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Collaboration key to connectivity

  • Published
  • By Patty Welsh
  • 66th Air Base Group Public Affairs
The Satellite Terminal Program Office here recently collaborated with MIT Lincoln Laboratory, the MITRE Corp. and industry partners on testing to improve beyond-line-of-sight communications for contested operations.

Last year, Hanscom-sponsored engineers began working to demonstrate that a third-party protected tactical waveform, or PTW, modem could integrate with an existing airborne communications terminal and connect through a commercial satellite.

According to Maj. Adam Davis, Hanscom's PTW program/project lead, the concept is central to transitioning PTW technology, but, until now, wasn't proven. This year, testing the week of January 18 showed the concept is viable.

"The Air Force is looking to conduct a field demo with these types of terminals and our development and testing allows us to define a technical baseline and helps with risk reduction," Davis said. "Overall, we're looking to make the warfighter safer by providing a lower susceptibility to intentional interference -- jamming -- from our adversaries."

PTW is an emerging government-owned waveform designed to provide resilient, anti-jam satellite communications. The Space and Missile Systems Center leads the effort for PTW but is looking to Hanscom and its partners for the initial Air Force ground and airborne terminal work, and hopes to incorporate the results in their upcoming Protected Tactical Services Field Demonstration.

Col. Timothy McKenzie, Advanced Development Division at SMC, said, "Our team at SMC in Los Angeles is leading technology-development efforts for the protective waveform and the ground infrastructure needed. We value the SATCOM terminal expertise that the Hanscom team is bringing to the enterprise solution."

And although the work is intended for all services, currently the Army and Navy both have their own terminals -- the Warfighter Information Network-Tactical, or WIN-T, and the Navy Multiband Terminal, or NMT, respectively. However, both of those terminals use ground modems, and Hanscom is working on one for the air.

Early testing in 2015 allowed engineers to detail design changes for PTW-modem integration. Integrating a third-party modem required the addition of external hardware and power.

"There were other issues such as a homing function on the terminals that we had to work around," said Bob Figucia, MITRE project lead. "Through experimentation, we were able to find an appropriate work-around for a surrogate modem that could also be used with a PTW modem."

In January, MIT LL's PTW modem was successfully integrated with an industry terminal and run through a commercial satellite operating in the Ka band. Officials from Lincoln Laboratory said they chose the satellite based on its ability to emulate the frequency and capabilities of a military satellite.

"We specifically avoided using a current military satellite for our testing because we did not want to take away from any current military missions," said Dr. Ken Hetling, Advanced Satcom Systems and Operations associate group leader at LL.

MITRE engineers put the set-up to a full test by transporting a number of representative Air Force user applications.

"We demonstrated performance of items such as a radar simulator, chat, file transfer protocols and ISR video streaming," said Figucia. "In addition, we conducted testing to assess the improved resiliency that PTW offers."

All of the partners agreed that the testing was successful and achieved its objectives.

"The testing exceeded our expectations," said Bill Lyons, Advanced Development program manager. "The team worked extremely well together and we're looking forward to continuing the work to make our warfighters safer."

In the spring, the team is hoping to accomplish similar testing, but this time connecting with a modem on an aircraft in flight.

"This will be the first time the system will be used in flight and will allow us to verify the performance of the system under realistic flight conditions," said Hetling. "We know there will be additional challenges, such as aircraft integration, but we want to reduce as much risk as possible and give the Air Force this game-changing capability."