C2, TACTICAL COMMUNICATIONS, AI, CYBER, EW, CLOUD COMPUTING AND HOMELAND SECURITY UPDATE

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25 Sep 19. How the US Army will test its new battlefield network. The US Army has developed a test and evaluation strategy for its tactical network, which officials say will help guide what capabilities they buy and then field in 2021.

The integrated tactical network is a mix of existing programs of record and commercial off-the-shelf capabilities that allow a unit to communicate in congested environments and improves battlefield awareness. Four infantry brigade combat teams will use those tools in 2021, and the Army’s intent is to incrementally distribute newer capabilities to units every two years until 2028.

Throughout the Army’s testing of the ITN, it has relied on operational deployments as well as exercises and lab tests to reduce risk, understand what’s needed and to refine the service’s strategy.

Through the end of calendar year 2020, the Army has outlined a series of tests and exercises to help inform how it evaluates these technologies. This entire effort serves as a form of prototyping in which developers accompany operators as a way to get feedback that is used to make quick fixes to existing systems or to show off new systems the Army is considering buying.

Moreover, Army leadership will try to answer a series of questions related to its 2021 fielding. These range from how many systems should exist at each echelon, what density to support certain capabilities is necessary at certain echelons and what capability trade-offs — in terms of complexity, affordability and size weight and power — can be made without detracting from performance. Under an evaluation framework, the test community seeks to answer certain questions under three broad buckets: effectiveness, suitability and survivability. For effectiveness, testers will want to know if the ITN can enable mission command throughout operations, if it’s interoperable and if it’s expeditionary. On the suitability side, they will want to know if the ITN is operationally appropriate and provide adequate user experiences. Lastly, survivability will consider if the ITN can operate in a cyber and electronic warfare environment, documents state.

All of this will factor into the Army’s critical design review for the ITN, an acquisition term that essentially ensures a program can meet standard requirements for cost, schedule and performance.

Fielding to the first brigade

Thus far, the ITN has been fielded on an experimental basis. This includes the Security Force Assistance Brigade, elements of 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division, 1st Battalion, 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment, which is using it now in Afghanistan, and now the 1st Infantry Brigade Combat Team/82nd Airborne Division, which is the first full brigade to get the ITN.

Army officials have said they needed to prove some concepts out at lower echelons first before scaling to a brigade, but also, some of the capabilities are actually designed more for lower echelons.

The current fielding and test schedule for parts of the 82nd, which will help provide the Army information on the full capability set 2021, runs from the end of September through January 2020. In February 2020, the Army will begin to exercises and user surveys.

Officials have noted that the kit of equipment as is, while experimental, provides next level capabilities.

The ITN is “far more reliable, it’s far more intuitive, it’s far more resilient,” Maj. Gen. James Mingus, commander of 82nd Airborne Division, told C4ISRNET. “Even though it’s not going to be the perfect network, which will never exist, it’s going to be 10 times better than the systems and the mission command systems that we have right now.” (Source: C4ISR & Networks)

24 Sep 19. AI to Give U.S. Battlefield Advantages, General Says. Artificial intelligence will give the United States, its allies and its partners advantages that will expedite and better inform decision-making on the battlefield, reducing the risk of casualties and collateral damage, the director of the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center said.

At the Atlantic Festival’s “Military Readiness in the Age of AI” event in Washington today, Air Force Lt. Gen. Jack Shanahan said that within the next year or two, artificial intelligence will begin to be employed in warfighting operations.

Currently, he said, AI is used in a fairly limited way in military applications such as perception, natural language processing and expert systems such as predictive maintenance to bring AI into lower-cost missions that don’t have major consequences to warfighters.

As proof of concept and confidence is gained in using AI, the general said, it will be adopted at scale, though he acknowledged reluctance to name which combat systems would be enabled first due to the algorithms and other adoptive variables involved.

As an example of how AI could directly benefit warfighters, Shanahan noted that intelligence analysts sometimes view full-motion video for 12 hours a day. “It’s very excruciating work and easy to make mistakes, and [it’s] just not really conducive to decision-making.”

AI could help them, he said, because “a basic definition of AI is machines performing at or above the level of human performance.” Still, he cautioned, using AI doesn’t mean there won’t be mistakes. “AlI humans are fallible, with or without AI,” he said.

One of the JAIC’s goals is getting AI out at speed and scale to benefit the warfighters, Shanahan said. AI funding is $89m for the current fiscal year and $200m for fiscal year 2020, which begins Oct. 1, he added.

