Air-ground target tracking identification, along with data-link enabled information exchanges across multiple nodes in a system, is of particular significance at the moment given the Pentagon’s fast-growing emphasis upon multi-domain battle.  Quickly expanding threats such as near peer surface and aerial combat platforms, coupled with emerging cyber, space and electronic warfare threats, are driving the Pentagon to accelerate multi-domain warfare tactics.

The Army and Marine Corps recently networked helicopters, attack aircraft, drones and land-based weapons systems as part of a recent live-air “check out event” of an emerging battle command system designed to quickly share threat information and destroy enemy targets across dispersed combat locations.

In development for several years, the Army’s Integrated Battle Command System is engineered to enable rapid connectivity between various sensors, radar systems, aircraft and weapons by sharing fast-developing threat information between various dispersed nodes on a battle network.  

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This most recent exercise, explained as a live-air check out event at Yuma Proving Grounds, Ariz., used LINK 16 to integrate  aircraft sensors with ground-based radar such as the Sentinel and land-fired interceptor weapons such as the Patriot missile.

The exercise is all part of the Army’s ongoing development of the IBCS system, to enter combat over the course of the next several years.

“When it fields, there will be a network component wherein various launchers will connect with other nodes such as the Sentinel radar and Multi-Mission Launcher. This will bring a more robust air defense command and control capability, as we bring sensors into our formations and take advantage of all that they bring. They will fuse into a single track so that operators do not have to discern between different radars,” Brig. Gen. Robert Rasch, Deputy Program Executive Officer, Missiles & Space, told Warrior in an interview.   

Rasch said the software performed well during the demonstration, an indication that various “fixes” and improvements to the system had taken hold and proven effective.

“The idea was to create an infrastructure that could leverage any sensor that was in the field then select accordingly. Inn the past, you would have stovepiped missile systems with their own command and control and fire control, Dan Verwiel, Vice President, Missile Defense and Protective Systems, Northrop Grumman, told Warrior in an interview. “IBCS was designed to allow me to take feeds from whatever sensors are out in the field, process that information and select the right weapon.”

The “check-out” event was intended to evolve the technology, which has previously shown it can fire a Patriot missile with information from a Sentinel radar, into a multi-domain environment connecting Army and Marine Corps platforms across air, land and sea.

Prior to emergence of systems such as ICBS, systems such as the Patriot missile would primarily need to rely upon its own radar system to track approaching targets. Naturally, the introduction of a system such as IBCS enables a wider target identification envelope, therefore vastly increasing force protection possibilities.

Northrop officials explained that the live-air exercise utilized technology able to “correct radar biases” and distinguish between closely spaced objects.

“In an operational environment that included electronic attack, we showed the ability of IBCS to resolve ambiguity in the air picture and deliver more accurate target tracking data,” Verwiel said.

Air-ground target tracking identification, along with data-link enabled information exchanges across multiple nodes in a system, is of particular significance at the moment given the Pentagon’s fast-growing emphasis upon multi-domain battle.  Quickly expanding threats such as near peer surface and aerial combat platforms, coupled with emerging cyber, space and electronic warfare threats, are driving the Pentagon to accelerate multi-domain warfare tactics.