tactical data like never before. While this test will include some systems that have been tested on WSMR before, including the Class-1 Unmanned Aerial System and the Small Unmanned Ground Vehicle, LUT FY10 will be a larger scale test and incorporate new versions and sets of equipment.

In the previous LUT held in 2009 the test was conducted in a relatively small area on McGregor Range just south of WSMR and encompassing about a company sized unit of Soldiers. LUT FY10 takes the test to the Battalion level, increasing the number of Soldiers and the area of operations dramatically. Changing the unit scale also means the addition of new systems into the test, such as Battalion level assets like the Shadow UAV and the incorporation of other new systems and vehicles. "In a nutshell this is a completely different test," said Paul Mehney, director of communications for PEO-I.

Mehney explained that LUT FY09 was more of a proof of concept test to show that the systems worked, while LUT FY10 will be one of the last series of tests that will ultimately help the Army decide what systems to adopt. "Now that we've proved the concept, we're invested in product improvement and enhancement of the material development side. The upcoming test cycle at WSMR will play a key role in determining how these enhancements will perform in an operationally relevant environment," Mehney said.

Part of the current technical preparations for the test is the addition of Network Integration Kits to a number of Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles, armored trucks designed to protect the occupants from explosives and IED attacks. The NIK is a set of communication systems that can form a dynamic wireless network to each other, as well as with smaller communication packages carried by Soldiers, mounted on smaller units, like the unmanned ground sensors.

During LUT FY09, which focused more on proving the technical feasibility of the network, up-armored Humvees outfitted with early production models of the NIK were used. Changing to MRAPs is not expected to have any serious effect on the test, as part of the goal of the NIK is to have a system that can be fitted to a wide range of tactical vehicles. "The evaluation of the NIK is supposed to be platform agnostic, it doesn't matter what we mount it on," said FFID Commander Maj. Gen. Keith Walker.

The NIK represents one of the key systems that will be tested, the battle command network itself. Using the Joint Tactical Radio System, and software tested at the White Sands Common Control Node, vehicles equipped with a NIK will be able to form a wireless network that will allow Soldiers to share tactical data to include everything from unit position and identification to specific image and video links.

While LUT FY09 tested a preproduction model of the JTRS radio system and battle command software, LUT FY10 will test production models. It will provide enhanced bandwidth and ranges and also include network security features not present in the previous test.

To better represent modern battlefield conditions, the testing area has been expanded and new facilitates are being built to provide the Soldiers conducting the test with a wide range of environments. The mountain village test area is being built north of Highway 70 to provide testers with a location that has rugged terrain similar to that found in Afghanistan. In addition to providing an area that resembles a current theater of operations, the mountain village area will also allow for the testing of the communications equipment in terrain that blocks line of sight, a condition that traditionally puts stress on communications systems. Add in the planned use of existing and formerly unused facilities like WSMRs former range control center, the 500k test site, Adobe Village on Fort Bliss, and LUT FY10's overall operating area will be about 30km across, a distance that is expected to push the limits of the communications network.

Meeting the range requirements of the radios is something that test officials are optimistic about. Jerry Tyree, director of PEO Integration's WSMR Operations at the Network Synchronization Center, said that a preliminary test run during technical checks resulted in a usable network connection between two NIK equipped vehicles about 30 km apart, well beyond the required 10 km range. "The requirement is 10, but to reach beyond that is a real achievement," said Maj. David Jimenez, of Joint Program Office JTRS. Tyree noted that this was only a preliminary check and not part of any official test, and while it's an encouraging sign, there are still many field tests left to run.