EGLIN AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. -- Eglin teams played a vital role in the Air Force’s second Advanced Battle Management System exercise Sept. 1-3.
The large-scale, Northern Command-sponsored event included 70 industry teams, 65 government teams from all services, 35 military weapons systems, 30 geographic locations and four test ranges. The 96th Test Wing’s units were responsible for testing the ABMS network and how the aircraft, ships, space and ground systems communicated within it.
The ABMS network receives and shares real time information simultaneously across all weapons systems and warfighting domains: air, space, cyber, land, and maritime. The end product provides users with a network where information can be shared, accessed and viewed in a universal format.
Capt. Andrew Rexford, 46th Test Squadron assistant director of operations, described the test as a system of highways with trucks. The focus of the exercise was to demonstrate and test the highways connecting the activities of the trucks and how they collaborate.
“Our goal is to identify traffic jams or issues that would prevent these systems from working together,” said the ABMS Eglin test lead.
The 96th Cyberspace Test Group partnered with the 96th Operations Group and 96th Range Group to plan the complex event. The units coordinated airspace and range support for more than 20 outside agencies, leveraging nearly 75 percent of the airspace over Eglin’s 120,000-square-mile water range for the exercise.
The execution of the ABMS test required a diverse team of the wing’s testers, network engineers, IT administrators, technicians and range experts.
“This is not a traditional test where we evaluate a single system's performance in a sterile test environment,” said Rexford. “Our focus was to collect data from the 30-plus systems participating, so we can analyze how everything works together when connected on a large scale.”
The 96th CTG is uniquely postured to test ABMS through its 46th TS Datalinks and the 45th Test Squadron’s Joint All Domain Command and Control Laboratory. These resources, physically located in the group, contain $165 million of datalinks, sensors, C2 systems and test instrumentation that can be utilized nationwide.
ABMS serves as a technical solution to JADC2, a modernization effort to connect joint forces and information systems together under one umbrella. ABMS exercises are planned for roughly three times a year, and Eglin played a major role in both demonstrations to date.