Shanahan said that as AI advances in acceptance and applicability, he expects that funding level to increase over the course of the next five years.

It’s important for the Defense Department to communicate to the American people the importance of AI to national security, the general told the audience. Also, he said, Americans need to understand that policies are in place to ensure AI is used in a transparent and ethical manner, with humans always in control of what happens. (Source: US DoD)

24 Sep 19. Assume Computer Networks Are Compromised, DOD Official Urges. No matter how secure a computer network or the environment it’s used in may seem to be, users should just assume it’s compromised, the deputy undersecretary of defense for research and engineering said.

“This is something I’m very much behind,” Lisa Porter said during a panel discussion yesterday at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

During her time as the first director of the U.S. Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity, Porter said, she saw a growing emphasis on cybersecurity. The organization was created in 2008.

“At that time, cybersecurity became really, really important,” she said. “It had been important before, but people were really emphasizing it. And unfortunately, there was a huge emphasis on primitive defense models.” The thinking at the time, she said, was that as long as perimeters were put in place, everything inside would be safe, including the data and the networks.

That turned out to not be true, Porter said, and security requires more than just building a barrier around the network.

“It leads you to a false sense of security. … Think ‘Edward Snowden,'” she said. “So then we said, ‘Maybe this perimeter defense model has some flaws in it.'”

Instead, Porter said, users should assume the network is compromised already – either from outside or from bad actors on the inside.

“When you change your mindset to … ‘I have to assume that my networks aren’t trusted – that no matter where I am, I have got to go in with an assumption that I can’t trust what I am using as the backbone of my communications – it changes how you think about the technological solution,” she said.

Now, she said, cyber professionals are thinking about “zero-trust architecture,” which assumes that no one who uses the network can be trusted. In such a setup, users might be allowed access only to that information and those applications that they are pre-authorized to use. Past network security might have put a wall around the whole network, and once inside, a user would free rein to move about. A zero-trust environment uses “microsegmentation,” which divides the network into smaller zones, each requiring special access.

“I think we’ve been lulling ourselves into a false sense of security by thinking we can build perfectly secure enclaves,” Porter said. “There is no such thing as a secure system. So we have to deal with that reality whether we are doing cyber, whether we are doing supply chain, whether we are doing 5G. You will see the zero-trust reference across many of [the Defense Department research and engineering] domains, because we are really trying to advocate for that perspective.” (Source: US DoD)

24 Sep 19. BlackBerry, CACI team on new mobile security programme. BlackBerry and US information technology company CACI International have teamed to develop next-generation applications to provide, for the first time, secure mobile communications software at the classified and unclassified level.

“We identified that there was not just a huge need [for secure mobile communications] in the classified world, but also in the unclassified world,” which covers roughly 400 million mobile phones and devices used across the US government, said Kerry Leo, vice-president for homeland and national defence at CACI. Work on the programme began in 2018, under a Commercial Solutions for Classified (CSfC) grant from the National Security Agency, Leo told Jane’s on 17 September. (Source: IHS Jane’s)

23 Sep 19. State of Utah Awards L3Harris Technologies Contract to Build Statewide Public Safety Radio System. Highlights:

Replaces the State of Utah’s legacy network with a P25 Phase 2 system
Includes P25 trunked infrastructure and Symphony™ command center consoles
Further expands L3Harris Technologies’ footprint in the Western region

The Utah Communications Authority (UCA) has awarded L3Harris Technologies (NYSE:LHX) a contract to provide an advanced statewide public safety network for multiple agencies and emergency responders in Utah.

UCA is an independent state agency that manages emergency 911 and interagency communications at the state, regional, local and tribal levels across Utah. L3Harris will replace UCA’s legacy radio system with a new end-to-end L3Harris P25 Phase 2 digital network that will double the capacity and increase the range of a decades-old legacy network. The new L3Harris system will support upgraded multiband P25 radios and Symphony™ command center dispatch consoles that together enable multiple mission-critical user groups including law enforcement, public safety, utilities and public works, and other government agencies to more seamlessly communicate via voice and data.

“L3Harris brought new ideas and fresh thinking to the UCA, demonstrating how new technologies can deliver significant benefits in terms of cost, capability and reliability,” said Nino DiCosmo, President, L3Harris Public Safety and Professional Communications. “Our contract with UCA establishes new relationships with the many agencies supported by the UCA and further expands our public safety communications footprint in the State of Utah and the Western region of the United States.”

