Real-Life Testing for WIN-T

Written by Adam Baddeley

WIN-T uses a range of communications technologies with the system automatically routing information to commanders across the battlefield via high-capacity satellite as well as terrestrial links, using automated ad hoc networking to find the best path in the fastest possible time.

Colonel Chuck Hoppe, WIN-T project manager, offered a similar assessment of the state of the program in an interview late last year. (See MIT December 2008, page 29.)

WIN-T’s Increment 2—the first element to bring in mobile ad hoc networking— underwent a period of sustained testing and assessment in the final two months of 2008. That represented the final kicking of the tires on Increment 2’s system architecture and technology readiness level, preparing it for a limited user test (LUT) this year and a planned low rate initial production (LRIP) award designed to enable an initial operating capability in 2011.

“We are very pleased that the program is on schedule,” said Bill Weiss, vice president of tactical networks for General Dynamics C4 Systems. “We are staying on the overall plan and are looking forward to getting the initial mobile network capability out into the hands of the soldiers as quickly as possible. Mobile command really gives them a significant new capability that can change the way the Army fights.”

A key task had been shipping equipment ready for development testing at Fort Huachuca, Ariz., which ran for most of a month, Weiss explained. A second test began in December. “This is called the 30-node test and is being used as part of the technology readiness assessment to ensure the network scales as per its design. This allows the OSD folks who check the technology maturity in our design to make sure we are getting to the correct levels.

“The aim is to provide a representative test of the equipment,” Weiss continued. “It is really a supplement to all the modeling and simulation that we have been doing that is patterned after the expected force structures. We have been running through various scenarios.

“What this real-life testing has allowed us to do is to help validate the modeling and simulation,” he added. “If you get certain behaviors with the 30 nodes that match what you got with the modeling and simulation, it tells you that the validity of larger modeling and simulations is probably good too.” Following the 30-node test, the Increment 2 equipment was to be shipped to Fort Lewis, Wash., where it would be issued to the 4th Brigade, 2nd Division stationed there, which is a Stryker brigade. Training then will begin in preparation for the system LUT in March, which will take place at the nearby Yakima Training Center, Wash.

The division level assets will be deployed to Fort Stewart, Ga., home of the 3rd Infantry Division, and linked via SATCOM to demonstrate the capability for distributed operations over high capacity beyond line-of-sight links. “That will hopefully lead to positive Milestone C in mid- 2009 and then the LRIP award in the June/July time frame,” said Weiss.

JOINT NETWORK NODE

While work is ongoing on Increment 2, delivery of the first increment, the renamed Joint Network Node (JNN), is under way. General Dynamics completed deliveries of lots 1–9 in the early part of 2008 and won competitive solicitations to supply Lot 10 that were issued in the spring of 2008, first for the network piece and second for the SATCOM terminals.

“We were fortunate enough to win both, and from Lot 10 we are delivering a slightly new design of the JNN, which is very similar functionally but a little different physically,” Weiss said. “We started delivering Lot 10 in May 2008 to Fort Lewis with the 5th Brigade, 2nd Division, also a Stryker brigade, and have fielded four units to date.”

Increment 1’s initial operational test and evaluation at Fort Lewis is now complete, with deliveries continuing over the next two to three years.

“The priority now is getting Increment 2 systems through the test cycle. Some of the units that are getting Increment 1 gear have certainly expressed an interest in getting Increment 2 capabilities as soon as possible,” Weiss said, noting that the key pieces of technology in question are Increment 2’s on-the-move (OTM) communications and networking. “SATCOM OTM could be embedded on a commander’s vehicle. That is of great interest to many of the maneuver units. We will handle those things on a case-by-case basis.”

General Dynamics’ responsibility is as WIN-T’s overall systems integrator. Part of that role is delivering the systems’ design and modeling and simulation element.

From a basic technology standpoint, the key enabler is WIN-T’s automated, mobile network operation, Weiss said. “There are commercial network management systems around, some of which we use, but they are really built to manage static networks. The ‘special sauce’ from our standpoint is optimizing the network operations software specifically for this mobile network. We are able to simulate using the network management tools to plan out how the network should be constructed and how the network will behave during maneuver and make adjustment accordingly.”

WIN-T’s network automation software resides in the systems embedded with network elements installed in brigade commanders’ vehicles. “This is the equivalent of a broadband Internet spigot,” Weiss explained. “It keeps the brigade commander connected to the wide area network wherever he happens to be. He doesn’t have a Signals soldier in his vehicle with him figuring out how to change configurations to the networking gear or pointing the antenna. It is the network automation software that is running as part of that network element that keeps the network connected. That is another piece of the overall technology problem that commercial industry simply hasn’t the means to overcome.”

TRANSMISSION LAYER

In addition to network operations software, the most significant technology developments are in the transmission layer, comprising the radios, waveforms and antenna. This segment is under the aegis of WIN-T partner Lockheed Martin, with the equipment being provided by Lockheed Martin, Harris Government Communications Systems Division and BAE Systems.

“On WIN-T, our focus is now moving to Increment 3,” explained Tim Stow, director of communications modernization, network systems for BAE. “We are currently in the midst of radio development efforts on hardware development. Our next goal is to get the JC4ISR radio through its critical design review after a successful technical design review. We are also working on Increment 2, developing the Highband Network Radio (HNR) with Harris, and the Ku antenna for the system that we have developed internally, both of which are supporting part of the early fielding capabilities on WIN-T.”

