Air Force Tests Portable Ground Stations for Autonomous CCAs
The U.S. Air Force evaluated prototype Portable Command and Control Enclaves to manage Collaborative Combat Aircraft from remote ground locations. The capability decentralizes tactical drone control beyond crewed cockpits to support Agile Combat Employment.
The U.S. Air Force Life Cycle Management Center’s Agile Development Office recently completed initial field evaluations of prototype Portable Command and Control Enclave (C2E) ground stations at Springfield Air Guard Base, Ohio. Developed to command and control semi-autonomous Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCAs), these portable enclaves are designed to give operators rapid-deployment mission control capabilities anywhere in the world, including austere or contested forward positions.
While CCAs were originally conceived primarily as loyal wingmen controlled directly by fighter pilots in flight or by battle managers aboard assets like the E-7 Wedgetail, C2E expands operational flexibility by establishing ground-based command options. The system is designed as an application suite operating across diverse networks, enabling credentialed ground personnel to task uncrewed platforms, upload mission sets, and ingest post-flight telemetry. This capability directly supports the Air Force’s Agile Combat Employment (ACE) doctrine, allowing distributed ground units to deploy and manage air combat mass without requiring continuous airborne command nodes.
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