Integrated Broadcast Service upgrades reach sites six months early

  • Published
  • By Monica Morales
  • 66th Air Base Wing Public Affairs
HANSCOM AFB, Mass. --  The last of the 631st Electronic Systems Squadron's Integrated Broadcast Service sites slated for Spiral 3 installations reached completion Sept. 28, six months ahead of schedule and with a cost savings of $4 million.

"For each of these installs, we have deployed a fourth of our team to the field to conduct audits, supervise the installation and execute test activities - so this has been a complete team effort," said Maj. Steve White, IBS Program Manager. "Everybody rolled up their sleeves, got the job done and showed their professionalism, dedication and commitment."

IBS provides the means for national and theater ISR sensors to pass intelligence and information reports to tactical users, who then make decisions based on the near real-time dissemination of threat information. The end result is track data that appears on a war fighter's display processor, either as images on a map or scrolling data that, when clicked on, conveys a more detailed report of the event.

Spiral 3 installation efforts began earlier this year, kicking off at the IBS Support Office at Fort Meade, Md., in May. The second site's installation at United States Pacific Command began in late July, and installation at the final site, United States European Command, began in early September.

According to Major White, the accelerated plan is attributed to the team's initiative and collaboration with prime contractor L3-Titan last fall. Additionally, the team incorporated lessons learned at each site in order to be ready for the next location's installation.

"We had resources and mechanisms in place to manage any emerging deficiencies at the sites, and to roll those deficiencies into a timely software patch," Major White said. "We maintained credibility with our users by integrating lessons learned at one site prior to fielding at the next."

IBS' Spiral 3 upgrades include the introduction of an operational capability to receive and disseminate intelligence data via a common message format.

The upgrades also support the translation capabilities of messages from legacy broadcast services like the Tactical Interactive Broadcast Service to the IBS common message format, and vice versa when needed. This can provide users with greater access to information by overcoming the previous limitations put in place by the legacy systems originally used.

And delivering the IBS Spiral 3 installation to the war fighter months sooner allows for other pieces of the system's architecture to come into full use in a more timely and efficient manner. Additional IBS efforts include fielding a Common Interactive Broadcast capability, and migrating the families of radios and Tactical Data Processors to the IBS common message format standard.

"This is one of the many moving pieces that needed to happen to implement the full IBS capability for the war fighter," said Earl Guce, EUCOM IBS Information Management Element. "It's one less thing to spend time worrying about, and allows other system parts to follow suit and fall into place."

Mr. Guce also said that the ease of working with ESC personnel contributed to an effective transition.

"ESC's focus on early and comprehensive planning was what allowed for such a smooth upgrade," he said. "It's all this that contributed to the IBS tool getting that much closer into the hands of war fighters."

The accelerated fielding schedule allows for Spiral 4 efforts to begin six months earlier than originally planned. The next spiral's Preliminary Design Review is now planned for this December instead of June 2008, and will introduce the next generation of IBS Net-centric capabilities.