The Northrop Grumman’s Integrated Air and Missile Defence (IAMD) Battle Command System (IBCS) is demonstrating increasingly high levels of performance and interoperability during recent US Army tests.

In these tests conducted in May and June, IBCS demonstrated its voice and data communications systems using a combination of live and simulated air and missile defence assets.

Northrop Grumman said this demonstration built upon the successful multi-node and live air soldier checkout events conducted earlier in the year.

It said these networking and communications exercise further validated the capability of IBCS to form and share a high-quality single integrated air picture across the Army’s IAMD enterprise as well as with higher-echelon military components of the joint force.

Voice and data information was exchanged across various secure military networks, including the Link 16 tactical data link network.

Northrop Grumman is aiming to be a key player in Australia’s IAMD, to be acquired under project AIR 6500.

 During the test, the IBCS combined information from various sources into the single integrated air picture and published it on the IBCS integrated fire control network.

That same high-quality air picture was pushed out over Link 16 to other Link 16 network participants from the US Navy, US Marine Corps and legacy US Army systems.

There were also information exchanges with an air battle management aircraft.

A variety of US Army IAMD assets – including five Northrop Grumman-built IBCS engagement operations centers and five IBCS integrated fire control network relays – supported the testing across three geographically dispersed areas: the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, Tobin Wells Training Area Tactical Systems Integration Lab in Fort Bliss, Texas, and the Government System Integration Laboratory at Redstone Arsenal, Alabama.

NG said the formation and sharing of a single integrated air picture vastly improved the battlefield situational awareness for warfighters, enabling them to make time-critical decisions to defeat air and missile threats.

“The ability to fight as a networked team is of paramount importance on the modern battlefield,” said Dan Verwiel, vice president and general manager, missile defence and protective systems, Northrop Grumman.

“The technology we have developed for establishing, controlling and protecting the air and missile defence network is groundbreaking for our customer.

“Test after test, IBCS continues to demonstrate high levels of interoperability, reliability and performance and is proving its immense value as the central command-and-control architecture of the future for our nation’s air defenders.”