Paul Revere team returns from exercise

Published Oct. 16, 2006
By Monica D. Morales
Electronic Systems Center Public Affairs

HANSCOM AIR FORCE BASE, Mass. -- Speeding the recovery of downed pilots and foiling the surprise of enemy ambushes - all within 20 minutes of initial imagery tasking - were among the measured successes for the 630th Electronic Systems Squadron's Paul Revere team that recently returned from participating in exercise Empire Challenge.

"Our goal was to make sure that sensor information got down to the ground and got disseminated around the theater effectively," said Maj. Chris Dennison, commander of the Boeing 707 Paul Revere Test and Integration Flight. "We had to make sure that could be used for time-sensitive targeting and situational awareness of troops on the ground."
The scenarios were just a few of many Gulf War-based situations presented in the exercise, a 22-day event designed to test multi-intelligence Distributed Common Ground System joint and coalition interoperability at China Lake Naval Air Warfare Center, China Lake, Calif. Other exercise players included Navy, Army, Australian, British and Canadian participants.

The Air Force's DCGS is a global system that uses data-gathering sensors to collect information and provide analysis and distribution of intelligence data from anywhere on the planet.

With the Mojave Desert as its backdrop, the 60-person Boeing 707 Paul Revere team from Hanscom and Lincoln Laboratory set out with a two-pronged challenge.

The first was to test the limits of the Adaptive Joint C4ISR Node. The node's role is to use the aircraft as a bridge between different radio systems. This allows, for example, a person on the ground with a VHF radio to retransmit the data through a common data language.

"With this technology, you can have one person with one radio who can suddenly reach out to everyone in the battle space," Major Dennison said.

The other challenge came in providing timely Synthetic Aperture Radar imagery and ground-moving target indications to ground operations centers. The data are collected through a space-based radar in the nose of the aircraft, and, once interpreted, allow for the cuing of mobile assets or potential hostile assets on the ground.

The aircraft's radiator-sized, space-based radar is a scaled down version of the type that the SBR program plans to use, Major Dennison said.

Both challenges were met head on, with successes on both fronts.

"This is AJCN's most successful test yet, and one huge step closer to reaching operational capability," said 2nd Lt. Steve Oberhofer, Paul Revere test director. "With AJCN, you can put a box on any aircraft flying around in the battle space, and your people on the ground will remain in contact more than ever."

For the warfighter, these findings all point to one thing -- a fluid network that aircraft can drop in and out of seamlessly, along with applications running without the tasking of the aircraft operators.

While the AJCN aced communication, the SAR imagery helped the exercise participants respond to scenarios in greatly improved times.

By the end of the exercise, Lieutenant Oberhofer said, that time was reduced to 20 minutes.

The post-exercise briefing points to the same positive results.

"In the top three items of success listed in the briefing," Major Dennison said, "Paul Revere was number two and AJCN was number one. Those are two huge successes for the team."

The need for the AJCN capability, said Lieutenant Oberhofer, is one that is apparent in present-day, real-time operations.

"This is a capability that they really need in theater," he said. "A couple of Joint STARS participants out there said they were really excited about putting something like this on their planes."

AJCN aims to go operational within the next two to three years. In the meantime, Lieutenant Oberhofer said, the capabilities will continue to undergo further exercise scenarios and testing.

"Now that we got a taste of success with it, we will be testing it more and more in different scenarios to make sure it works before putting it in the field," he said.