Air Force to Test Freedom Radio, Freedom Pod on U-2, Ghost Reaper

摘要

Northrop Grumman [NOC] is watching planned U.S. Air Force tests this year of the company's Freedom 550 gateway radio on Lockheed Martin [LMT] U-2 high altitude reconnaissance aircraft and the related Freedom Pod under the Air National Guard's (ANG) Ghost Reaper concept. Air Force testing of its future Advanced Battle Management System (ABMS) last year saw the use of the Freedom 550 to link Lockheed Martin F-35 and F-22 fighters, and the company envisions the use of the Freedom Radio on a variety of manned and unmanned aircraft as a communications node (Defense Daily, Feb. 23). To advance ABMS and the larger DoD Joint All Domain Command and Control (JADC2) concept, Northrop Grumman officials have said that they are pursuing a variety of communication gateway solutions to enable military services to share information quickly across domains and platforms. Other than ABMS, Northrop Grumman said it has been involved in communications solutions for the U.S. Army's Project Convergence and Integrated Air and Missile Defense Battle Command System (IBCS) efforts and the U.S. Navy's Project Overmatch.