Military & Aerospace Electronics

8 JUNE 2017 MILITARY & AEROSPACE ELECTRONICS www.militaryaerospace.com news

EQ-4B UAV to provide battlefield
networking and situational awareness

BY JOHN KELLER

HANSCOM AIR FORCE BASE, Mass. – Battlefield communications experts at Northrop Grumman Corp. are equipping long-endurance unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) with military networking equipment to provide situational awareness to frontline warfighters.

Officials of the U.S. Air Force Life Cycle Management Center at Hanscom Air Force Base, Mass., announced a $39.9 million contract to the Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems segment in San Diego to equip the EQ-4B Global Hawk UAV with the Battle Field Airborne Communications Node (BACN).

The contract calls for Northrop Grumman to provide BACN payload modification, integration, and installation onto the EQ-4B, the BACN-equipped version of the Air Force RQ- 4 Global Hawk long-range, long-endurance large UAV.

The BACN payload aboard the
Global Hawk provides warfight-
ers round-the-clock with essential
information to pursue and defeat
the enemy, Northrop Grumman
officials say. The BACN airborne
executive processor (AEP) enables a
persistent gateway in the sky that
receives, bridges, and distributes
communications among partici-
pants in a battle.

BACN’s AEP provides translator and gateway interfaces among all supported communications systems, and forwards knowledge-based intelligence information to the Global Information Grid.

BACN can help ground troops overcome the limitations that mountainous terrain places on line-of-sight communications. It acts as an airborne communications node that mimics satellite communications in limited theaters of operations.

BACN bridges the gaps between those systems, enabling situational awareness from small ground units in contact up to the highest command levels, Northrop Grumman officials say. Global Hawk makes BACN available to support the warfighter 24/7.

The Global Hawk UAV can remain on station unrefueled for more than

34 hours. The large UAV also can be refueled in the air from manned refueling aircraft or from other specially outfitted Global Hawk UAVs that act as aerial refueling aircraft.

BACN translates among tactical data link networks, enables joint range extension, beyond-line-of-sight connectivity for disadvantaged users, and IP-based data exchange among dissimilar users.

On this contract, Northrop Grumman will do the work in San Diego and Palmdale, Calif., and should be finished by May 2018. Í

FOR MORE INFORMATION visit Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems online at www. northropgrumman.com, and the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center at www.wpafb.af.mil/aflcmc.

The EQ-4B Global Hawk UAV will act as a battlefield communications node for frontline networking and situational awareness.

U.S. Special Operations Command ready to approach industry for new lightweight satellite communications (SATCOM) equipment for covert use on the battlefield.

Special Operations forces eye new
lightweight SATCOM communications

BY JOHN KELLER

MacDILL AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. – U.S.

Special Operations Command (SOCOM) is kicking off an industry competition to develop a new family of lightweight satellite communications (SATCOM) equipment for covert use on the battlefield.

SOCOM officials, based at MacDill Air Force Base, Fla., have announced plans to issue a solicitation later this year for the SDN Family of Systems (FoS) Sub One-Meter Variant ( SDN-Lite) project.