Photo By Master Sgt. Lauren Kelly | Members of the 513th Air Control Group and the 552nd Air Control Wing at Tinker Air...... read more read more
TINKER AIR FORCE BASE, Okla. -- Members of the 513th Air Control Group and the 552nd Air Control Wing here teamed up Oct. 25-29 to validate and test a new digital environment designed to speed up collaboration across many platforms.
Advanced Collaboration for Enterprise Services, or ACES, was designed to be a capability that can shorten the kill chain and speed decisions, allowing the mission to be done faster with quicker reaction times and less user error, improving data sharing between command and control agencies.
The testing was set up at the 513th ACG headquarters, with mock air operations center and Airborne Warning and Control System workstations installed in two separate conference rooms. The team conducted training scenarios designed around real-world situations that required them to react as AWACS crewmembers to explore how ACES would improve communication during the four-day assessment.
Capt. Matthew Hunter, an air battle manager with the 964th Airborne Air Control Squadron at Tinker Air Force Base, Oklahoma, explained how ACES was beneficial for him.
“Sharing multiple screens and manipulating them at the same time greatly enhances our ability to have situational awareness of the whole battle space 100% of the time,” Hunter said. “ACES allows us to manage situations faster and easier, speeding up the kill chain, which is ultimately what we are going for.”
1st Lt. Taylor Amann, an air battle manager with the 960th Airborne Air Control Squadron, participated in the training and discussed what she liked about the collaborative technology.
“We can send and receive real time updates with other agencies,” Amann said. “As a section lead, I can get information in and pass it to the crew really fast on their screen, where as before, they would have to go find it somewhere like a document or spreadsheet. Now, I can just pass it, and it’s there right on their screen.”
Hunter said the assessment showed him how the capability could streamline communications with sister services in the future.
“Depending on how big this goes, the Air Force could use this program with the Navy or the Army,” Hunter said. “The ability for me to send a picture of the battle space to a soldier down on the ground would be huge for us.”
513th Air Control Group commander, Col. James Mattey, said ACES is a linchpin of future Air Force systems and is excellently engineered, easily acquired and ready to deploy with almost zero integration cost.
“ACES proved its ability yet again during this assessment to allow disparate teams and legacy applications to talk to one another, providing a model for how future systems should work,” Mattey said. “It’s a case study in our ability to execute CSAF General Brown’s intent of accelerating change.”
| Date Taken: | 10.27.2021 |
| Date Posted: | 11.08.2021 16:36 |
| Story ID: | 408922 |
| Location: | TINKER AIR FORCE BASE, OK, US |
| Web Views: | 173 |
| Downloads: | 2 |
This work, Total force validates and tests collaborative technology, by MSgt Lauren Kelly, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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