US Air Force seeks tech sweet spot for Advanced Battle Management SystemBy Colin Demarest Thursday, Jun 23 Understanding exactly how dated technologies will interact with newer ones and what must be carried forward in favor of what must be left behind is “where some of the tension” resides when developing the next of generation of command and control, Brown said at a Hudson Institute event June 22. “You look at some of our weapon systems, they were all developed at different times. Some of them were developed before the internet was a thing. So how do you then make something backward compatible? And in that lies part of our challenge,” Brown said. “And then how much do you invest? If it’s a radio or piece of hardware, if you’ve got to buy one for every single airplane, that gets pretty expensive.” ABMS is the Air Force’s contribution to Joint All-Domain Command and Control, or JADC2, the Department of Defense’s vision of seamless information sharing across land, air, sea, space and cyber. Using cloud environments, artificial intelligence, updated communications gear and more, the Air Force hopes to quickly dispatch more and more-tailored information to forces on the battlefield. |