Accelerate Defense Modernization through Strategic Sourcing
Discover cutting-edge solutions from leading global suppliers
RTX’s BBN Technologies, with funding from the Air Force Research Laboratory, has successfully demonstrated a self-healing communication system engineered to maintain continuous and secure data flow for combat air support during network jamming or fragmentation.
The system utilizes the Primary, Alternate, Contingency and Emergency for Agile Combat Employment (PACE4ACE) architecture to automatically select the optimal available communication link and reroute traffic without requiring operator intervention. The platform is designed to function across a wide array of military and commercial communication pathways, ranging from satellite links to low-power tactical radios.
“For warfighters on the ground and in the cockpit, PACE4ACE helps ensure critical data never disappears, even under jamming,” said Dr. Sam Nelson, principal investigator at RTX BBN Technologies. “The network self-heals, so crews can focus on the mission instead of troubleshooting communications.”
During a recent exercise validating the Agile Combat Employment concept for the U.S. Air Force, four geographically dispersed sites remained securely connected. When high-capacity links experienced jamming, the system instantly switched traffic to the next viable waveform, successfully keeping Open Mission Systems and Team Awareness Kit applications fully synchronized.
The PACE4ACE architecture provides several advanced technical capabilities engineered to enhance operational efficiency and reliability. It features a compact, low size, weight, and power (SWaP) footprint ideal for space- and power-constrained systems, alongside multiband support for diverse communication channels. Additionally, the system incorporates dynamic, real-time routing to sustain performance amid changing conditions, and plug-and-play integration to simplify setup with common mission systems.
Development and testing of the system involved multiple collaborators, with long-range radios provided by the Institute for Human & Machine Cognition and high-frequency support delivered by Collins Aerospace, an RTX business.
