Login
iscover
Northrop Grumman has received approval from the US Department of Defense for Integrated Battle Command System (IBCS) to enter full rate production, marking a major milestone for the modernisation of America’s air and missile defence capabilities, presenting exciting opportunities for Australia’s own AIR 6500 program.
To continue reading the rest of this article, please log in.
Create free account to get unlimited news articles and more!
The decision scales the US Army’s ability to field the paradigm-changing system, enabling sensor-to-decider-to-weapon integration and affirms IBCS’ role as the cornerstone of the US Army’s air and missile defence modernisation strategy.
Rebecca Torzone, vice-president and general manager, combat systems and mission readiness, Northrop Grumman, welcomed the announcement from the US Defense Department, saying, “Northrop Grumman shares the US Army’s commitment to the rapid deployment of IBCS.”
The full rate production decision enables the US Army to set the fielding schedule for IBCS to operational air defence units. The IBCS system provides state-of-the-art, all domain command and control for integrated air and missile defence for US interests across the globe.
“IBCS transforms the battle space by fusing data from any sensor to create a single integrated air picture allowing commanders to see the battle space and use the best weapons to defeat complex threats,” Torzone added.
Poland recently selected IBCS to serve as the centrepiece of the country’s air and missile defence modernisation, and as it is adopted by more US allies and partners, IBCS will enable high levels of coalition forces interoperability and network integration.
Poland’s selection of IBCS follows on from a number of recent milestones for the program, mainly the successful interception of a cruise missile target using a Patriot effector without having a Patriot radar in the system architecture, demonstrating the flexibility of the IBCS architecture and its capacity to optimise the capabilities of integrated sensors and effectors onto its network.
Northrop Grumman’s IBCS implements a modular, open and scalable architecture that is foundational to integrating available assets in the battle space, regardless of source, service or domain onto a common fire control network.
This architecture enables the efficient and affordable integration of current and future systems and extends the battle space by disaggregating sensors and effectors.
Enabling this high level of network integration, the warfighter is given unprecedented time to make decisions within the kill chain.
Through numerous successful development and operational tests and demonstrations, IBCS has proven its capability to connect and fuse multi-service sensor data to multi-service weapons, demonstrating Joint All Domain Command and Control capabilities.
Northrop Grumman is a leading global aerospace and defence technology company, employing 95,000 people around the world.
