Technology for Rapidly Adaptable Command & Control (C2) Systems

Future Coalition Forces Commanders in forward-deployed locations will need robust, flexible, and intelligent command and control infrastructure to effectively employ aerospace power rapidly with fewer resources and a smaller footprint. With the ever-widening scope of operational environments in which air power is being employed, Air Force C2 nodes must provide commanders with the appropriate functionality to support a variety of operational scenarios from Major Regional Conflicts MRC to Operations Other Than War OOTW. Given the mandate for rapid expeditionary deployments into these evolving crisis environments, the C2 infrastructure must be one that is able to adapt dynamically to the unfolding scenario without system downtime or the need for large contingents of system administrators to reengineer the computing or communication architectures. The limited resources available early in a deployment must be able to support a considerable variety of application tools and permit non-discontinuous transitions among them as the situation dictates. This dynamic system reconfigurability should encompass both the physical and functional realms. Hardware footprint must be variable-sized based on what equipment can be airlifted into theater in a given amount of time, and the functionality provided by the application software must be able to evolve seamlessly to respond to changing operational needs. Hardware, software, and communications infrastructures need to adapt and evolve to the changing nature of the mission without breaking the stride of the battle rhythm. Intelligent, scaleable resource-aware distributed architectures are necessary to make this vision a C2 reality.