https://crsreports.congress.gov
Updated February 15, 2022
Advanced Battle Management System (ABMS)
The Advanced Battle Management System (ABMS) is the
U.S. Air Force’s latest effort to create a next-generation
command and control (C2) system. ABMS proposes using
cloud environments and new communications methods to
allow Air Force and Space Force systems to share data
seamlessly using artificial intelligence to enable faster
decisionmaking. The Air Force describes ABMS as its
effort to create an internet of things, which would allow for
sensors and C2 systems to be disaggregated from one
another (counter to how the Air Force has traditionally
performed C2). This program is the Air Force’s
contribution to the DOD’s Joint All Domain Command and
Control (JADC2) effort focused on modernizing DOD
decisionmaking processes for combat operations.
ABMS was originally envisioned to replace the E-3
Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) (Figure
1), which currently directs air combat operations, but later
took on a broader scope. Former Assistant Secretary of the
Air Force for Acquisition Will Roper directed that the
program become less focused on command centers and
aircraft, and to instead create digital technologies, like
secure cloud environments, to share data across multiple
weapons systems. Dr. Roper stated the contested
environment envisioned by the 2018 National Defense
Strategy forced the Air Force to restructure the ABMS
program. In May 2021, General David Allvin, the Vice
Chief of Staff of the Air Force in a DefenseOne article
stated, “What exactly is ABMS? Is it software? Hardware?
Infrastructure? Policy? The answer is yes to all.” In other
words, the Air Force envisions ABMS as an acquisition
program that will both procure things and implement other
nondevelopmental efforts that the service views as equally
important: new techniques to command and control
airborne forces.
Figure 1. E-3 AWACS
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_E-3_Sentry#/media/
File:E-3_Sentry_exercise_Green_Flag_2012_(Cropped).jpg.
Since ABMS’s inception, Congress has expressed interest
in the development of next-generation C2 systems. The Air
Force states that ABMS is a nontraditional acquisition
program. As a result, Congress has questioned the Air
Force’s approach to replacing older systems and its
approach to experimenting with emerging technologies.
ABMS Development Efforts
The Air Force has performed five events to date to
demonstrate the new C2 capabilities it hopes to eventually
field. In December 2019 the Air Force, in its first ABMS
“on-ramp”—the term the Air Force uses to denote a
demonstration—showed the ability to transmit data from
Army radars and Navy destroyers to both F-22 and F-35
fighter aircraft. This event also demonstrated the Space
Force’s Unified Data Library (UDL), which is a cloud
environment combining space-based and ground-based
sensors to track satellites.
In September 2020, ABMS performed its second on-ramp.
This second on-ramp demonstrated detecting and defeating
a simulated cruise missile bound for the United States using
hypervelocity weapons as defenses. In addition, ABMS
exhibited capabilities to “detect and defeat efforts to disrupt
U.S. operations in space.” According to an Air Force press
release “70 industry teams and 65 government teams”
participated in the event.
The Air Force held a third on-ramp event in late September
2020, in support of exercise Valiant Shield at Joint Base
Pearl Harbor-Hickam. During this event, the Air Force
demonstrated using a KC-46 tanker aircraft to perform
tactical C2 by relaying data from older, fourth-generation
fighters to newer, fifth-generation aircraft like the F-22. In
May 2021, the Air Force stated that procuring a
communications pod for the KC-46 will be the first
capability release for the ABMS program. The Air Force
said, “In a fight, the tankers will need to be flying near the
action anyway, supporting fighters, so using them as a
command-and-control system, either as the primary or a
resilient backup, just makes sense.”
A fourth on-ramp was held in Europe in February 2021.
According to press releases, the Air Force curtailed this
event due to budget constraints. This fourth on-ramp linked
allied nations including the Netherlands, Poland, and the
United Kingdom into combined air operations. According
to General Harrigan, commander of U.S. Air Forces
Europe, this fourth event tested U.S. and allied capabilities
to perform long-range strike missions with F-15E aircraft
launching AGM-158 Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile
(JASSM) (see Figure 2), while simultaneously utilizing
U.S. and allied F-35s for airbase defense missions.
