Raytheon Technologies to Advance U.S. Air Force Common Tactical Edge Network

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Raytheon Technologies successfully demonstrated the Common Tactical Edge Network developed by the company's Collins Aerospace business and will now be developing an operational architecture for the service.

The Common Tactical Edge Network, or CTEN, will enable tactical data to be shared across disparate networks to enable faster decision making on the battlefield. The CTEN solution supports building the convergence layer to connect sensors and shooters on both existing and emerging platforms across land, air, sea and space.

"CTEN is a JADC2 enabler, operating on a totally open architecture to connect across domains," said Ryan Bunge, vice president and general manager for Resilient Networking and Autonomy Solutions for Collins Aerospace. "By integrating disparate networks to create an overlay network, the U.S. Joint commands are enabled to share critical, time-sensitive data in real-time."

The approach for CTEN leverages the company's understanding of existing and emerging tactical datalinks and radios to create optimal networking solutions that are applicable across a broad platform base.

Raytheon Technologies has a long history integrating platform-agnostic systems for the military. Pairing a mature DevSecOps digital engineering pipeline with a real-time battlefield emulator allowed the company to demonstrate how an adaptive convergence layer provides robust network connectivity across disparate systems across various environments.

The company can integrate organic and third-party capability into the developing CTEN architecture and has more than 30 National Security Agency-certified Multi-level Security and End Cryptographic Unit solutions fielded today as well as multiple interoperable aerial network waveforms in use.