PACE communications

In dealing with your decision of your PACE communications protocols, asking the question of how much time you can accommodate between data generation and data delivery can guide the design of your communications plan. In an emergency, delivery of data outputs on physical media may be the best way to ensure that the information gets through securely. This may involve loading secure mobile storage devices with data and then taking them by courier – either by land or scheduled military flight – to another location for processing onto a network.

In the aerial imaging and sensing domain, this digitalisation of this workflow has come about as digital imaging sensors have improved. The transition from “wet” film, that needed processing after delivery, to high-resolution digital stills, allowed for a major reduction in the processing time for the intelligence cycle. When this was shortened further to allow high-resolution live-streaming video, the latency in the intelligence cycle was reduced even further.

When dealing with communications systems transitioning from one protocol to another, such as from primary to alternate, knowing which data is the highest priority to transmit is a core part of re-establishing a node. Prioritising the most essential information and postponing the delivery of additional data that may slow a network - such as large video files - is a fundamental part of ensuring timely delivery. Establishing what data is important to the mission set, and how much time can pass before it is delivered, is another part of the communications plan.

In planning your PACE capabilities, asking how much latency you can tolerate for each category will help with devising the communications protocols and their fallbacks.

When deciding on each of your communications systems’ role in the mission command structure, understanding their ability to replicate scaling can help to decide their position in the PACE hierarchy, in addition to the interaction between echelons over new networks.

For example, using an IP-based radio network may limit the number of users within a network based on IP addresses. As a result, it may be necessary to split a user group into smaller organisations, while still finding ways to ensure that they can still communicate with each both within their core user groups, and to other user groups as needed.

Scalability can also extend to data delivery. To what extent does your PACE plan account for increases or decreases in data delivery? Alternative communications systems may not have the data throughput that a primary communications system has, meaning that decisions on what data to prioritise forms part of the PACE planning as bandwidth may get significantly reduced.

An articulated PACE plan can also help ensure the delivery of data over a wide variety of users in multiple domains. As joint operations become the norm, and data delivery needs to take place across a variety of forces, ensuring that the right data is delivered according to the PACE plan is critical.

While the communications backbones may be able to support data transmission at differing levels of bandwidth, having access to the right gateways to receive and process the data is just as vital. Adopting a different data transmission protocol as part of a PACE plan may mean that some partners are unable to receive and act on the data. This can be particularly important on coalition operations, where partners may not have access to some gateways and communications protocols, but require access to data to allow for joint operations.