U.S. Air Force's Future Battlefield Edge Hinges on MQ-9 Reaper

摘要

This is the U.S. Air Force's vision of future warfare: An F-35, loaded up with precision-guided bombs, heads toward a tanker to gas up for its next mission. Airmen at the air operations center relay instructions from commanders to air and ground forces, while overhead a squadron of unmanned MQ-9 Reapers monitors the movement of enemy ground troops, vacuuming in information with sophisticated radars, fusing the data into one complete battlefield picture, and disseminating it across the force. Instead of large, manned-that is, vulnerable-aircraft like Northrop Grumman's aging E-8C Joint Surveillance and Target Attack Radar System (J-Stars) providing com-mand-and-control and ground sur-veillance capabilities, the Air Force now wants a more survivable, networked approach to the mission, one that would tie information from disaggregated sensors into one picture. This next-generation "Advanced Battle Management System" (ABMS) will significantly improve battlefield awareness and enable faster, smarter decisions that will give the Air Force "the winning edge," leadership argues.