Advanced Airborne Networking Demonstrated by Boeing, U.S. Air Force

Boeing [NYSE: BA] and the U.S. Air Force have demonstrated for the first time how -- with advanced airborne networking and information management technology -- a near-space vehicle can be used as a flexible, low-cost, theater-wide information broker that provides real-time tactical information to ground forces to enhance their effectiveness and survivability.

The recent demonstration was the first in a series of experiments dubbed Project Marti. The Marti concept seeks to combine the wide-area coverage and loiter time of a near-space vehicle (such as a High-Altitude, Long Endurance or HALE concept vehicle) with the sensing ability and agility of lower-altitude unmanned air systems (such as the Boeing/Insitu Group's ScanEagle UAS).

The goal is to provide information over a large geographic region, beyond the reach of a single low-altitude asset, without the need for expensive space-based assets that are often reserved for higher priority missions.

"The challenge here is much more than just the establishment of a high-altitude communications relay," said Patrick Stokes, Boeing Phantom Works manager of Network-Centric Operations-related programs. "It's really all about effectively bringing the power of real-time information to bear within a tactical theater, and doing so without the need for an expensive, fixed infrastructure."

To bring this communication power to the troops, Project Marti is leveraging innovative information management brokering techniques to provide advanced publish and subscribe capabilities across a broad geographical region. Researchers from Phantom Works and the Air Force Research Laboratory Information Directorate recently conducted an initial risk-reduction demonstration of these capabilities.

In the demonstration, multiple information sources, including ground-based software clients representing low-altitude unmanned aerial systems (such as the Boeing/Insitu ScanEagle), delivered near real-time imagery and data through an Internet Protocol network to an airborne information broker (onboard a balloon acting as a surrogate for a near-space vehicle).

The sources transmitted the data simultaneously in a Cursor-on-Target format that allows accurate tactical information to be passed more efficiently among multiple systems. The information broker then successfully distributed to ground stations only the data that matched users' subscriptions.

"This demonstration was the first instance of an airborne information manager storing published UAS sensor data for delivery to ground-based subscribers, who could then utilize that data on a tactical display," said Dr. Jim Paunicka, Phantom Works principal investigator on Project Marti. "The subscribers need only display the data that's relevant to their tactical missions, much in the way that an Internet user would employ a search engine to obtain relevant information."

Future tests in Project Marti will expand the amount and complexity of data as well as the number of assets involved. The tests will culminate in a tactically relevant live flight demonstration in which multiple airborne and near-space assets will operate over an extended range to support a large number of ground units.

During this final demonstration, planned for early 2008, live imagery and tactical data from UAS sensors (including those onboard a ScanEagle) will be published to the airborne network through an information broker on a high-altitude surrogate near-space vehicle -- a balloon that will be launched to about 80,000 feet. Ground units will be able to collaborate with each other to subscribe to data relevant to their respective missions.

Project Marti is one of several programs that support the AFRL's Tactical Information Dominance vision to show how combined UAS and near-space assets can provide widespread information access in tactical operations.

Boeing, U.S. Air Force Demonstrate Advanced Airborne Networking First
ST. LOUIS, Jan. 16, 2007

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The recent demonstration was the first in a series of experiments dubbed Project Marti. The Marti concept seeks to combine the wide-area coverage and loiter time of a near-space vehicle (such as a High-Altitude, Long Endurance or HALE concept vehicle) with the sensing ability and agility of lower-altitude unmanned air systems (such as the Boeing/Insitu Group's ScanEagle UAS).

The goal is to provide information over a large geographic region, beyond the reach of a single low-altitude asset, without the need for expensive space-based assets that are often reserved for higher priority missions.

"The challenge here is much more than just the establishment of a high-altitude communications relay," said Patrick Stokes, Boeing Phantom Works manager of Network-Centric Operations-related programs. "It's really all about effectively bringing the power of real-time information to bear within a tactical theater, and doing so without the need for an expensive, fixed infrastructure."

To bring this communication power to the troops, Project Marti is leveraging innovative information management brokering techniques to provide advanced publish and subscribe capabilities across a broad geographical region. Researchers from Phantom Works and the Air Force Research Laboratory Information Directorate recently conducted an initial risk-reduction demonstration of these capabilities.

In the demonstration, multiple information sources, including ground-based software clients representing low-altitude unmanned aerial systems (such as the Boeing/Insitu ScanEagle), delivered near real-time imagery and data through an Internet Protocol network to an airborne information broker (onboard a balloon acting as a surrogate for a near-space vehicle).

The sources transmitted the data simultaneously in a Cursor-on-Target format that allows accurate tactical information to be passed more efficiently among multiple systems. The information broker then successfully distributed to ground stations only the data that matched users' subscriptions.

"This demonstration was the first instance of an airborne information manager storing published UAS sensor data for delivery to ground-based subscribers, who could then utilize that data on a tactical display," said Dr. Jim Paunicka, Phantom Works principal investigator on Project Marti. "The subscribers need only display the data that's relevant to their tactical missions, much in the way that an Internet user would employ a search engine to obtain relevant information."

