|
|
 |
home > February 2008 issue > article
Blue Force blues
By Greg Slabodkin
Special to Defense Systems
U.S., allies try to reduce fratricide with improved coalition combat identification
Although the Defense Department has made great strides in
preventing friendly fire in its own ranks, keeping track of allied
forces — and helping them keep track of U.S. units — is still a significant challenge. Defense and industry officials say forces in the field
need their combat identification systems to be
more interoperable with systems used by
NATO and coalition forces.
“The No. 1 problem is interoperability,” said
Andy Zembower, director of tactical systems at
General Dynamics Advanced Information
Systems. Late last year, the company was
awarded a five-year, $20 million contract by the
Air Force Research Lab to conduct operational
and technical analyses of combat ID systems.
“The whole environment is getting much
more complex with the increasing numbers of
sensors out there,” Zembower said. “It’s like
everyone is looking at the world through a different
filter, so all these sensors on the battlefield
are making the problem much more complex. Sharing this
information with coalition partners in a way that adds value is a real
challenge.”
System of systems
Currently, U.S. and allied forces lack a single blue force tracking system — a comprehensive combat ID system to prevent fratricide and
enable coalition forces to jointly locate, identify, track and engage targets.
DOD is working closely with NATO partners to create a coalition
combat ID system that is compliant with NATO Standardized
Agreements (Stanag), the technical and operational standards ratified
by the NATO member states, to enable interoperability between the
United States and its NATO allies.
Combat ID takes a system of systems approach, with three main
components: - Situational awareness: Knowledge of which units are in a geographic area and what they are doing.
- Target identification: Being able to identify a unit or vehicle within a weapons targeting system as a friendly unit.
- Common tactics, techniques and procedures that help to organize
coalition operations.
DOD and coalition partners are working on
a number of blue force-type systems to provide
warfighters with situational awareness. One
such system, combining a computer, satellite
antenna and Global Positioning System receiver,
was installed in more than 1,200 U.S. Army,
Marine Corps and United Kingdom combat
vehicles during operations Enduring Freedom
and Iraqi Freedom to help commanders keep
track of the location of allied forces.
However, blue force tracking only solves a
piece of the friendly fire problem. In the 2003
invasion of Iraq, for example, coalition aircraft
were fitted with NATO Stanag-compliant target
ID equipment, and coalition vehicles were fitted
with combat ID and thermal ID panels that identify them in infrared
imaging systems. But this joint effort at compliance didn’t prevent
several instances of fratricide, including the 2003 downing of a
Royal Air Force Tornado aircraft by a U.S. Patriot missile, despite
the fact that both were fitted with the equipment.
The problem in that case was an error in the targeting systems,
according to a British Ministry of Defence report — the Patriot’s targeting
system classified the Tornado as an anti-radar missile. “The
symbol which appeared on their radar indicated that an Anti-
Radiation Missile was coming directly towards them,” the report
states. “The track was interrogated for [identification friend or foe]
but there was no response. Having met all classification criteria, the
Patriot crew launched the missile, and the Tornado, mistaken for an
‘Anti-Radiation Missile,’ was engaged in self-defence.” The lack of
integration between ID systems and the targeting system resulted in
the shoot-down.
Other tools for situational awareness include secure tactical radio systems and ground-to-air radios that enable allied forces on the
ground to talk directly to U.S. and coalition aircraft. And additional
work has been done on improving targeting systems for air-toground
attacks to ensure that aircraft don’t mistakenly attack allied
vehicles or ground forces.
But ensuring NATO Stanag interoperability for other target ID
systems has also seen slow progress. Although NATO issued a
Stanag in 2000 for the Battlefield Target Identification System and a
compliant solution was successfully tested in 2001, the project was
deferred in 2003 when allies and partners agreed to a DOD proposal
to assess technologies other than those defined in the NATO
Stanag.
BTIS has been put forward as an interoperable, target ID system
that focuses on the high-priority ground- and air-to-ground environments.
Despite delays, the United States and allies have
reached consensus on a technical solution for BTIS. DOD is funding
a program that is compatible and aligned with BTIS, and other
nations are acquiring similar capabilities.
Yet, according to a July U.K. Treasury report, BTIS is not the
friendly fire panacea that some envision. “Technical solutions
have been slow to mature,” the report states, “and while the
Battlefield Target Identification System concept was initially seen
as promising, it has been clear for some time that such a target
identification system would not on its own effectively address the
risk of fratricide.”
