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Envision a future filled with millions of wireless nodes connected through a smart network that automatically adjusts to optimize communications performance. Achieving this reality would require developing low-cost devices and mitigating current weaknesses in networking technology. However, when this vision is realized, troops will be able to infiltrate areas devoid of communications infrastructure yet stay in touch with each other and platforms in the battlespace.

An experimental technology soon may allow U.S. Air Force F-22 Raptor pilots to use the fighter's radar as a high-bandwidth communications system. This capability would enable F-22s and other platforms to transmit in near real time imagery and other files too large for rapid dissemination by current datalinks. The application could greatly enhance the U.S. Defense Department's network-centric warfare capabilities by turning tactical aircraft into reconnaissance and surveillance platforms.

Scientists in the U.S. Navy's Office of Naval Research are developing new virtual reality simulations that address the needs of land-based warriors such as U.S. Marines. These simulations seek to reproduce various motions and scenarios as faithfully as battlefield conditions.

A U.S. Army organization has found a way to move badly needed technologies and capabilities to soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq. It is adapting existing products such as leaf blowers to meet vital requirements in the field, and it is inserting technologies such as advanced sensors directly from military and commercial laboratories to accelerate the evolution of combat capabilities.

The U.S. Air Force is applying lessons learned from current operations about how new warfighter technologies can build the best bridges between the operational, tactical and intelligence elements of warfare and increase information flow. But while putting more information in warfighters' hands increases situational awareness, challenges remain about how to ensure that more data does not overwhelm troops but rather can be transformed into the applicable knowledge warfighters require.

Warfighting technologies are improving the way the maritime branch of the U.S. Defense Department gathers information and intelligence as well as how the sea service uses these technologies to make operational decisions. With fresh initiatives and electronics, personnel on ships and at land-based operations centers will be able to identify changes and irregularities, allowing warfighters to focus on fewer targets and to share communications over a more dispersed area.

The new initiative that is reshaping U.S. Army forces into smaller, more flexible formations allows them to realign themselves to meet commanders' mission requirements. The process changes how the service trains, refits and equips its active duty and reserve components as they rotate out of an operational theater. The modified units not only meet Army transformation requirements but also are tailored to perform specific types of missions.

All that the U.S. Defense Department has to do to network the force properly is to implement advanced information technologies and systems through multi-billion-dollar programs; quickly equip combatants in two ongoing wars with state-of-the-art capabilities; ensure full interoperability among the services and coalition partners; and guarantee information assurance across the entire department infosphere. And, it must achieve these objectives successfully while the entire force undergoes a revolutionary transformation.

Collaborative technologies are leading the revolution in military affairs as they help commanders and warfighters realize long-sought capabilities in the network-centric force. These technologies' effects range from a more fluid network in theater to a new set of missions for special operations forces.

Several decades from now, a U.S. unmanned combat aircraft orbiting a battlefield will identify a ground target with its sensors and use its communications laser to beam the coordinates to an overhead satellite. After receiving target confirmation from analysts on the other side of the planet, the aircraft will bank sharply, refocus its optical communications array to weapons mode and destroy the target with a multi-kilowatt laser pulse. The system will then revert to its data transmission mode to uplink a battle-damage assessment. This may sound like science fiction, but recently developed technology that electronically moves and focuses lasers may one day make this scenario a reality.