FA3: Automating Communications Planning for Assured C2

The communications plans for a carrier strike group (CSG) is typically defined long before a mission starts, with inputs from higher headquarters to ensure that the use of satellite communications (SATCOM) assets, radio frequency (RF) spectrum, and communications security is synchronized across the fleet. However, the Navy must increasingly prepare for operations that require on-the-fly communications plan changes when reachback to higher headquarters is unavailable. This places an enormous burden on commanders and staffs. Caliola Engineering, LLC proposes to develop and demonstrate a maximally autonomous management and planning tool that translates the commander’s intent into a communications plan. Our tool will optimize system component configurations for the current RF noise environment and RF spectrum plans. It will also allow planners to explore the impact of additional radio assets – e.g., rapidly-deployable pseudolite relays. In this accelerated Phase I effort, we will focus on a single mission: assured command and control of a CSG when SATCOM is unavailable. In later phases, we will broaden our scope to other Navy applications, and to disaster response communications planning.