JADC2 Cross-Functional Team Activates Sixth Working Group

The Joint All Domain Command and Control Cross-Functional Team has added a transport and warfighter communications working group to its roster that will focus on cloud, communications and network tech oversight.

It joins five other groups responsible for JADC2 capabilities development, research and engineering and architecture, data and standards, demonstrations and assessment, and acquisition and transition.

According to CFT head Brig. Gen. Robert Parker, the new working group will be headed by officials from the Defense Information Systems Agency and the Joint Staff J-6, FedScoop reported Tuesday.

Following its activation, the group will spend the next three to six months finding capability gaps in satellite-based communications systems and recommending integration on multi-cloud technologies.

Parker told FedScoop that over time, the working group will address terrestrial network modernization, undersea cables, software-defined environment and networking, gray networks, cryptology, cross-domain services, electromagnetic spectrum and wireless/5G.

Collectively, working groups comprising the JADC2 CFT coordinate the development of a network-of-networks that can link shooters and sensors from all warfighting domains.

Lt. Gen. Dennis Crall, the Joint Staff’s J-6 director, anticipates that the JADC2 CFT will likely cease operations in the next three to five years.

While Crall believes that the CFT is the right governance structure for now to accelerate the joint warfighting concept, it could be replaced by a yet to be determined structure once the technology behind JADC2 is more mature.

He said in an interview with FedScoop that alternatives to the CFT can be considered once a JADC2 “minimum viable product” that all services can use is made available.