Establishing WIN-T Increment 2’s terrestrial, high-speed backbone network handling voice, video and data at burst rates of up to 54 Mbps is the responsibility of the Highband Network Radio now in its second version (HNRv2), which serves as the host for the Highband Networking Waveform (HNW).

“They are separate portions of a complete technology,” said Terry Pierce, senior business development manager in battlespace networking at Harris Government Communication Systems Division. “HNW is the Harris- developed waveform that delivers the key functionality that enables the mesh networking, including mobile ad hoc mesh network over the air. The physical implementation of the technology is the HNRv2 system.”

The HNRv2 consists of two subsystems: the High Band RF Unit (HRFU) and the Baseband Processing Unit (BPU). The HRFU is essentially the antenna aperture and all of the RF electronics that convert the RF signal to 4.5–4.99 GHz C-band or Ku band, planned to be at 14.4 GHz to 15.4 GHz, subject to final Ku-band development testing in early 2009. The BPU uses the HRFU to complete the lineof- sight connection with its adjacent nodes that it can see directly, as well as running the HNW waveform to provide an Ethernet interface.

“The directional antenna is unique in the world of radio systems,” Pierce said. “The C-Band HRFU has an array of 15 antenna elements around the horizon and one more antenna element pointing up. Combined, that gives you full hemispherical antenna coverage. It is almost as if it is an omni antenna in terms of its spatial coverage, but its unique difference is that at any one moment in time, only one of those elements is active. So it takes all of the energy and applies it to one of these directional elements, which allow you to get much greater range for the given power as well as reducing your RF footprint from an LPI/LPD perspective.”

This is made possible by the use of a Time Division Duplex/Time Division Multiple Access solution in which an antenna element is activated, so that the HNRv2 node connects up with another given node. Slots are essentially assigned to a given node, allowing the HNRv2 to apply directional capability over a given amount of time and get the highest bandwidth available over that amount of time to that given node.

Pierce explained the differences between this and today’s WIN-T Increment 1 highcapacity line-of-sight (HCLOS) radios: “The HNRv2 makes a mesh connection with every single node in the network, and so by doing that it is connected to all of those nodes. In the case of the HCLOS, you are only talking to one and only one radio over time, but through the HNW’s capability, you are actually connecting up with all of the nodes in the mesh network.”

There is no difference between the maximum data rate, whether the HNR is at the halt or OTM. “The data rate is determined solely by the quality of the RF connection between nodes, which is for the most part driven by range. At very long range you go to the minimum burst rate of 6 Mbps, but as the nodes move closer together you can go to higher modulation rates. At shorter distance you will get burst rates of up to 54 Mbps. Because of the very short duration of these time slots relative to physical motion, there is no penalty for being on the move versus at the halt,” Pierce said.

While focused on WIN-T, the HNRv2 has already been spun out into the field after having been released into production in January 2007. “We have delivered over 70 systems to the Army and their contractors, and we are in full production of the product,” Pierce noted. “The first in-theater deployment is under way as we speak in Iraq.”

A number of transit case systems have been fielded with the 2nd BCT, 101st Airborne and subsequently the 2nd BCT, 1st ID. Fixed nodes are based at Baghdad-area forward operating bases, along with at least one mobile system.

ON THE MOVE

L-3 Communications Linkabit’s role in WIN-T is as a key provider of SATCOM onthe- move capabilities. “We see ourselves as a technology enabler for WIN-T,” explained Elissa Seidenglanz, vice president of business development. “We bring something called the Net Centric Waveform (NCW). The waveform’s key attributes are adaptive power control and adaptive bandwidth, which allows it to service a heterogeneous network with multiple sizes of terminal. Rather than going through hubs, you can have direct peer-to-peer communications between terminals in theater, which is critical to a tactical environment.”

The waveform is brought to bear in a material solution via the TRM-1000 terminal. This comprises two main elements: the MPM-1000 Modem and an L-3 Datron FSS-4180-LC SOTM solution configuration. This will equip the HMMWV mounted Soldier Network Extension, which takes WIN-T capabilities down to the company commander in Increment 2.

Seidenglanz said, “The modem is very much antenna agnostic; it doesn’t care what antenna it works with. We work with General Dynamics 2020 antenna, but we also work with the Datron low-profile, low-cost antenna solution—the material solutions that are bringing the NCW waveform to WIN-T.”

This hardware package has thus far been selected only for the purposes of the LUT. For Increment 3, the TRM-1000 will be replaced and the NCW instead will be hosted in the new JC4ISR radio. Instantiation of the waveform onto a prototype set began in 2003, with BAE Systems, Harris and L-3 each building elements of hardware and software for the radio.

Traditional processes are being changed to ensure greater teamwork to deliver the WIN-T capability, Weiss said. “The formal chain of command is that TRADOC feeds requirements to the acquisition folks, who then buy it. We are frequently in the room with both the acquisition folks and the TRADOC folks.

“There is a lot of effective interaction between the user, the acquisition community and the contractors to help figure out what the art of the possible is and how the schedules should be constructed,” Weiss continued. “We have a pretty good and open relationship with the combination of TRADOC and the acquisition folks.” ♦

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