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ESC team looks to improve AWACS capabilities

  • Published
  • By Patty Welsh
  • 66th Air Base Group Public Affairs
HANSCOM AFB, MASS --  A team at the Electronic Systems Center, working in conjunction with the Boeing Co. and personnel from several Air Force, Air Force Reserve and Army bases, is working to get important warfighter-requested capabilities onto the AWACS platform.

During a proof-of-concept demonstration at Tinker AFB, Okla., the AWACS Netcentric-Communications Capabilities team demonstrated three different components that would improve the capabilities of a current AWACS Block 30/35. All three are on the operational AWACS user's detailed Requirement Priority List.

Getting linked

The first was a Situation Awareness Data Link (SADL). Crews on AWACS have long requested the capability to have onboard connectivity with Air National Guard F-16's, A-10's and other close air support aircraft, including Army aircraft. Currently, this interoperability is only possible through an external ground node "gateway" and voice communications.

"The E-3 uses Link 16, which is not available on the A-10's and ANG F-16's, and therefore they can't see the AWACS air picture nor participate in Link 16 communications directly," said Jonathan Lee, AWACS project lead engineer. "SADL lets us use the E-3 as an opportunistic aerial gateway, to augment other fielded gateways and allow us to provide direct communication and send the air picture."

Lt. Col. Curtis "Easy" Andersen, an AWACS mission crew commander from the 970th Airborne Air Control Squadron, was impressed with the capability.

"The SADL gateway provides AWACS with the ability to digitize the kill chain with F-16C+ and A-10's, so they can get bombs on target in less time," he said.

As the AWACS is often the first aircraft to perform surveillance in a forward area of operations, Ed Sherman, AWACS Netcentric-Communications Capabilities lead, commented about how stretched lines of communications can get and how SADL, combined with Link 16 and satellite communications, dramatically improves situational awareness.

"It's almost like that old phone commercial, 'Can you hear me now?'" he said. "This enables us to reach out and touch the other platforms that we couldn't do directly before, and with reach-back."

And according to Lt. Col Anthony Elavsky, AWACS requirements chief at Air Combat Command, their customers want to get their hands on the capability.

"Our customers call SADL a potential game changer at an amazingly affordable cost," he said. "The AWACS program office did amazing work completing the SADL demo on the E-3. SADL significantly expands the warfighters the E-3 is able to support, to include Air National Guard aircraft, Air Force rescue assets, and Joint Forces not equipped with Link 16. SADL improves the communications with those forces, including the passing of critical time-sensitive information to compress the kill chain."

Seeing beyond and staying connected

Another capability the ESC team worked to accomplish was a Beyond-Line-of-Sight (BLOS) Link 16. According to the priority list, AWACS is often beyond line of sight of the communications range of Link 16 while working with a Combined Air and Space Operations Center. Also, line of sight is affected by terrain and communication distance to friendly forces.

Using the Joint Range Extension Application Protocol Appendix C , or JREAP-C, and leveraging an Iridium satellite cell phone that was installed recently on the AWACS for secure "chat" capability, the team was able to send Link 16 information beyond line of sight. "Once the infrastructure was in place, this was a pretty simple addition," said Peter Kuhl, MITRE chief engineer. "We made some modifications to the Link 16 interfaces, added a laptop host for the software and, using the EPLRS radio and Iridium to communicate even if the AWACS is out of line of sight, the personnel are able to let the AOC know what they are seeing."

The third capability the team looked at was improving the way the Joint Tactical Information Distribution System, JTIDS, is loaded or initialized while in-flight, without shutting the system down.

"Currently, the user has to shut down to change the network load," said Mr. Lee. "It can be very disruptive to have to shut down the main data link, and if it comes back up life is good, but if it doesn't, then you have a problem."

Previous projects provide inspiration

Looking at what already exists and if those items could be used in a new way to accomplish the capabilities was key to the work.

"For all three areas, we looked at synergy," said Mr. Sherman. "We basically started with the requirements priority list, going through it to see what we might be able to accomplish; who's going to use it, who's flying, and if there's a new and improved way we might be able to communicate."

Although the team started with SADL, once they began looking at what else they could accomplish, in addition to looking at additional ESC program offices, they worked and partnered with personnel at the Centralized Software Support Activity at Robins Air Force Base, Ga., who modified JTIDS software code and adapted the Roll-On BLOS Enhancement (ROBE) gateway manager software and the Diagnostic Support Tool software.

"We don't have to invent something from scratch to get a new capability," said Mr. Sherman. "The team was able to pull together the right combination to make it work, providing cost-effective solutions in this day and age of budget cuts."

And the capabilities extend beyond just the active duty Air Force. According to Mr. Sherman, in addition to the work with the various services, the capabilities may also be used for Homeland Security/Defense-type missions. There has also been international interest.

During the proof-of-concept demonstration, it was shown that all capabilities were working as anticipated. The AWACS 30/35 aircraft was able to provide a bridge for Link 16 communication to other aircraft participating, such as A-10's, F-16C+'s, E-8 Joint STARS, and also an Army Patriot battery. The crew was able to share air pictures and command messages between the aircraft and provide BLOS information back to the C2 Enterprise Integration Facility at Hanscom. Also, they were able to change Link 16 network from the Air Force to Army network without shutting down the system during air refueling operations. The demonstration participants were excited about the results.

"This allows us to give the users three new important capabilities that can be brought onto the aircraft with a minimal set of equipment," said Mr. Lee. "A lot of kudos go out to the team who were able to think outside the box, identify technology synergies and package them all in a way that made it possible to introduce these capabilities to the users near term and in a cost-effective way... The users were quite satisfied and they're hungry for more."