L3Harris’ planned upgrades to the statewide network will streamline UCA’s access to the nationwide public safety broadband network, supporting their mission to coordinate with the First Responder Network Authority (FirstNet).

“The State of Utah looks forward to bringing L3Harris on board to provide a public safety network for our first responders and agencies,” said Utah Governor Gary Herbert. “We are confident this development will make it easier for our public safety professionals to do their jobs well and quickly.”

L3Harris Public Safety and Professional Communications is a leading supplier of communications systems and equipment for public safety, federal, utility, commercial and transportation markets. The business has more than 80 years of experience in public safety and professional communications and supports more than 500 systems around the world. (Source: BUSINESS WIRE)

22 Sep 19. Domo Tactical Communications launches new IP mesh waveform. Domo Tactical Communications (DTC) has developed a new waveform called the MeshUltra wireless tactical IP mesh waveform, which it showcased at DSEI 2019 in London in September with an eye on addressing dismounted soldier communications. DTC product director Rob Garth told Jane’s that UltraMesh, which had been tested extensively, is designed for mobile ad hoc networking (MANET) and military robotic applications and brings together several new mesh features. For example, the number of mesh nodes has been increased from 20 to a minimum of 64. However, he said that the number of supported mesh nodes was increasing and was confident that DTC could meet the requirement for 120 nodes that the British Army was looking for in its Dismounted Situational Awareness programme.

The available data rates is being increased, with a 20 MHz bandwidth mesh node available that provides a throughput of up to 87 Mbps. Garth said an important development was the availability of different operating bandwidths, ranging from 1.25 MHz up to the full 20 MHz, adding that the narrower bandwidths offer greater sensitivity and range for applications that do not require high data rates.

Garth also noted that there had recently been increased interest in mesh networking for dismounted soldier application, pointing out that this mainly required the passing of situational awareness information rather than video and that the narrower channels were ideally suited for this. This reduces power consumption and therefore lowers the probability of detection, intercept and exploitation (LPD/LPI/LPE). It also provides longer battery life, lower weight, and less heat, he added. (Source: IHS Jane’s)

23 Sep 19. Pentagon’s electronic warfare leader heads to industry. One of the Pentagon’s top electronic warfare officials, William Conley, has left the Department of Defense, sources told C4ISRNET.

Conley served as the director for electronic warfare with the office of the undersecretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment. That position is now is vacant, sources said. Conley appears to be the new chief technology officer for Mercury Systems, according to a list of speakers published for the Association of Old Crows’ annual conference and AFCEA’s MILCOM conference.

Conley was a key player in the department-wide push to a new concept called electromagnetic spectrum operations, or EMSO. Essentially, the term refers to the notion that electronic warfare systems, electronic warfare doctrine and electronic warfare personnel within a particular region or theater work together more closely to provide a more holistic electronic warfare capability for commanders.

“The term EMSO, electromagnetic spectrum operations … is really about how do we do all of those things dynamically through a finite number of apertures but also how do we battle manage all of these different things, which are happening in the electromagnetic spectrum today,” he said in a June interview with C4ISRNET. “It is how all of those come together, how we train operators, how we train commanders to make use of these new and different ways of being able to a, understand their operational environment, but b, the command relationships they now actually have and the things they now can control.”

Whitney McNamara, senior analyst at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, called Conley’s departure a huge loss for the department given he was “probably the biggest champion in the Pentagon for advancing our ability to operate in the electromagnetic spectrum.”

“He thought a lot about how to change or improve upon the mechanisms DoD has to field commercial technology quicker outside of the traditional acquisition cycle to capture the commercial sector’s innovation in electronics which had surpassed DoDs’,” she said. “He gave a lot of thought into how to impose costs on our adversaries in the spectrum and the asymmetric strategies we could adopt to do so, instead of simply throwing more money at the problem.”

The incoming chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff acknowledged a push toward this strategy during his confirmation hearing before Congress.

This philosophy “reflects a shift in focus from individual platforms to a broader approach that includes new sensor capabilities, information management, and methods to utilize the Electromagnetic Spectrum as a weapon. Efforts are also underway to better assess the readiness of the Joint Force to operate in spectrally-contested environments,” Gen. Mark Milley, wrote in July.

Military leaders have said it will be imperative for commanders to visualize the hard-to-see domains such as cyber and the electromagnetic spectrum. This is part of what military leaders describe as the multidomain environment of the future against.

