JOINT BASE LANGLEY-EUSTIS, Va. –
This week, the Air Force Command and Control Integration Center conducted a Joint Expeditionary Force Experiment, or JEFX, called Unified Capabilities II. The experiment ran from July 16 to 20 on Langley Air Force Base, and built upon a prior experiment, UC I, which evaluated the ability to leverage commercial cellular networks to provide access to personnel conducting operations around the base.
During UC I, close cooperation between Air Combat Command's Directorate of Communications and the JEFX team helped chart the course for Air Force-wide implementation of mobile technologies.
With support from Air Combat Command Security Forces and Surgeon General Directorates, the 633d Air Base Wing and the Air Force Security Forces Center, as well as continued partnership with ACC/A6, the AFC2IC designed UC II, which takes a targeted approach to address a unit level warfighter challenge: effective C2 integration within and across a military base, and dialogue with local and regional authorities during emergency management operations.
During UC II, a base Emergency Operations Center pulled information from several user-customizable situational awareness displays. Subject matter experts assesed the ability of composite displays to rapidly enhance senior-leader situational awareness. In addition, base security forces, medical and fire response personnel employed mobile cellular capabilities to perform their duties during both aircraft mishap and active shooter scenarios.
As the experiment progressed, subject matter experts had the opportunity to investigate mobile applications, and high speed cellular capabilities, that may better enable them to communicate and collaborate with their counterparts across the base, and with local and regional agencies. The JEFX experiment design exposed users to multiple capabilities with the goal of achieving increased first-responder efficiency.
"UC II will give us the opportunity to assess how various situational awareness displays feed into a User Defined Operational Picture, a glass panel, if you will, and enable senior leaders to more effectively and efficiently 'fight the base,'" said Col. Joel Martin, AFC2IC Innovation and Experimentation division chief. "Mobile devices and new technical capabilities are important, but they're just tools. It's the results of applying the new tools to emergency management operations that we're interested in.
"The glass panel integrates disparate Common Operational Pictures to quickly update senior-leader situational awareness, so implementation of an effective display should imply senior leader ability to rapidly access authoritative source data, build upon that and enable them to reach more informed decisions."
There were three key objectives of UC II. First, to evaluate the various shared situational awareness capabilities. JEFX assessors analyzed the ability to leverage communications on mobile devices across the network; evaluate integrated voice connectivity; and examine integration of disparate data, video systems, networks and composite displays for information sharing.
Second, to employ high-speed, commercial cellular technologies and assess the operations of specific mobile devices and applications inside that environment. Finally, UC II assessed the utility of mobile capabilities as a tool to address first responder operational requirements.
The experiment's results will allow discovery of potential changes to emergency response procedures required by implementation of new technology, refine the Air Force Mobile Strategy which lays the groundwork for implementing mobile capabilities across the Air Force, and influence Air Force Security Forces Center mobile capabilities modernization efforts.
For additional information on the UC II experiment, please contact Mr. Greg Church, JEFX Experimentation Branch Chief, at (757) 225-2133, or DSN 575-2133.