U.S. Exploring Blue-Force Tracking Video

摘要

The U.S. Army is exploring ways to get today's blue-force tracking equipment to swap data with the next-generation Future Combat Systems (FCS) networking gear, a decade-long, multibillion-dollar effort the service has dubbed Unified Battle Command. Currently, the 40,000 Army vehicles equipped with blue-force tracking - formally called Force 21 Battle Command Brigade and Below (FBCB2) - can send their locations to FCS-equipped vehicles but receive FCS data only with difficulty and in limited amounts. FCS gear is expected to start entering service in 2010, but it would cost billions of dollars to replace all the existing FBCB2 radios, terminals and displays. To avoid that, the Army wants to see whether it can make FBCB2 gear do a bit more of what FCS gear can do - but without the hefty price tag. That starts with getting the two kinds of devices to talk to each other. 'You look at the capacities of the different networks and identify what information you would like to pass and create architecture to put gateways in place to make those things happen," said U.S. Army Brig. Gen.