U.S. Military Intends to Revamp Communications Networks.

• Author: Harper, Jon

LOS ANGELES -- The Defense Department has ambitious plans for creating new communications architectures to link its forces. But a number of hurdles stand in the way of that vision becoming reality.

Acquiring interoperable systems, overcoming organizational shortcomings and finding the money to pay for new equipment are major challenges that all the services face in the coming years.

The Army, for example, is trying to beef up its network as it prepares for future battles against advanced adversaries. The new technology is expected to support its other major modernization initiatives including: long-range precision fires; next-generation combat vehicle; future vertical lift; air-and-missile defense; and soldier lethality.

Those priorities "have become the absolute focus of our network modernization efforts from the tactical to the enterprise" level, Lt. Gen. Bruce T. Crawford, chief information officer, Army G-6, said at the MILCOM conference in Los Angeles.

The service's next-generation platforms are expected to rely heavily on unmanned systems, sensors, data transfer and communications, as the U.S. military pursues its multi-domain battle concept to include land, air, sea, space and cyberspace. Officials at the conference--which was hosted by AFCEA and IEEE--described the Army's vision as "the internet of battle things."

But the service has a lot of work to do as it seeks to onboard new technology.

"There are things that we've got to fix globally, from our voice infrastructure to our data switching infrastructure that are at or near end of life," Crawford said.

The Army also wants to network soldiers and their weapons systems, he noted. "The enterprise hasn't been optimized to be able to account for that, so if that capability existed tomorrow we wouldn't be able to properly leverage it."

However, with the recent establishment of Army Futures Command, the service now has a once-in-a-generation opportunity to revamp its architectures, Crawford said.

For the past year and a half, the Army has been conducting the largest and most comprehensive review of its network in nearly four decades. Officials have reached a sobering conclusion.

"The thing that we've come to realize ... is we don't have the institutional talent to achieve the vision of delivering these six modernization priorities by [the target date of] 2028," Crawford said. "Even if we could build that talent, I'm not sure that we could sustain it."

As a result, the Army will have to rely on outside experts to achieve its network modernization goals as it pursues a "cascading series"...