Need to Transmit Video? Make Your Older Fighter Go FAST

In a December 2005 “Elec Tricks” article, DID discussed some promising research around using AESA radars as secure high-bandwidth communications links. As you might imagine in the world of electronics, for every IEEE 1394 Firewire type breakthrough out there, there’s an incremental USB 2.0 approach, too. DID’s coverage of HyPer 1553’s boost to the MIL-STD-1553 electronics/ interface architecture is an excellent example in the military sphere. Is there an incremental option out there that offers hope for non-AESA radar fighters? There may be, thanks to a Link 16 upgrade. DID has covered Link 16 before; jam-resistant Link 16 radios automatically exchange battlefield information – particularly locations of friendly and enemy aircraft, ships and ground forces – among themselves in a long-range, line-of-sight network. For example, air surveillance tracking data from an Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) aircraft can be instantly shared with fighter aircraft in the air and air defense units on the ground. The operational advantages provided by at-a-glance portrayal of targets, threats and friendly forces, on an easy-to-understand, relative position display, are obvious. The thing is, Link 16 was developed in the 1990s, back when we all thought 9600 bps modems were fast. Unsurprisingly, its communications aren’t […]