HYPERSONIC DEFENCE Chapter 5 Communication & Connectivity

Hypersonic Defence series.  
(Access to other chapters at the end of this article)

The flight of long range Hypersonic weapons, whether they are Cruise Missile (HCM) or Glide Vehicle (HGV) will extend to hundreds or thousands of kilometres, and may traverse multiple areas of responsibility. Their speed (vehicle @ Mach 8 travels 80 Nm or 150 km in a minute) and manoeuvrability challenge detecting and tracking and reduce the time to communicate and coordinate a response between commands. During an attack, the combination of multiple missile types with Electronic and Cyber Attacks will strain the networks and the communications as well as the decision to engage and to prioritize threats.

This will require all assets, whether they are detection sensors, engagement interceptors, or C2 Centres, to be networked with high quality of service, through low latency, and highly resilient communication carriers. Interoperable services routed through those communications will deliver a mission-critical  and resilient connectivity, a key enabler to counter hypersonic missile threat. 

Messages such as target detection, classification, identification and tracking plus commands (examples: cueing, engagement) can be routed through existing communication networks, or through new networks. For existing networks, the challenge will be the speed as they should traverse the network in much less than a second. This implies an inherently low latency network of a few tens of milliseconds, that protocols for passing messages/commands from one area of responsibility to the next are agreed in advance (no human in the loop) and that in case of high load (this may happen during a real conflict) these messages get a sufficient level of priority. 

For a new network, the architecture has to be agreed and rolled out at a continent wide level, which will require significant investments. It may be possible to combine such investments with those needed for other warfare tasks that have similar needs, such as Ballistic Missile Defence. Combining old and new networks will offer resilience through redundancy, and can the basis of a phased approach. This aspect is important as the networks have to be very flexible and manage different level of Quality of Service (QoS) and priority to be adapted to a combination of different types of threat from slow speed UAV’s, Sub- and Supersonic Missiles up to Ballistic and Hypersonic Missiles. In the medium to long term, Artificial intelligence will improve network flexibility and highly complex dynamic routing.

Let us describe some of the communications and technologies ideally suited for hypersonic defence:

• Low and Medium Earth Orbit (LEO/MEO) communication constellations, will deliver resilient and secure connectivity solution to governments to protect citizens. In Europe IRIS2, could be the constellation supporting Hypersonic Missile Defense Services, providing very low latency of few 10 ms, with LEO Satellites. Moreover, thanks to the mix of LEO and MEO satellites, it offers resiliency against non-intentional disturbances and good protection against intentional ones. 
• Link 16 as full NATO-coalition standard will be key to link multiple Area of Responsibility (AoR) and C2 Centres; especially with the JREAP. First by providing the formatted J-messages, a flexible protocol which has demonstrated its ease to evolve, for e.g. by including updated messages for Hypersonic Missile Defense, and which is straightforwardly understandable by all assets on a wide area and is validated during real world training as the Formidable Shield and Ramstein Flag Exercises. Secondly through improvement of the Link 16 terminal with Enhanced Throughput, use of 500 Nm extended range and deployment as a payload on LEO satellite for World Wide Coverage.  This Capability will be reinforced in the near future with the Federated Mission Networking Services (NATO initiative to strengthen networks interoperability between NATO nations), which could be used for such defence.
• Communications Payload, such as 5G/6G, Link 16 Terminal, or RF / Optical High Rate Data Links, hosted on Very High Altitude Platform stations (HAPS) such as stratospheric balloons are ideal assets capable of being included in a networked connectivity, delivering also over-the-horizon capabilities. The high directivity of optical or SHF /EHF Data Links, offer a high protection against any Jamming or Interception / Exploitation Attacks. 

Leveraging our advanced communication networks, characterized by high bandwidth and low latency as presented above, the system will implement a distributed optimizer. The optimizer comprises three essential software components—namely, the data fusion engine (Fusioner), the Orchestrator, and the Supervisor—integrated throughout the system, within each of the sensors, effectors, and C2 elements. 

This architecture ensures the 'network-centric' operation of the system and thus optimal coordination, enhancing the overall performance and efficiency. Note that each stakeholder in the network will have an integration level consistent with the level of collaboration they wish to establish with specific partners and the security constraints they intend to apply.”

The principle of optimizer can then be extended through a wider architecture to build up multi layers kill chains across multi domains and multi layers (land based, sea based, airborne, space borne).Alike clusters, optimizers, which can conduct collaborative engagement through real time interactive kill chains inside clusters of the same level, can be extended to Multi Domain Multilayers C2 (M2C2). These  optimizers will orchestrate in real time at an upper level, the detection and kill chains across multidomain Multilayers clusters of clusters. They will optimize the sharing of data and resources including communications resources in different medium as depicted above.