Northrop Grumman Demos Secure In-Flight Data Links.

• Author: Roaten, Meredith

* PALMDALE, Calif. -- Northrop Grumman says it has demonstrated in-flight connectivity that will be crucial for military communications in contested environments.

During a test flight this summer, the company connected a research aircraft with an unmanned plane to trade information with low likelihoods of interception or detection, officials said. The data link could be crucial for the Pentagon's joint all-domain command and control, or JADC2, effort, which is the military's project to connect sensors and shooters in the coming years, said Tom Pieronek, chief technology officer and vice president of research and technology at Northrop.

The high-altitude, long-endurance drone Proteus--manufactured by Scaled Composites--used a Firebird as a surrogate unmanned aerial system to run an intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance simulation.

The Firebird was able to pass optical data about a target on the ground to Proteus and publish the information on a cloud-based 5G network testbed through a novel prototype multilevel security switch, Pieronek said.

"The flight demonstration is the first integration of a new mission-specific military transceiver, multi-level security data switches, and open...