SPAWAR's Speed and Depth Program

Now we get a great follow on story regarding all the communication equipment that was tested in Trident Warrior 2007 (see here, here, and here). Most people who may not have been following that exercise might have missed the fact that despite including both a British and Canadian warship, the Truman CSG is the most networked strike group in the history of warships.

Naturally, these new technologies aren't limited to surface ships, because this is an excellent follow up to support submarine communications in the future.

SPAWAR's Communications Speed and Depth program will use floating antennas to provide two-way communications to submerged submarines over high-frequency radio systems adapted to handle Internet protocol traffic as well as floating buoys to communicate with military and commercial satellites, said Capt. Dean Richter, program executive officer for the Command, Control, Communications, Computers and Intelligence's submarine integration program.

Richter said the Navy completed an operational test of the High Frequency Internet protocol system in December 2007, allowing the USS Montpelier attack submarine to exchange two-way message traffic with eight ships in the USS Harry S. Truman carrier strike group at a date rate of 9.6Kps.

Even at roughly one-fifth the speed of a standard 56Kpbs dial-up modem, the system allowed the submarine to be fully integrated into strike group operations and Navy networks to share situational awareness, plan collaboratively and execute missions with joint forces, Richter said.

SPAWAR also has developed floating buoys that connect to submerged submarines by fiber-optic cables to provide two-way satellite communications, he said. The buoys can exchange data with the commercial Iridium satellite system at a rate of 2.4Kpb and with military ultra-high frequency satellite systems at 32Kpbs, soon to be boosted to 64Kpbs, according to Richter.

The article goes on to say the program is fully funded to have all 73 US submarines upgraded by 2015. It also goes on to discuss SEA DEEP, which is the long term high speed future of underwater communications using lasers to move data.

By the way, those 3 links above about Trident Warrior 2007 are very good. Very few people realize that a few of the most important technology successes of the last three years have been Subnet Relay and high frequency (HF) IP. Both are the transfer of Internet Protocol data over existing line-of-sight radio links. SNR uses UHF radio, and HF IP uses standard HR radios. It is these technologies, combined with others, that creates the real network that branches out beyond the US Navy, and truly has the potential to create that proverbial 1000-ship Navy.

Bringing in the submarine service, even at 9.6Kps, is very important. Techies, think MQ. Submarines can do a lot with just a little bandwidth, and speeds will only get faster. I still wonder whether the decision making process of Naval leadership can keep up with the speeds of the rest of the information processes of today and the future, particularly when weapons are screaming into action at super sonic speeds.