McNamara added she was skeptical the position will be filled quickly, meaning it will be up to the electronic warfare executive committee and the electromagnetic spectrum operations cross functional team “to keep carrying the torch to make improvements in advancing our ability to operate and fight in the spectrum.” (Source: C4ISR & Networks)

23 Sep 19. USAF to activate new information warfare command. The US Air Force (USAF) has announced that it will create a new information warfare command, called 16th Air Force. Air Combat Command commander-general Mike Holmes made the announcement at the Air Force Association’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference in National Harbor, Maryland. 16th Air Force will be formed integrating the 24th Air Force and 25th Air Force capabilities.

The new organisation will operate under a single commander, who will handle duties such as providing information warfare capabilities to combatant commanders.

Mike Holmes said: “By having cyber and all the intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance tools together, one of the things it allows me to do is build a collection plan in advance before I do something and am able to have better information to support better decisions for our warfighters.

“The Air Force is not going to run independent information warfare campaigns, but we’ll build those, organise, train and equip tools for combatant commanders.”

Creating the 16th Air Force demonstrates the organisation’s early adoption of integrated information systems and technologies such as remotely piloted aircraft.

The new information warfare command will be located at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, Texas.

Air Combat Command will hold the 16th Air Force activation ceremony later this year.

Holmes added: “We want to arm our leaders with options they can use that are proportional to the things that peer adversaries are doing.

“The activation of 16th Air Force will synchronise the mission areas of ISR, electronic warfare, cyber and information operations capabilities.

“This integrated capability will provide multi-domain options to component and combatant commanders around the globe.”

The Command supported the USAF’s intelligence operations during the Balkans air campaigns in the 1990s. (Source: airforce-technology.com)

22 Sep 19. SOCOM leaders want to reduce the load on operators to create ‘hyper-enabled’ operators. As the first-ever chief data officer at the U.S. Special Operations Command, or SOCOM, David Spirk Jr. is tasked with managing the high expectations of the Tampa, Florida-based organization. He is now celebrating his one-year anniversary on the job.

In a May speech, Gen. Richard Clarke Clarke, the new head of SOCOM, described how machine learning and AI can provide operators with tactical advantages by increasing situational awareness, reducing cognitive loads and improving the decision-making process.

“There are new, innovative ways to bring this reality to the forefront,” Spirk told C4ISRNET.

One of the most relevant SOCOM programs that could significantly benefit from machine learning and AI is the Hyper Enabled Operator concept. HEO replaces the five-year Tactical Assault Light Operator Suit effort.

“The HEO concept is one of the most important things SOCOM can be doing right now,” Spirk said. “The only way we have HEO in the future is if we can reduce the cognitive load of that operator and his ability to command his resources at his disposal through automation and applied AI.”

For example, machine learning and AI could help to process, exploit and disseminate data from intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance. Such an advantage could come in the form of new displays available to operators in the field. That technology could also improve automation at tactical operation centers, in turn providing special operations forces with mission-specific predictions, Spirk noted.

Before joining SOCOM, Spirk worked with the Department of Defense’s Project Maven program, which was started in April 2017 to design computer-vision algorithms for the processing, exploitation and dissemination of full-motion video.

The command is working to exploit machine learning and AI technologies across an increasingly complex operating environment, and Spirk emphasized SOCOM’s mission to adhere to special operations forces’ AI principles: grow the discipline, find a purpose-driven application and make it the norm.

“Quick wins are demanded,” Spirk said. SOCOM’s Command Data Office completed its first program review July 24 — an event Clarke attended.

Previous leaders also gave him “explicit guidance to go faster and deeper while responsibly challenging legacy policies or processes that get in the way of our progress,” Spirk said.

Such a strategy, he warned, is dependent upon cooperation across SOCOM; the Command Data Office in particular is tasked with identifying the most optimal means of creating an AI-ready workforce.

“Generating a new workforce to execute these concepts is important, providing a conduit to the force with individuals in our formation having begun learning about AI and data science to actualize it,” Spirk said.

He highlighted the critical nature of using special operations forces to identify “really creative ways to use technology which already exists today.”

“It’s about understanding which computer capabilities won’t take an algorithm and which workflows might benefit from AI,” he added.

