Pat Host
Clif Basnight knows the hyperconnected battlefield is the future of modern warfare. As Ultra Intelligence & Communications vice president of strategic technologies, Basnight also knows there are both significant barriers, and emerging opportunities, in deploying 5G and advanced communications capabilities for the modern warfighter.
ExecutiveBiz sat down with Basnight during a recent Executive Spotlight interview to learn more about broader 5G deployment, accelerating the kill chain and the emerging technologies that will have the biggest impact on the federal landscape.
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ExecutiveBiz: What barriers remain in achieving widespread 5G deployment and getting 5G into the hands of our warfighters?
Basnight: I’m a network engineer by trade and have found myself in the middle of this discussion on and off from my time as a government civilian in the early Network Integration Exercise 11.2 and several times as a tactical internet subject matter expert. In my opinion, the biggest barrier to a large-scale, on-the-move implementation on the battlefield has been complexity.
Every implementation I’ve seen has made users extremely happy with it when it works. However, when it doesn’t work, users ask: Who’s going to fix this? Who has the skillset to identify, isolate, and resolve the problem? Is there a tactical cellular schoolhouse I can go to find someone to do the job on the battlefield?
In the commercial space, billions of dollars have been spent to fix infrastructure to get us to the quality of service we have today. Hundreds of millions of dollars are spent annually to operate and maintain the various 5G networks, and the manpower to maintain those networks are paid through hundreds of millions of subscribers generating revenue monthly. Based on today’s defense budget, and lack of a subscriber revenue generation model, getting to the level of service currently seen in the commercial market is simply a hard task for the Department of Defense to accomplish. Especially when most, if not all, of the 5G components are expected to be on the move with no fixed towers or cores.
However, I believe expectations are evolving and I’m seeing more thoughts about multiple small 5G edge bubbles being used to support front-line communication, like what we’re seeing in Ukraine. This changes the question to: Can the U.S. afford to buy enough kit to make the capability a viable option for day-to-day use on the battlefield?
If the goal shifts to enabling a user with an end-user device access to a private 5G network that’s secure from adversaries as a cost-effective way to connect unmanned systems and sensors for a small section of the battlefield, maybe that can be accomplished. As the hubs and spoke networks of sensors, interceptor, unmanned vehicle, command center and soldiers become more hyperconnected, 5G will be a key enabler.
Other practical considerations for 5G/NextG beyond how much equipment is needed include how all of this data from an ever-growing number of sources will be offloaded from the edge into the cloud, data centers, AI pipelines and other analytical endpoints. How will it make the commander’s sight picture clearer? 5G/NextG makes a lot of sense to get us to the hyperconnected architecture we need, but it will add a few new layers of complexity.
Despite these complexities, the DOD must move in this direction. Today’s users, both commercial and military, expect to interact with the world through their mobile devices. Ultra I&C is addressing this complexity by developing radio terminals with layered resources with the future in mind so that 5/6/NextG connectivity is just another waveform we can instantiate.
This would allow us to radiate a commercial waveform in permissive or hide-in-plain-sight environments. When the situation changes and we need to be more resistant to electronic warfare, we can switch to a more resilient waveform. We’ve designed our systems to support a rich waveform inventory with connectivity options that can be deployed on the fly and to adapt as operational conditions change.
ExecutiveBiz: How can we improve cross-domain weapon systems or accelerate the kill chain and its integrated lethality?
Basnight: We’re on the verge of building hyperconnected systems—linking soldiers, airmen, sailors, marines, their robots and unmanned systems, and all the data they generate. This integrated battlefield will accelerate the kill chain. In a conversation earlier, someone pointed out to me that, eventually, adversaries may use leaked personally identifiable information data to identify and directly target individual soldiers on the battlefield with drones. This is an example of how hyperconnectivity in conjunction with AI promises to unify the kill chain even more.
However, to actualize this integrated lethality, there’s still a gap in timeliness between the sensor and shooter on the network at different classification levels. For example, if I have an unclassified sensor, creating a targeting package requires passing that data through various guards up to, and through, a classified process to generate a firing solution. This is time-consuming in an environment where every millisecond counts.
Commercial Solution for Classified, or CSfC, might offer a path forward. This could allow us to use a commercial encryption package to attach an unsecured sensor to a classified network at the edge. This would enable affordable and attributable sensors to securely link with a centralized orchestrator for fire control, allowing rounds to land on target quickly.
Another possible way to improve cross-domain sensor-to-shooter threads is to develop new data-in-transit algorithms based on what the intelligence community is already doing for key distribution, repurposing those techniques to move operational data in a high assurance mode, when needed, between nodes.
