An Example of Successful Transformational Engagement with Industry and Academia

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NATO phased out the ACE High troposcatter network in the 1990s, to then revive the technology in support of expeditionary operations through effective transformational engagements with industry and academia (PHOTO: NATO)

NCI Agency Principal Enterprise Architect, Dr Hermann Wietgrefe, tells Jim Winchester how open engagement with industry and academia helped revive troposcatter transmission technology to support NATO expeditionary operations

Reviving and modernizing an almost forgotten technology over the past decade, the NCI Agency has made great strides in deployable communications infrastructure. The true success has been the transformation engagement approach taken to get there.

Traditionally, terrestrial high bandwidth beyond line-ofsight (BLOS) communications relied on troposcatters, high-powered terrestrial transmission systems using scattering effects in the lower levels of the atmosphere to achieve communication links over the horizon. There were some drawbacks to the systems though, as a lot of power was required to ensure reliable analogue links. “You didn’t want to stand in front of it,” says Dr Wietgrefe. “Rumour has it that occasionally dead birds were found close to the antennas.”

The 1960s-era ACE-High (Allied Command EuropeHighband) troposcatter strategic network was phased out in the 1990s and the replacement transmission services were provided by satellite communications (SATCOM). “This has advantages and disadvantages,” explains Wietgrefe. “The cost per bit per second over the NATO-owned military satellite is rather expensive and of course, since we normally use geostationary satellites, there is a long delay and not all applications perform well under those conditions. For example, if you need real-time information, you cannot get this over a satellite link where your round-trip delay is 600 or 700 milliseconds. If you want to aim at the rockets that are attacking you, you need to be quicker than that.”

HC-BLOS TECHNOLOGY

When NATO developed the Deployable Communications and Information System (DCIS) Programme in the late 1990s in support of expeditionary operations, there was always a strong drive to diversify in-theatre communications that interconnect the deployed DCIS nodes, and offload precious SATCOM capability. So around 2000 the NCI Agency began to look again into alternative in-theatre transmission systems for NATO’s DCIS capability, this time including modern digital troposcatter systems, offering transmission rates similar to digital line-ofsight radio links. Although feasibility of the technology was demonstrated, the available terminals did not fit the deployment requirements, the frequencies used were not readily available to NATO, and built-in signal amplifiers were expensive and maintenance-intensive.

So, this initial effort did not bear fruit, but when it was looked into again in around 2010, the Agency took a different approach. Wietgrefe explains, “We wanted to know: would industry be able to give us the interfaces and performance that we needed, would the systems be deployable and could they be operated from a trailer or from a shelter or even in transit cases? Amazingly, all that was possible. Industry looked into the interfaces, the modulation schemes and other performance figures that we wanted, and they developed the next generation of systems. We then took those systems to NATO exercises and demonstrated that they could be easily integrated into our overall networking structure. 57

58 We also showed that they were reliable, had good communications features and, most importantly, lived up to the expectations of modern High Capacity (HC-BLOS) technology.”

According to Wietgrefe, the technology has come a long way in recent years. “Not only has the modulation improved, but there’s also way more dynamics when it comes to the transmitter power and receiver performance. So nowadays, not only can you communicate using the troposcatter effect over some 150 to 200km, but it is also possible to do a very short line-of-sight shot, with a distance between the two terminals of 1,000m or less with the same system. So, the new systems address three key deployable use cases with the same technology: high-capacity beyond line-of-sight (HC-BLOS), long-range line-of-sight and short-range line-of-sight. In the past, you would have needed three bespoke technologies instead.”

TRANSFORMATIONAL ENGAGEMENT WITH INDUSTRY

The approach to industry was much less complex than a traditional military development programme, as Wietgrefe points out. “Basically, we openly shared our requirements and constraints with industry while validating the approach with academia by publishing technical papers at conferences and checking out what the rest of the world was doing. We also exposed our proposal to the world for comment, criticism and suggestions. We then shared again all the results with stakeholders including industry, who eventually evolved their products in the NATO intended direction.

HC-BLOS terminals: Comet (on the left, 1.2m antenna) and MTTS (on the right, 2.4m antenna) (PHOTO: NATO) NATO’s deployable communications and information system (DCIS) programme benefited from the Agency’s transformational engagement with industry (PHOTO: NATO)

NATO aspires to buy commercial off-the-shelf technology but often imposes so many adaptation requirements that it becomes a military development, with the associated extra risks and costs. NATO experts’ engagements with industry and academia have two major benefits. First, they help industry develop products that are by design well adapted to NATO use cases and requirements. In effect, this contributes to developing a market of military-off-the-shelf products. Second, these activities facilitate short acquisition life-cycles in NATO capability implementation programmes at later stages, as formal NATO requirements will likely be met by existing products. Thus, if these engagements are properly conducted, the market is more likely to take into consideration NATO requirements - as long as they are expressed clearly, industry will recognise the potential commercial benefit.”

Such was the success of the NCI Agency work’s and associated transformational engagement activities that the US company Comtech Systems Inc. is currently developing HC-BLOS systems ready to use for NATO and NATO Nations. The terminals are small, lightweight and easy to deploy and operate.

Other efforts that have benefitted from transformational engagement with industry resulted in the DCIS Cube architecture, where more than 30 industry partners so far have contributed to an open standards-based architecture for a future DCIS node.

Wietgrefe sums up, “I would say, the important thing is, know your operational requirements. Translate them into draft, well-justified technical requirements. Exchange those with industry and academia and openly engage with industry in trials and whatever is necessary. At the end of the day, you will get more of what you want than you would have gotten without doing this. Engaging really pays off.”