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JBAIIC ready for EC 10 challenge

U.S. Joint Forces Command will use a reconfigurable test bed to help evaluate intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities during the upcoming Empire Challenge 2010 demonstration.

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By Army Sgt. Josh LeCappelain
USJFCOM Public Affairs

(NORFOLK, Va. - July 23, 2010) -- Members of the U.S. Joint Forces Command (USJFCOM) Intelligence Directorate (J2)/Joint Intelligence Operations Center (JIOC) will evaluate several capabilities during the upcoming Empire Challenge 2010 (EC 10) at Fort Huachuca, Ariz. and distributed sites worldwide.

Empire Challenge is an annual USJFCOM-led, multinational intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) demonstration that showcases emerging capabilities and provides lessons learned to improve joint and combined ISR interoperability.

To gather lessons from the new technologies, EC 10 will leverage the Joint Battlespace Awareness ISR Integration Capability (JBAIIC), a partnership between J2/JIOC and the Naval Postgraduate School Information Sciences Department, that ensures collected ISR data, regardless of sensor, source or communications transport, is processed and exploited to make it available immediately to all joint and coalition warfighters.

Air Force Col. George "Skip" Krakie, the chief of USJFCOM's ISR integration division and the EC 10 military lead, describes JBAIIC as a mobile test bed that can be taken to different venues and used to work the tough interoperability problems facing the joint and multinational warfighter.

"It's a reconfigurable lab, so we're able to work with different ISR capabilities and address different interoperability issues. Also, because it's mobile we're able to take it to operationally relevant environments to support different events," said Krakie.

Krakie explained that JBAIIC can be tailored to meet challenges in getting ISR information out to warfighters who need it.

"We can reconfigure the JBAIIC vans to have different computers and routers and radios that are consistent with what is in the field now or what is going to go into the field," he added. "We then test different concept of operations and tactics, techniques and procedures, as well as software algorithms and hardware configurations to push data out to a warfighter at the tactical edge, who could be in a humvee with either a tactical radio or a laptop computer or, in the future, handheld devices."

Event organizers configured JBAIIC to operate at a brigade level, simulating a brigade tactical operations (TOC) center at last year's EC event at Naval Weapons Station China Lake, Calif. This year, it is moving even closer to the tactical edge and will simulate a battalion TOC according to Krakie.

"We can't bring everything back to Suffolk and work out of the Joint Intelligence Lab. Even when we're deployed in locations such as Fort Huachuca or at China Lake, we can't bring everything back to a central hub," said Krakie, who added that JBAIIC has participated in EC since 2006. "We put this capability out in the places so that it can realistically represent the environment faced by the warfighter at the tactical edge,"

JBAIIC traveled to Nevada and Utah earlier this year to participate in Joint Expeditionary Forces Experiment (JEFX) 10-03, a spiral preparatory event of EC 10. JBAIIC operated as the ground tactical operations center, receiving the data coming in from the Air Force's communication architecture at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada and then pushing it out to vehicles representing Army Stryker and other tactical vehicles at Dugway Proving Ground, Utah.

Afghanistan is the focus for EC 10 this year, with Fort Huachuca selected as the main site because it replicates a similar environment and operating climate.

According to Krakie, the two bases in JEFX 10-03 also were selected because the distance between the two is comparable to the distance between Kabul and Kandahar.

Several JBAIIC-evaluated systems have been adopted by DoD service programs, including the ScanEagle unmanned aircraft system, the Ground Situational Awareness Toolkit and the Counter-Rocket, Artillery and Mortar base defense systems.

Recent JBAIIC efforts have focused on:

• Integration and display of real-time combat and ISR system data on a common Interactive Common Intelligence Picture (I-CIP) display.
• Line-of-sight (LOS) and beyond LOS dissemination of the I-CIP, with hyperlinked still and motion imagery, via tactical wide-band radios.
• Increased ISR support for close air support targeting to improve lethality while limiting fratricide, civilian casualties and collateral damage.
• Increased ISR support to reconnaissance, route clearance, logistics, security and quick reaction forces to increase battlespace awareness and facilitate force protection.

The demonstration runs from July 26 - Aug. 13, with approximately 2,000 participants from the Joint Staff, combat support agencies, services, multinational partners, academia and industry. During EC10, live and virtual capabilities will be demonstrated as they typically would be by a real-world combined joint force.