We currently have several cross-domain solutions deployed on the battlefield, but each implementation requires separate approval for every use case and the process is extremely challenging due to platform and schema constraints. Frankly, we don’t have the time to treat these types of solutions as the primary path forward. I think a viable answer could lie somewhere between CSfC and a new algorithm based on key material distribution techniques.
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ExecutiveBiz: Where do you see Ultra I&C in 10 years, and what are the concrete steps you have to take to get to that stage of evolution?
Basnight: Simply put, Ultra I&C is delivering a transport diversity ecosystem. Transport diversity requires more than just a bunch of isolated solutions coupled by glue and bubble gum. We’re focused on delivering integrated, modular transport capabilities across our portfolio—tropo scatter solutions, mobile high-capacity line-of-sight radios and multi-orbit, multi-band satellite terminals. We’re building families of systems with an assortment of sizes and forms, yet similar functions so operators can right-size their kit for the mission and grow or shrink as needed.
On the battlefield, you have about 14 minutes to shoot, move and communicate before becoming a target. Everything we deploy must be rapidly assembled and quickly displaced to maintain operational capabilities. Whether it is the fires network, the intelligence network or getting beyond line-of-sight shots in a denied environment; compact, modular systems are essential.
That’s Ultra I&C’s focus and what we’ve done well for over a century. Our communications division can trace its roots to Marconi, as far back as the first transatlantic high frequency shot recorded in 1902. The earliest Army contract I’ve found awarded to Ultra I&C for a high-capacity radio dates back to 1962, and we’ve been innovating ever since.
Now, with the launch of our Orion Gen 6 platforms, we’re coalescing over 100 years of advancement and innovation in wireless communication. Our distinct focus is to increase spectral efficiency in the radio frequency domain and find ways to hide data in plain sight to help warfighters stay effective and adaptable on the battlefield.
ExecutiveBiz: You’ve mentioned transport diversity a few times. What exactly is that?
Basnight: Transport diversity gives warfighters multiple options to transmit data. One waveform doesn’t solve every problem. You can’t rely solely on satellite communication and you won’t be able to do everything through line-of-sight or troposcatter. The key is having the flexibility to switch between technologies on the same platform or through modular adaptations. When one technology fails, and it will, you’ll need another communication method ready to keep data flowing. Without data, decisions can’t be made. Without decisions, you can’t fight, and without the ability to fight, you can’t win. That’s the importance of transport diversity.
ExecutiveBiz: Which emerging technologies do you anticipate will have the greatest impact on the federal landscape in the next few years?
Basnight: It may seem like a buzzword topic these days, but AI is truly changing the federal landscape. In the tactical comms space, AI is really opening the door to bringing new innovative capabilities to the battlefield. We are building communications terminals with layered resources to overcome the traditional limitation of frequency bands, channel qualities, waveform optionality and antenna combinations.
We’re also using computation resources to help determine how to best combine these resources to increase productivity as the operational environment changes. We’re leveraging AI to take into consideration inputs such as the user’s offered load, current radio frequency conditions and the expected effectiveness of multiple waveforms based on frequency availability before selecting the best waveform in the inventory for the mission. This is all done in real time, beyond the plan and without user intervention.
For example, the operation might start with a data-centric tactical waveform using mesh technologies. But as the battlefield conditions change, the terminal may need to switch to a point-to-point waveform to lower the probability of interception, or a troposcatter waveform to overcome terrain or a denied space layer. In my view, that decision-making—evaluating options, selecting the best course of action and executing—needs to happen in milliseconds or less. We’re investing in AI to apply it directly to our products to build better transport solutions and establish and maintain connectivity with the least amount of pain.
ExecutiveBiz: Is there anything else you would like to mention?
Basnight: I love working at Ultra I&C and I’m thankful for the path that has brought me here. Every phase of my adult life has prepared me for what I’m doing today. During the first phase, I spent 10 years as a soldier, where I had the honor of serving as a vocalist in the Army band in U.S. Army Europe and Africa, and this is where I learned how to ‘read the room.’ Singing in places like Bosnia and knowing how to read the room, to say the right words, to singing the right song at the right moment.
Then, I was sent to Fort Huachuca for the All-Source Intelligence School, where I learned how to leverage technology to gather evidence, build creditable courses of actions and brief succinctly to seniors. After completing training I was sent to the 4th Infantry Division, during the Force XXI digital modernization era, where I was trained to be a master operator on all the digital information systems in the Army Battle Command System portfolio prior to crossing the berm for Operation Iraqi Freedom. Here I learned that, sometimes, the concept can be more mature than the technology built to support it.
