Photo By Joseph Bullinger | NIWC Atlantic engineers demonstrate their surrogate SATCOM capability called Tactical...... read more read more
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CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. — Modern day Marines operate not just at the tip of the spear but on the assured availability of satellite links.
With the notion that command, control and communications (C3) are crucial to winning any conflict today and into the future, Naval Information Warfare Center (NIWC) Atlantic rolled out an alternative satellite communications (SATCOM) technology at Camp Lejeune in mid-April.
Called Tactical, Deployable, MUOS (Mobile User Objective System), or TDM, NIWC Atlantic demonstrated the capability during Naval Integration in Contested Environments (NICE) Advanced Naval Technology Exercise (ANTX), which ended on April 14.
“It was a great opportunity to get out and demonstrate our satellite surrogate to warfighters and other interested parties,” said Mike Johnson, a NIWC Atlantic systems engineer and TDM program lead. “Whether for nefarious reasons or challenging geographic settings like mountain ranges or polar regions, satellite coverage is not 100 percent guaranteed to warfighters, who require beyond-line-of-sight (BLOS) communications in a tactical environment. That’s where TDM can play a huge role as a fallback C3 system.”
Aboard a drone, aerostat or other airborne vehicle, the TDM aerial payload is equipped with a software-defined radio functioning as a smart relay. The standalone capability gives warfighters BLOS communications via tactical radios and a portable ground-control station. In addition, TDM takes less energy and power to transmit to the aerial platform.
A key objective during prototype development was ensuring TDM was compatible with MUOS — a recently rolled out Navy-led program that provides the Department of Defense narrowband SATCOM capabilities and increased bandwidth, provisioning and user capacities over older communications.
The TDM team took compatibility into account at every turn.
“TDM keeps the lines of communication open over all existing MUOS equipment,” said NIWC Atlantic systems engineer Jason Pizarro, U.S. Marine Corps Communications Systems Team technical lead at the Expeditionary Warfare Department. “We wanted to make operations as seamless as possible for the warfighter, whether they are on TDM or MUOS.”
In addition, Johnson said he believes TDM could work particularly well in an expeditionary advanced base operations (EABO) scenario, where Marines need to maintain an inconspicuous presence.
“TDM can keep the warfighter less exposed,” Johnson said, “because transmissions are to a low-altitude aerostat, not a satellite 20,000 miles up in space.”
Johnson and Pizarro led prototype developments on the TDM radio nearly three years ago, along with communications and networks experts within NIWC Atlantic’s engineering branch. Since 2019, the TDM pioneers forged a relationship with an industry partner and they together demonstrated their tech at Camp Lejeune in April, alongside more than 60 other teams that presented new technologies to be evaluated by the Navy and Marine Corps.
“Getting out of our lab cocoons to participate in a field exercise with Marines and Sailors was very rewarding,” Johnson said. “Operators and assessors alike seemed to really appreciate the complexity of the technology and the alignment it has to urgent warfighter needs.”
Pizarro, who serves as the Marine Corps advocate for TDM, said assessors and military leaders at ANTX visualized how the technology could be integrated into existing platforms or EABO scenarios. “It gave us the affirmation that our hard work was worth it,” he said.
The TDM technology’s next stop is Trident Warrior, an annual large-scale naval exercise scheduled for later this year that also incorporates new technologies into an operationally relevant environment.
Peter C. Reddy, NIWC Atlantic executive director, said he is proud of the team’s efforts on developing the surrogate-satellite technology over the years and looks forward to seeing what the future holds for TDM.
“Resilient, over-the-horizon communications are critical to the warfighter as we envision distributed operations in the future,” Reddy said. “But in environments where satellite coverage is either denied or unavailable, a deployable alternative like TDM will be essential for our warfighters to successfully operate in the information environment.”
About NIWC Atlantic
As a part of Naval Information Warfare Systems Command, NIWC Atlantic provides systems engineering and acquisition to deliver information warfare capabilities to the naval, joint and national warfighter through the acquisition, development, integration, production, test, deployment, and sustainment of interoperable command, control, communications, computer, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, cyber and information technology capabilities.
| Date Taken: | 04.27.2021 |
| Date Posted: | 05.05.2021 09:41 |
| Story ID: | 394902 |
| Location: | US |
| Web Views: | 81 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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