Tech. Sgt. Matthew Spittler, right, and Senior Airman Tyler Trocano, center, await extraction with Sgt. 1st Class Steven Sparks from 2nd platoon, Charlie Troop, Team 2-2, 1st Battalion, 126th Cavalry Regiment, Michigan National Guard, Dowagiac, Mich. on a CH-47 Chinook helicopter from the Illinois Army National Guard. The training took place during Operation Northern Strike 2014 near Grayling, Mich. on Aug. 11, 2014. (Air National Guard photo by Master Sgt. Scott Thompson)
By: FEDweek StaffThe Pentagon is moving forward with Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2), the plan to enable the joint force to quickly sort through the array of information while on the battlefield. It entails facilitating the use of data provided through automation, artificial intelligence (AI), predictive analytics, and machine learning (ML) through a network environment that is both sophisticated and able to withstand challenges.
“We must maintain continued focus and momentum on these initiatives and programs, which enhance department capabilities to face current and future threats,” said Deputy Undersecretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks as she unveiled the implementation plan earlier this month. “Command and control in an increasingly information-focused warfighting environment has never been more critical.”
Hicks said that JADC2 would deliver capabilities for rapid and accurate responses for the present and in coming years.
“This is about dramatically increasing the speed of information-sharing and decision-making in a contested environment to ensure we can quickly bring to bear all out capabilities to address specific threats,” Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Army Gen. Mark Milley said.
While much of the details about JADC2 are classified, Pentagon leaders believe it will greatly enhance information-sharing and interoperability.
General: “Not computerizing battle management”
As the Air Force role in the Joint All-Doman Command and Control (JADC2) scenario, service leaders say that human beings – not algorithms – would still be in charge.
“We are not computerizing battle management,” Brig. Gen. Jeffery D. Valenzia, the service’s Advanced Battle Management System (ABMS) team lead, said during a panel discussion during the Air Force Association’s Air Warfare Symposium in Orlando earlier this month. “In fact, battle management is essential – that we have a man in the loop and part of that process – to take the data, the information, and turn it into knowledge and direct the actions if we’re going to win.”
Nevertheless, Valenzia said that algorithms would significantly help human operators make more decisions, more quickly. For the process to succeed, he said, these operators must be comfortable with the machines they would be using.
“I don’t need [battle managers] calling every shot in execution,” Valenzia said. “ I need them to hand it over to a control node that has the tools and the ability to diret that action to meet that intent.”
The panel, which Valenzia moderated, included representatives from industry.
“If the system is sensing the environment, wouldn’t a battle manager want to know that?” said Ron Fehlen, who manages broadband communication systems for L3 Harris Technologies.
“When [a system] actually gets in the operator’s hands, they will find a way to utilize that product, that platform, that software that engineers never imagined,” said James Dorrell, vice president of ABMS at Lockheed Martin Corp.
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