Air Transport

Northrop Grumman claims to have demonstrated that a flexible airborne network for sharing useful data now trapped in cockpits is available today, almost a decade earlier than called for in current US military plans.

A test event dubbed “Agile Lion” was conducted in Arizona last month using Northrop’s Airborne Integrated Architecture (AIA) as a server and existing narrowband waveforms to transmit data and imagery to ground and air nodes, says Nick Gritti, the company’s Agile Lion programme director.

Co-sponsored by the US Marine Corps, the event could prove that elements of the military’s aircraft inventory already have the power to share valuable sensor data in real time with troops on the ground or other aircraft in need of the information.

The demonstration showed that it is possible to transmit imagery from the Northrop/Rafael Litening targeting pod to the ground using a narrowband waveform provided by the Raytheon Enhanced Location Precision Reporting System, more traditionally employed as a blue force tracking system and increasingly used by US military ground vehicles.

Northrop also demonstrated that it can transmit the same data around an airborne network created by a datalink attached to the AIA servers installed on various attack and reconnaissance aircraft.

Each server aboard an aircraft can act as a node and can be accessed by any other aircraft within transmission range, the company says.

The AIA-based system relies on the use of narrowband waveforms, and provides less connectivity than envisaged under the future Boeing Joint Tactical Radio System Cluster 1 programme, which eventually aims to introduce the wideband networking waveform.

STEPHEN TRIMBLE/WASHINGTON DC