46.67 (-1.60) Date posted: 08/12/2008*
The U.S. Army will soon be green-lighting a development program designed to transform its disparate air and missile defense systems — each with independent sensing, command-and-control and launching capabilities — into an adaptable and coherent air and missile defense task force capability. The Integrated Battle Command System (IBCS) program, as it‘s known, will boost the interoperability of these weapons systems to the point where they can all be battle-managed from a common command-and-control element.
IBCS features a modular system-of-systems construct that allows warfighters to use any weapons system with any sensor input within an Integrated Fire Control network. Air and missile defense systems include the Patriot missile defense system, JLENS (Joint Land-Attack Cruise Missile Defense Elevated Netted Sensor System), SLAMRAAM (Surface-Launched Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile), as well as the THAAD (Terminal High-Altitude Air Defense) radar – all solutions produced by Raytheon Company.
Raytheon, along with its team of expert partners, is one of two competitors vying for the program's prime contractor status. The contract will be awarded by the Army Aviation and Missile Life Cycle Management Command (AMCOM) in a two-part rolling down-select. The first selection, scheduled for Aug. 20, 2008, will identify contractors to conduct the preliminary design for the IBCS. Two contractor teams will be selected during this initial phase, which will culminate in a Preliminary Design Review by each team. The reviews will contribute to a subsequent down-select to a single contractor in late 2009.
The current target date for fielding a battalion with IBCS capability is FY2014.
Primed to Succeed
Based at the Warfighter Protection Center in Huntsville, Ala., Raytheon's Team IBCS is headed by retired Army Gen. John Urias, Raytheon Integrated Defense Systems (IDS) vice president for Force Applications Programs, and retired Army Col. Dan Kirby, the team's capture manager.
“The IBCS should be considered an open-architecture, command-and-control enabler,” explains Kirby. “It's scalable so it can support the warfighting needs of every formation from a large battalion taskforce down to a platoon. Thanks to common command-and-control and plug-and-fight kits, IBCS allows existing current force sensors and or weapons — say a Patriot radar or SLAMRAAM launcher — to operate onto an innovative, state-of-the-art Integrated Fire Control network.”
According to Kirby, Raytheon's experience in air and missile defense systems gives the team an important advantage over the competition. “What sets us apart is our deep intimate knowledge of the weapons systems that are part of the architecture: Patriot, SLAMRAAM, JLENS, THAAD,” said Kirby. Indeed, the company has a decades-long track record of developing battle-proven sensors and interceptors along with effective systems engineering and command-and-control solutions. “This allows us, with much lower operational and technical risk, to integrate these and achieve IBCS capabilities on schedule, with the lowest cost,” adds Kirby.
Urias agrees: “We've been intimately involved in this business for many years and we have immense pride in our long history of providing most of the U.S. Army's current air and missile defense warfighting capability. We consider ourselves on the cutting edge in both thought and execution on behalf of the warfighter.”
Expert Group of Partners
Another advantage enjoyed by Raytheon is its group of quality partners: General Dynamics, Teledyne Brown Engineering, IBM, Davidson Technologies and Carlson Engineering. “We have a purposely constructed complementary team that brings best-in-industry capabilities together to meet IBCS needs,” says Kirby.
Each partner brings its own expertise to the team. General Dynamics offers the communications network — specifically, Warfighter Information Network Tactical (WIN-T). This is the base piece against which the Integrated Fire Control network is designed to operate. Additionally, General Dynamics provides world-renowned Information Assurance architecture and a capability called Command Post of the Future that integrates a myriad of command-and-control entities for the Army.
Teledyne Brown provides Extended Air Defense Simulation (EADSIM) capability, which has been used by air and missile defense for decades. Moreover, they offer the ability to connect live systems for live integrated tests through their Missile Defense System Exerciser architecture. IBM, meanwhile, is an expert in developing an open service-oriented architecture that brings the old together with the new in a technically sound, cost-efficient manner.
Davidson Technologies, a system engineering house with an extensive history working with the air and missile defense industry, is involved in selecting best-of-breed components for IBCS. “It doesn't have to be Raytheon or General Dynamics component,” says Kirby. “We will assess all available components, including those of our competitors, that meet the needs of the IBCS program objectively and in partnership with the government.”
Finally, Carlson Engineering is known for what's called “soldier-first design” — an engineering method in which mechanical solutions are developed around the soldiers' needs, as opposed to building a box and then making the soldier adapt to the box. “Carlson has influenced much of our mechanical design to be modular and platform-independent,” said Kirby.
State-of-the-Art Simulation Technology Validates Solution
A significant ally in Raytheon's pursuit of the IBCS contract is the company's state-of-the-art demonstration environment, JFires, short for Joint Force Interoperability and Requirements Evaluation SupraCenter.
Located at IDS headquarters in Tewksbury, Mass., JFires is a mission-driven prototyping and evaluation environment capability. It's used to help develop, test and evaluate joint warfighter capabilities in a highly cost-effective manner. Assessments produced in the JFires environment reduce technical risk, thereby enabling the company to maximize the effectiveness of subsequent field testing.
“JFires has demonstrated a means by which we can implement IBCS-like capabilities, all while providing important composite track data,” explains Kirby. “And we did it not only at the tactical level, but across the operational and strategic levels. We demonstrated the ability to provide integrated fire control from one composite battalion to another part of the theater composite force — all the way from a Missile Defense Agency–intercepted IBCM down to a tactical SLAMRAAM engagement of a threat UAV.”
JFires has a long history of successfully integrating systems across Raytheon to develop advanced warfighting capabilities for the company's customers. It helped develop the real-time integration and operational information that uses the U.S. Navy's Zumwalt Total Ship Computing Environment, prototype U.S. Navy Multi-Band Terminal satellite links, the U.S. Air Force's Distributed Common Ground System, and Deep Siren, the submarine tactical paging system.
More advanced JFires experiments have involved advanced combat identification, sensor resource management, dynamic mission planning and integrated fire control. All of these capabilities are essential in evolving net-enabled integrated air and missile defense operations as envisioned by the U.S. Army's Air and Missile Defense System-of-System concept.
'No Other Company' Like Raytheon
When all is said and done, what will propel Raytheon to the top? John Urias believes the edge lies in Raytheon's “ability to provide capability to the warfighter faster and more efficiently because of our extensive expertise with the systems that comprise the IBCS architecture. No other company can make such a compelling statement.
“I've watched our team very closely as it has planned and prepared for this program,” he continues. “The team is simply amazing in its ability to understand warfighter requirements and provide out-of-the-box thinking and cutting-edge solutions. I'm extremely proud to be associated with this tremendously professional and totally committed team.”
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