Future tests in Project Marti will expand the amount and complexity of data as well as the number of assets involved. The tests will culminate in a tactically relevant live flight demonstration in which multiple airborne and near-space assets will operate over an extended range to support a large number of ground units.

During this final demonstration, planned for early 2008, live imagery and tactical data from UAS sensors (including those onboard a ScanEagle) will be published to the airborne network through an information broker on a high-altitude surrogate near-space vehicle -- a balloon that will be launched to about 80,000 feet. Ground units will be able to collaborate with each other to subscribe to data relevant to their respective missions.

Project Marti is one of several programs that support the AFRL's Tactical Information Dominance vision to show how combined UAS and near-space assets can provide widespread information access in tactical operations.

Phantom Works is the advanced R&D unit of Boeing. Its charter is to provide innovative technology solutions that reduce cycle time and cost of aerospace products and services while improving their quality and performance.

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About Scan Eagle:

Marines Aided by Robotic Airplane in Iraq

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By Associated Press

posted: 30 November 2004
09:57 am ET

ST. LOUIS (AP) -- A robotic airplane called ScanEagle has done more than 1,000 hours of intelligence and reconnaissance work for the Marines in Iraq, its developers said.

It was developed and built by the St. Louis-based defense unit of Boeing Co. and the Washington-based Insitu Group.

Boeing officials said they could not comment on specific ScanEagle missions, but spoke generally of its use.

It travels above insurgent positions and sends real-time video images to Marines on the ground. The unmanned device can relay facial expressions on enemy soldiers, and can transmit in such detail that it shows steam rising from their coffee.

The 4-foot-long aircraft has a 10-foot wingspan and can fly up to 15 hours at a time on less than two gallons of fuel, Boeing officials said.

Unmanned aircraft such as ScanEagle are expected to play an increasing role in future battles because the Pentagon sees the planes as an integral part of combat missions. Weapon systems are in the works that will share a common operating language so soldiers, ships, submarines, planes and satellites can share information in a battlefield network.

Executives at Boeing, the lead integrator on the Future Combat Systems program for the Army, said unmanned combat aircraft will complement piloted planes.

"In general, unmanned combat aircraft will be able to provide the dull, dirty missions that you don't want pilots involved in," Dave Martin, the Boeing program manager for ScanEagle, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in Sunday's edition.

Chicago-based Boeing and the Insitu Group of Bingen, Wash., received a contract in June from the Marines to provide two ScanEagle mobile-deployment units in Iraq. Each unit consists of several ScanEagle planes as well as related computers, communication links and ground equipment.

ScanEagle evolved from Insitu Group's idea for miniature robotic planes that would fly weather reconnaissance over the Pacific Ocean.

The planes would collect data to help with forecasting from areas where weather balloons don't go, said Steve Nordlund, vice president of business development at Insitu.

Before the war in Iraq started, Insitu Group developed its SeaScan unmanned aircraft to serve the commercial fishing industry to spot tuna. The fishing venture has been sidelined as the 50-person company builds planes for the military, Nordlund said.

Nordlund said Insitu Group plans to introduce a ScanEagle that can stay aloft for 30 hours next year.

"Taking the pilot out of the cockpit lowers cost and lowers risk," he said. "That's the perfect unmanned solution. Anything we can do to keep Marines out of harm's way is adding value."

ScanEagle doesn't need a runway because it takes off from a catapult launcher. A 50-foot pole with a rope snags the aircraft when it's time to land.

ScanEagle has a global positioning system and flies programmed missions. Its real-time video can be sent to troops carrying laptop computers. The images also are sent to a ground-control station where intelligence officers can analyze feeds and relay information.

The plane costs about $100,000 to build, not including the ground-control center. Venture capital and Boeing research funds have underwritten the cost of the ScanEagle project, Nordlund said.

Martin said the ScanEagle's price will drop when the number of planes in production increases.

All of the traffic has to be encrypted - a text message containing an order like

Launch the photon torpedoes!

has to be encrypted to look like

@#()*%&*(@#^%899457FJKSKLR#(%&(aldkf$@#SDLFJ(*$@#

and then de-encrypted by the people who would carry out the order.

Similarly, all of the traffic has to be authenticated - if you're the corporal or sergeant or lieutenant who's responsible for launching the photon torpedoes, then you want to be darned sure that the order to launch the photon torpedoes [or to NOT launch the photon torpedoes] came from someone in your own chain of command - i.e. that it was not really a "phish", from someone in the enemy's camp, pretending to be someone in your chain of command.

The mathematics of the two problems tend to be very similar [classically, they involved breaking very large numbers down into their prime factors, although that's changing, as "quantum" computing comes online], but there are several competing standards, and I'd be curious to learn the approach that the Air Force is adopting for a platform like this.

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