The U.K. report states that BTIS “will not be available until early
in the next decade, and while equipment such as Blue Force Tracker
and the Bowman communications system may improve situational
awareness for the time being, the inevitable time lag in analyzing
and collating information from these systems will restrict their
potential for positive target identification.” The bottom line, according
to the report, is that a timetable for a “credible target identification
system” needs to be developed.
“The problem is there’s a multitude of technical solutions and approaches, but nobody owns it so there’s no forcing function to
actually decide what we’re going to do and actually go ahead and do
it,” said John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, a defense and
security think tank in Alexandria, Va.
Sorting friend and foe
However, DOD is near completion of an Advanced Concept
Technology Demonstration, sponsored by the U.S. Joint Forces
Command, that the department says will put target ID technologies
into the hands of coalition warfighters faster and at a lower cost than
the traditional acquisition process.
The Coalition Combat Identification ACTD was initiated in 2001
to help reduce friendly fire incidents in coalition operations and
enhance combat effectiveness. The goal of the CCID ACTD is to
provide coalition warfighters, particularly shooters, with a mix of
technical and procedural means to accurately identify friends and
foes.
The United States and United Kingdom have conducted a number
of exercises as part of the CCID ACTD, including operational
demonstrations in the United States in 2003 and 2004 and a 2005
exercise called Urgent Quest held in the U.K. to demonstrate cooperative
ground combat ID technologies.
Cooperative ID systems depend on a response of some sort from
a target — like the identify friend or foe (IFF) systems used to identify
aircraft. Noncooperative systems rely on the operator being
able to identify the target visually, without a reply from the other
side.
Bold Quest, a multinational technology demonstration conducted
in September at the National Training Center, Fort Irwin, Calif.,
and Nellis Air Force Base, Nev., included the participation of
NATO and nine nations: Australia, Belgium, Canada, France,
Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, the U.K. and the United
States. The U.S. military services and the Special Operations
Command participated in Bold Quest — a first for a CCID ACTD
exercise. The two-week demo focused on 16 cooperative and noncooperative
combat ID technologies, with emphasis on the air-toground
mission.
“Technology performed at Bold Quest as people expected,” said
John Miller, Joint Forces Command operational manager for the
CCID ACTD. “As a result, there are going to be technologies on
both the cooperative and noncooperative target ID side that will
come out with some strong recommendations that they move forward
into acquisition.”
In addition to the BTIS radio-based combat ID and situational
awareness, Bold Quest tested the Laser Target Imaging Program
and Synthetic Aperture Radar/Aided Target Recognition, two noncooperative
air-to-ground combat ID systems that make it easier
for aircraft crews to distinguish targets on the ground better. LTIP
uses laser light to allow the pilot of an aircraft to view images of a
target at great range, while SAR/ATR provides high-resolution
radar images so aircraft can determine whether a ground target is
a vehicle or a building. The exercise also tested other cooperative
identification technologies, including ground-to-ground Mode 5/S
IFF — the technology originally developed to identify aircraft.
“We’ve come a long way and reached a point where we understand
how to do target ID,” Miller said. “We’ve figured out both
cooperative and noncooperative means to allow the warfighters to
identify objects in their sights as a friend or enemy.”
“What we’re just scratching the surface on is taking that information
and moving it around a network very rapidly so others can
benefit and get involved with the engagement process,” Miller said.
“That’s got to happen very quickly, and in order for that
to happen, we have to break down a lot of informationsharing
barriers between nations, both technical and
policy-based.”
The CCID ACTD has been extended through fiscal
2008, and there is a possibility that a 2009 multinational
exercise — for now referred to as Next Quest —
will be held with an emphasis on coalition combat ID
networking.
“Perhaps we’ll do this again in an environment where
we’ve gotten more permission to share information
coalitionwide,” Miller said.
“We had enough permission here to do what we needed
to do, but we only really scratched the surface. At
Bold Quest, we were able to set up the networks
between the [National Training Center] and Nellis [Air
Force Base] in a way that is closer to what we would
hope to see in an active theater of operations.”
|
|
|
|
![1105 Media [purity]](/images/ds1_pntmlogo.gif "1105 Media [purity]"){kind=small}