As a result, Spirk is overseeing a series of projects aligned against Clarke’s applied AI focus areas:

“Perception and action,” which will provide and receive support to and from Project Maven;
“Planning and maneuver” opportunities that exploit commercial and academic wargaming techniques through the application of game theory;
“Communications resilience and cyberwarfare” in order to protect the entire force;
“Recruitment, training and talent management,” which is focused on AI to aid the assessment and selection of special operators;
“Business processes,” which optimizes contract and budget management; and
“Predictive maintenance and logistics,” which will exploit data science to build algorithms for predicting engine failures and maintaining high readiness levels starting with rotary-wing aircraft. This last effort will involve Carnegie Mellon University and the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center.

“We are talking about starting small with big intent. Take that bite, and once we show the art of the possible, stretch that win across the whole workflow,” Spirk said.

In September, SOCOM will hold its inaugural AI symposium to create a road map to build a sustainable AI portfolio.

“This is a huge opportunity to begin collecting operator responses while they’re under the headset, and to take the last 10 years of combat experience and make it structured, make it explicit to know exactly how operators are going to be acting in that environment,” Spirk said.

To this end, the Command Data Office will receive support from the forthcoming Data Engineering Laboratory co-located with the SOFWERX innovation in Ybor City, a neighborhood in Tampa; as well as staffers from the JAIC and the Defense Digital Service. The symposium will also consider how machine learning and AI can support SOCOM’s component commands, as well as theater special operations commands, Spirk said.

“We will prioritize SOF activities and resources, and challenge inhibiting practices to aid the development of a data-driven force of the future with purpose-driven applications,” he added.

Spirk reaffirmed Clarke’s priorities to compete and win for the nation, preserve and grow readiness, innovate for future threats, advance partnerships, and strengthen the force. (Source: C4ISR & Networks)

19 Sep 19. This is how the USAF plans on improving its electronic warfare capabilities. The Air Force is taking action to reshape its electronic warfare enterprise after a recent assessment found that the service was too stovepiped and not responsive enough to emerging threats, its No.-2 general said.

“The goal is to make [electronic warfare] part of everything we do in the Air Force,” said Gen. Stephen “Seve” Wilson, the Air Force’s vice chief of staff, during an exclusive interview with Defense News on Tuesday.

Wilson announced in 2017 that the Air Force would conduct an internal study, known as an Enterprise Capability Collaboration Team or ECCT, that would assess whether the service was doing what was necessary to maintain superiority over the electromagnetic spectrum. Brig. Gen. David Gaedecke, the service’s director of cyberspace operations and warfighter communications, was tapped to lead the effort in 2018 and briefed the team’s findings to Air Force leadership in January.

First, the study found that the Air Force’s electronic warfare efforts were disjointed across different stakeholders, Wilson said. So the service stood up an electronic warfare directorate, led by Gaedecke, inside the Air Force’s A5/8 division for strategic plans and programs.

That new office is charged with working with the Air Force’s major commands, as well as the other services, to ensure that EW programs and investments are aligned.

“We’ve lost focus on the importance of being able to dominate the spectrum, and so he and his team are working on that,” Wilson said. “There’s a huge education and training piece across all aspects of our Air Force because, quite frankly … all the different domains aren’t going to be able to do what they need to do unless we can dominate and control the electromagnetic spectrum.”

task involves moving to a software-defined approach for EW systems so that new countermeasures can be reprogrammed across a given system as new threats are identified, he said.

“I can’t build individual equipment that is unique to that platform, so getting out of the individual hardware piece. … Things will change rapidly, and I need to be able to reprogram based on here’s what we just found out,” he said

“Really, we’re going to get into cognitive EW,” he added, using a term used to describe an EW system equipped with artificial intelligence. Having that capability would allow the electronic warfare system to learn from enemy systems on the spot, figuring out how to counter frequencies and waveforms it had never encountered previously.

Gaedecke added that the Air Force had already been moving to a software-centric approach, but that it hadn’t been coordinated across different programs.

“We’ve recognized that a lot of different people are doing it for different things, and if we just increase the amount of collaboration that we have then we will be able to be that much better,” he said. “We can learn from each other and we can take the best of breed.” (Source: C4ISR & Networks)

20 Sep 19. Silent Falcon Selects Silvus Technologies as Comm System Partner. Silvus Technologies has announced its partnership with Silent Falcon UAS Technologies, a UAS service provider and manufacturer of the Silent Falcon, a solar electric, fixed wing, long endurance, long range Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS).

