1. Military analysts discuss friendly forces interoperability during
Bold Quest 2009. Bold Quest brings together nearly 1,000
professional warfighters and contractors from 11 countries
and across the U.S. military to test technologies designed to
eliminate fratricide on the battlefield and refine emerging
technology behind Digitally Aided Close Air Support. (DoD
Photo by: Staff Sgt. Vanessa Valentine, USAF)
630 ELSS on quest to improve combat
identification
by Patty Welsh
66th Air Base Wing Public Affairs
11/30/2009 - HANSCOM AIR FORCE BASE, Mass. -- A
major key to military decision making is being confident
of where your friends and foes are.
The 630th Electronic Systems Squadron from Hanscom
Air Force Base recently participated in the Joint Forces
Command-led Bold Quest 2009 exercise, trying out a
new air-to-ground technology where fixed-wing aircraft
now have the capability to help distinguish forces on the
ground.
The technology is Radio Based Combat Identification
(RBCI). The aircraft implementation of RBCI utilizes a
Rockwell Collins Quint Networking Technology (QNT)
radio, modified to accept the Single Channel Ground
and Airborne Radio System (SINCGARS) waveform, widely used by military ground radios.
Incorporated into any suitable targeting pod - for this exercise, a LITENING pod - RBCI has the capability to
increase a pilot's situational awareness by interrogating radios on the ground at great ranges to determine if the
object is part of a friendly force, ultimately reducing chances of fratricide.
After months of preparing and working out issues through lab tests at Northrop Grumman in Rolling Meadows,
Ill., and flight tests at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., the RBCI was put to the test.
Bold Quest 2009 ran from Oct. 27 through Nov. 5 at Camp Lejeune, N.C., although the F-16 Block 30 aircrafts
carrying the air-to-ground RBCI capability were staged out of the 158th Fighter Wing Detachment at Langley Air
Force Base, Va. More than 800 personnel and coalition partners from Australia, Belgium, Canada, France,
Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and the United Kingdom participated in the exercise.
Bold Quest 2009 focused on testing air and ground units' ability to exchange information and improve coalition
warfighters' ability to identify friendly forces on the ground.
"JFCOM was in charge of Bold Quest and the scripted demonstrations of multiple capabilities," said Capt. John
Whichelow, Electro Optical Combat ID Capabilities program manager at Hanscom Air Force Base. "They put
together scenarios in which SINCGARS radios were placed on vehicles and individuals and informed the F-16
pilots above to gather battlefield situational awareness as they would normally do, but to use the RBCI capability
to the fullest extent to make their assessment easier."
Pilots would fly to a target area and then have the pod interrogate that area, anywhere from 500 meters to two
kilometers to determine if there were friendly forces in the engagement area. In a tactical environment, if a
friendly ground radio is interrogated, it will automatically respond with GPS coordinates to the pilot's query and
be notated on the aircraft's multifunctional display (MFD).
It will show friendlies are in the area with the placement of small green 'X''s at their location. Additionally, the
pilot will get a large red 'X' across the MFD and the words: "Don't shoot."
As this new RBCI capability is an added technology within a targeting pod, it makes it easy to implement. The
pod attaches as a plug-and-play system on the underside of any military aircraft that has already been certified
to carry this type of pod.
The Bold Quest pilots said RBCI was intuitive and required minimal training to use.

2. "There are already more than 300,000 SINGCARS radios fielded with the Army, making the air-to-ground RBCI
capability not only the next logical step in complete situational awareness, but the most cost effective step, since
the infrastructure is already present," said Captain Whichelow. "Using this waveform from the air allows us to
have a cooperative technology where the radios respond directly to being queried."
Laser Target Imaging tested too
To further improve combat effectiveness and reduce the likelihood of friendly fire incidents, the pilots during Bold
Quest had another technology within the LITENING pod, called Laser Target Imaging, which the 630th ELSS
has continued to enhance throughout the past eight years. If, for some reason, there wasn't a ground radio
response and a pilot still had doubts the area was clear, the Laser Target Imaging Program (LTIP) capability
could help him determine what he was seeing.
The LTIP technology is able to image and identify friends or targets at tactically significant ranges in real time. It
works to help identify "non-cooperative" targets, ground elements lacking a cooperative technology to allow
them to respond to an electronic query.
"On the fourth day of the Bold Quest exercise, the pilot could see something behind some trees at more than
five nautical miles, but he wasn't sure what. He turned on the LTIP and was able to clearly determine that it was
two HMMWVs," said Captain Whichelow.
The RBCI (cooperative) and LTIP (non-cooperative) capabilities working together makes it simple to distinguish
between a 'good' guy and a 'bad' guy.
"When you combine the LTIP with RBCI, it improves a pilot or decision-maker's confidence that they know what
they are looking at," said Maj. Abdiel Peart, flight commander, Combat ID Capabilities.
The primary goal of testing RCBI in a tactical environment such as Bold Quest was for a military utility
assessment. The JFCOM analysts will review all the data collected during the flying days to see what is the best
approach for a fixed-wing pod-mounted interrogator.
Except for one cancellation due to weather, dedicated flights incorporating the technologies ran every day of
Bold Quest, except Sunday. Captain Whichelow said everything with the technologies worked as intended.
"Before you could only interrogate ground-to-ground, but now we have the air tied in," he said.
"From our perspective, this has been very successful," said Major Peart.
In addition to acquiring the RBCI military utility assessment, the 630th ELSS also looked to take away pilot
recommendations on ways to make the systems even more effective.
According to Captain Whichelow, Lt. Col. John Rahill, a pilot from the Vermont Air National Guard, said that
participating in Bold Quest and getting to utilize these cutting edge technologies was an "awesome experience,"
and he wished he had more time to use them. After his examination of the system, Colonel Rahill provided
operation recommendations that the 630 ELSS will use to further enhance the RBCI technology.