Network-enabled weapon

Network-enabled weapons are a class of air-to-ground precision-guided munitions that are being developed by a number of countries.^[1][2] A derivative of GPS-guided weapons, which are guided to a specific coordinate entered prior to release, network-enabled weapons have the additional ability to have targeting coordinates updated in flight through the use of a common datalink, and be tracked by aircraft and other platforms^[3] logged into the same network.^[4] Previous weapons have used datalink to provide updated target information in flight (e.g. AMRAAM), but the creation of a common datalink allows control of the weapon to be passed from one platform to another, for example from an aircraft that launches the weapons to a ground party that is in visual contact with an enemy tank formation.

The concept for network-enabled weapons originated at the U.S. Air Force's Air Combat Command headquarters in 2003 as a solution to the problem of attacking moving targets in all-weather, high-threat environments. The Air Force's Air Armament Center refined the idea and in late 2003 declared network-enabled weapons to be the "single most cost effective means available for enhancing overall armament capability."^[5]

An Advanced Concept Technology Demonstration was funded in 2005^[6] to develop the miniaturized radio that would be needed and demonstrate the feasibility of the concept.^[3] Subsequently, the requirements for the Small Diameter Bomb Increment 2 were modified to incorporate the capability.^[7] Later weapons incorporating this technology include the AGM-154 Joint Standoff Weapon (JSOW C-1) and the Turkish Air Force's SOM cruise missile.