This article first appeared in Defense Technology International.
If a multinational organization that few have heard of, headed by a Russian-educated citizen of Mali, managed to disable the radar of a major U.S. combat system, you would think someone would make a fuss. Apparently not: When the U.S. Federal Communications Commission, acting in accordance with the International Telecommunication Union, inadvertently sold the operating frequency band of the B-2 bomber’s Raytheon APQ-181 radar to a commercial user, nobody panicked, even though installing new radar arrays on the 20 surviving jets will cost well over $1 billion.
While more information is stored electronically and shared, the radio-frequency (RF) bandwidth available to share it remains fixed. The pressure is increasing, as consumers trade voice telephones for video smartphones, computer users everywhere demand broadband and new applications emerge. But the concept of network-centric warfare and the wider use of unmanned vehicles are making militaries equally dependent on the availability of wideband wireless.
The B-2 radar is only one capability that has been lost since the information revolution kicked into high gear. The Joint Tactical Information Distribution System, the first attempt to create a network-centric environment (and currently the only way to get AWACS targeting data to an F-22) has “limited supportability outside the continental U.S.,” according to a U.S. military presentation, because it was developed in an occupied band.
Global Hawk’s satellite data link operates in a non-government fixed satellite service bandi.e., one of the bands used for communications between satellites and fixed ground stationson a limited, noninterference basis. The Situational Awareness Data Link and Enhanced Position Location Reporting System can’t be used in Germany or South Korea. Stealth systems present problems, because their emitters hop around the widest possible bandwidth to frustrate tracking.
Another, more subtle problem is getting closer at an alarming rate: encroachment on the spectrum for flight-test telemetry. Although you can fit more memory and processing on the aircraft itself, telemetry is more important than ever to flight testing. To test complex systems efficiently, you need to have the flight-test engineering team monitoring data in real time, so experts on the ground can determine if each test point was good and clear the pilot to proceed to the next. This calls for higher data rates. Another driver for telemetry is testing of increasingly sophisticated unmanned aerial vehicles.
There are two unalterable facts about RF bandwidth. More data takes more bandwidth, counted in hertz, and of course there are more hertz available at higher frequencies. The second law is that the higher the frequency, the harder it is to get range, since it takes more power.
Flight tests can’t use a lot of high-technology compression. “This is not a cell phoneyou can’t ask the pilot to wait while you redial,” says Darrell Ernst of Mitre Corp., a member of a U.S.-European delegation trying to raise international awareness of the bandwidth issue at last month’s Aero India show in Bangalore. He reckons that with manageable compression and modulation techniques, 600 MHz. of spectrum will still be needed to fly one test in 2020.
So far, the only space walled off for flight testing is between 5091 and 5150 MHz. in the microwave band. This segment was reserved for the aborted Microwave Landing System project. “If [the flight-test community] can get in there and start using it, we can be established as the primary user and it will be hard for them to throw us out,” according to Ernst.
Read the rest of this story, check out a cool JSF pic gallery, see if the DPRK is learning the lessons of Iraq and Afghanistan and take a gander at a HOT F-35 screed from our friends at Aviation Week, exclusively on Military.com.
– Christian
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
These problems also extend to our satellite-based military internet access. Many of those frequency bands are commercially owned and we pay through the nose for access. Those satellites get more crowded every year.
Who the hell sold you that shit?
It can only work in one freq? hahahaa!
The corruption in your military industrial complex is a joke, I can’t understand how anyone still remains in this ‘military’, they could cut the crap and directly build ‘tanks’ or ‘war-planes’ and throw them in any deep pit in the ocean, at least they wouldn’t be putting lifes at risk and giving a false sense os security.
You can’t rely on just one freq, it will be too easy to jamm, you should rely on dynamic changing freq that authenticate thanks to strong crypto!
You are voluntarly weakining your ‘defenses’, well it’s just a tip.
Mr. “Dumb”:
I don’t know where your name comes (though I can guess), but you can’t pass large amounts of data over a freq hop. Encrypted freq hopping works wonders for passing voice transmissions, but for the kind of stuff the story is about requires stable frequencies with lots of bandwidth. Its obvious your background doesn’t include physics or telecommunications so try not to exhaust yourself trying to comment on that which you have no understanding.
>Flight tests can’t use a lot of high-technology compression. “This is not a cell phone
“The B2 should just be scrapped it’s a flying dinosaur…..”
No, the B52 is a flying dinosaur. The B2 is probbly one of the best bombers ever built problem is its to fin expensive it performs well and carries an amazing amount of firpower.
The B2 is a weapon that every other country would like to have…
But as i said 1bil for a bomber not counting feul or maintanence..is rediculus.
TB, then you better hire more technicians and less bureacrats in the pentagon, with current computers is possible to receive data through several different frequencies and join and proccess them, while at the same time you send some junk or false data for the enemy listeners, you have to protect your ability to transmit and a system based on one freq is suicide, it’s possible, but that means really working, something your corrupt overbudget military ‘brainers’ forgot time ago, you have been designing the same concept again and again and it’s no wonder why you fail so miserably everywhere you go, you don’t adapt, you don’t evolve, it took the US how many years to launch and UAV? and how much does it cost? the price you are paying for it is an insult to every taxpayer.
You better develop some truly groundbreaking tech, like energy shields or some other sci-fi… if not, you are doomed, you spend more than the rest of the world together and are being beaten by farmers with aks, you can’t even protect your bases where you store your billion-per-plane fuel-eaters, you are a paper tiger, I’m not saying other countries are better, but you should not be proud, but worried, and thankfull you haven’t been attacked and that you don’t have any half-decent enemy.
And Joe, it matters, you should care that the B2′s RADAR operates on the same spectrum as some commercial user somewhere. Because they were first using it, they have more right to it, and if you harm or stop their ability to use it, you are a thief, and a criminal, and mayor distortions of economy is a cause of war, if they are as stupid as they say in the article(I hope not) they won’t be able to fly over allied space or neutral space without causing serious trouble.
Dumb,
What are you talking about? The FCC doesn’t own the spectrum in Allied countries or neutral countries ir anywhere except for the USA. Also, the FCC doesn’t regulate spectrum used by the Federal Government. That would be the Job of the NTIA. How does the FCC selling spectrum in the USA defeat the B2′s radar capabilities over Russia or China or the UK or anywhere for that matter?