Blue Force Tracking Network Modeling and Simulation

Blue force tracking (BFT) has become a critical capability for the military. It involves communicating situational awareness (SA) and command & control (C2) information among highly dispersed battlefield units in a dynamic environment BFT was used during operation Iraqi freedom (OIF) for coordinating operations within the joint services and with allies and resulted in reduced causalities due to enhanced SA. The Army´s current BFT system is a program of record C2/SA system known as Force XXI Battle Command Brigade and Below (FBCB2). It consists of a terrestrial line-of-sight (LOS) system and a commercial L-band satellite- based beyond-line-of-sight (BLOS) system known as FBCB2-BFT. About 6000 BLOS BFT devices were fielded during OIF. The Army is projecting its worldwide FBCB2-BFT fielding needs to exceed 100,000 devices over the next 5 years. The information exchange requirements per user are also expected to increase. At issue is the ability of the current FBCB2 architecture to support the projected BFT needs. This paper will discuss an Army G-3/G-6 sponsored study to investigate the BFT communications and coverage needs in the 2015 timeframe. It will focus on the network modeling and simulation aspects of the study using OPNET