Silent Falcon integrates Silvus’s advanced technology MIMO MANET Streamcaster communications systems in its unmanned aircraft systems including its new SF ATAK Field Observer Kit.

Silent Falcon™ has proven the effectiveness of the Silvus MIMO MANET communications systems for a wide variety of UAS long range commercial applications in oil and gas, pipeline, electric power transmission, mapping and surveying markets. It has also been successfully deployed in Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance; Search and Rescue and long-range border patrol missions across the globe; and in extreme environmental conditions while assisting the US Department of Interior in wildfire fighting operations.

With its recently introduced three radio SF TriAntenna Ground Control Station, powered by Silvus Streamcaster components, the reliability, connectivity and bandwidth of the Silent Falcon ™ system has been significantly increased. The comm systems capabilities have been further enhanced by the addition of the SF ATAK Field Observer Kit, a small, portable kit that provides live streaming videos with map overlays on tablets and smartphones to operators on the ground who need this vital information in real time. Until the introduction of the SF ATAK Field Observer Kit, dissemination of this vital data was confined to ground station observers or at remote command centers. The initial deployment of the SF ATAK Field Observer Kit will be to support wildfire fighting efforts for the US Department of Interior during this summer’s fire season.

“With 5 hours of flight time and an array of payload sensor options, Silent Falcon ™ needed a low-SWaP radio capable of delivering high bandwidth communications over great distances” said Kasey Cooper, Director of Unmanned Systems at Silvus Technologies. “After rigorous testing of other datalinks, Silent Falcon ™ engineers determined StreamCaster 4200 to provide the best performance-to-SWaP ratio. We are excited to support the team at Silent Falcon ™ as they deploy their innovative platform into a variety of mission-critical applications”.

“Our partnership with Silvus Technologies has allowed Silent Falcon ™ to greatly expand the capabilities and reliability of our Silent Falcon ™ system. The Silvus products are easy to operate, integrate well with the Silent Falcon ™ system, and provide rock solid communications in the most difficult conditions. And we have taken these capabilities a step further with the introduction of the SF ATAK Field Observer Kit” said John W. Brown, Silent Falcon ™ Chairman and CEO, “further demonstrating the flexibility of the Silent Falcon ™ system and the Silvus StreamCaster MN-MIMO MANET technology”.

20 Sep 19. Silvus completes MAN-CC work for US Army network modernisation. Silvus Technologies has completed work under a $3m Rapid Innovation Fund (RIF) contract for network modernisation at the US Army.

The contract was funded through the National Spectrum Consortium (NSC) and sponsored by the US Army’s Program Executive Office for Command, Control and Communications-Tactical (PEO C3T). Entitled ‘MANET for Congested and Contested Environments (MAN-CC)’, the 12-month effort enabled a targeted evolution of the StreamCaster software-defined radio and Mobile Networked MIMO (MN-MIMO) waveform. It delivers mobile ad hoc networking (MANET) for congested and contested environments.

The commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) TRL9 radio StreamCaster combines networking, high throughput physical layer processing, intuitive user interface, and well-vetted hardware and software.

Silvus noted that the MAN-CC effort improved StreamCaster with three new features.

Features include Commercial Solutions for Classified (CSfC) certified encryption for the protected transmission of secret information and anti-jam capabilities in the MANET waveform to conduct operations in a congested and contested electromagnetic spectrum.

A spectrum sensor application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) for radio frequency (RF) situational awareness also helped to improve StreamCaster.

MAN-CC aligns with the US Army’s overarching effort to incorporate commercial capabilities into its tactical network, which is in the process of covering gaps to enable a primary, alternate, contingency and emergency (PACE) plan for soldiers who face challenges with contested or congested environments.

The effort event included a field-based risk reduction (FBRR) for validating the contract deliverables and culminated in a technical feasibility assessment (TFA).

During the assessment, soldiers from the US Army’s 82nd Airborne deployed the equipment to support the Mobility Guardian Exercise at Yakima Training Center. In March last year, Harris selected Silvus for the delivery of its StreamCaster SC4200 radios to support the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) Project Starter. (Source: army-technology.com)

20 Sep 19. USAF to activate new information warfare command. The US Air Force (USAF) has announced that it will create a new information warfare command, called 16th Air Force. Air Combat Command commander-general Mike Holmes made the announcement at the Air Force Association’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference in National Harbor, Maryland. 16th Air Force will be formed integrating the 24th Air Force and 25th Air Force capabilities.