New Communications Node for Battlefield

This post is also available in: עברית (Hebrew)

The US Air Force has been investing in Advanced Battle Management System (ABMS) as the foundational technology to connect its air, space and cyber assets together with platforms from the other military service. The first test of the ABMS was conducted in December, linking Air Force and Navy fighters, a naval destroyer, and an Army unit.

Now, the Air Force sees its aerial refueling aircraft as the systems that will relay communications data as part of a new mesh network. 

A mesh net is a local network topology in which the infrastructure nodes (i.e. bridges, switches, and other infrastructure devices) connect directly, dynamically and non-hierarchically to as many other nodes as possible to efficiently route data.

Tankers are well-suited to be used as communications nodes for two reasons, said Lt. Gen. Jon Thomas, the Air Mobility Command’s deputy commander. One, aerial refueling planes are typically large, wide-body aircraft that have enough excess space and power to host additional communication systems. The second is their location during combat. One way to operate tanker aircraft is to position them near a contested airspace, close enough for fighters and other airborne assets to refuel as needed before returning to battle, he said.

The Air Force’s newest tanker, the KC-46, has communications and defensive systems that would allow it to become a communications relay without needing significant upgrades, according to c4isrnet.com.

Meanwhile, the service is modernizing a portion of its KC-135 tankers with a suite of modifications it calls “Realtime Information to the Cockpit.” The Air Force committed $49 million for the upgrades, which Rockwell Collins will perform. “That will bring a data link capability and a [satellite communications] capability on the [KC-135] that it doesn’t have,” Thomas said. “We need to do more. We only have funding for 50 right now.”

One endeavor already underway is the Global Lightning experiment, in which a KC-135 will be outfitted with equipment for communication with SpaceX’s Starlink — a planned “megaconstellation” of hundreds of satellites in low-Earth orbit set to provide high-bandwidth commercial internet — as well as other equipment from vendors such as Iridium and L3Harris.