Collaboration Means Sharing Information

By Frank J. Sisto and Alicia Belmas

Global and regional partnerships and collaboration

are critical elements of effective maritime domain awareness.

They contribute to security in regions close to the United States as well as overseas where U.S. interests, citizens, and friends might be at risk from an array of threats and challenges. Indeed, they are central to the Chief of Naval Operations’ U.S. Navy Vision for Confronting Irregular Challenges and the Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower.

Mindful of this need, the office of the Department of Defense Executive Agent for Maritime Domain Awareness (EAMDA) is now integrating a suite of capabilities that support non-classified information sharing to build and expand partnership capacities and Theater Security Cooperation, the CNO-defined mission that helps nations improve their own security situations. This effort also directly supports the requirements identified and documented by the U.S. Defense Components in the 2009 Assessment of Annual Maritime Domain Awareness Plans.

From Concept to Enhancements

In September 2006, the Italian Navy introduced the concept of a virtual regional maritime domain awareness traffic center (VRMTC) to increase the sharing of information about vessel positions and movements throughout the Mediterranean. The U.S. Southern Command has built on that experience and is expanding the model to engage navies and coast guards in its area of responsibility. This effort is called the Virtual Regional Maritime Domain Awareness Traffic Center-Americas.

The EAMDA capabilities have particular importance for Southern Command initiatives and other regional domain awareness resources. Moreover, the set can extend to all regional combatant commanders.

The focus of this effort is to define an integration architecture that can be used for non-classified data sharing, and to standardize a VRMTC suite by leveraging assets already owned or developed by the U.S. government. As a first step in the process, the EAMDA identified minimum functional capabilities required for a VRMTC:

• Collaboration, file sharing, and chat

• Collecting information from other systems and sensors—

for example, the Automatic Identification System and airborne and surface radars and cameras

• Fusion and analysis, including data correlation and rules-based alerting

• Dissemination of information, including Web services and geospatial information for displaying locally developed maritime pictures.

The tools that provide these capabilities must be loosely connected so they can be removed or upgraded without affecting the entire suite, while allowing expanded or new resources to be added as mission requirements change.

The Electronics of Sharing Information

The EAMDA defined a specific architecture to support the non-classified information-sharing needs of regional combatant commanders. The result is an integration platform that is flexible and scalable, and that can work with new and legacy systems or sensors. The VRMTC design (illustrated here) is based on providing services through the Smart Integration Manager Ontologically Networked (SIMON) platform. SRI International developed this for the Naval Air Systems Command in 2009-10.

SIMON allows for the flexible system integration of capabilities that may be in development, are already operational, or are governmental or commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) items. In 2010, it was operational at McDill Air Force Base, Tampa, Florida, as the system and sensor integration platform for the facility’s waterside security system.

With similar data-sharing models and standards deployed regionally, a global capability is available by linking the regions without using additional systems. Common data models and data definitions have been developed using the National Information Exchange Model-Maritime (NIEM-M). The Office of Management and Budget publication Agency Information Sharing Functional Specification (4 March 2010) requires all U.S. agencies to evaluate the NIEM as the basis for developing reference information-exchange package descriptions.

Applications for Using the Architecture

Several U.S. government tools are available to support the initial functional capabilities required in implementing an effective SIMON-based VRMTC.

They include:

• All Partners Access Network, a Web tool that combines the benefits of unstructured (wikis, blogs, forums) and structured collaborations (file sharing, e-mail, chat, calendar) with the personalization of social networking. It was the technology of choice for the Transnational Information Sharing Cooperative Joint Capability Technology Demonstration.

• Maritime Safety and Security Information System, a multilateral data-sharing link used to improve maritime awareness of the Unites States and its allies and partners through the sharing of Automatic Identification System data via an Internet-based system. The data are mostly the positions of vessels.

• Computer Assisted Maritime Threat Evaluation System Lite, a COTS tool developed with the support of Commander, U.S. Naval Forces Europe.

It combines data from disparate sources using a single intuitive analytical system. As of May 2010, the Navy owned 22 user licenses. The EAMDA is working to modify and expand the license agreement to support DOD-wide VRMTC initiatives.

• User-Defined Operational Picture, a locally developed geospatial display tool, generally based on Google Earth.

Moving to the Next Stage

In March 2010, senior EADMA managers briefed the SIMON/VRMTC architecture to program managers of the Southern Command’s Virtual Regional Maritime Domain Awareness Traffic Center-Americas and its Regional Domain Awareness Team. Both were enthusiastic, and the EAMDA is following up with technical exchanges. The EAMDA group also briefed the Office of the Secretary of Defense for Policy-Western Hemisphere, and has received support to continue apace.

In summer 2010, the SIMON/VRMTC model was reviewed as the test platform for Southern Command’s Virtual Integrated Domain Awareness project and as an integration platform for U.S. Pacific Command’s All Partners Access Network program.  Southern Command and Joint Interagency Task Force-South are also looking at this as a supporting element to, or possible replacement for, legacy international information-sharing platforms.

Finally, in accordance with Resource Management Decision 700, the Defense Information Systems Agency will implement a non-classified information-sharing capability within the Defense Enterprise Computing Center. To ensure alignment of efforts, the EAMDA is working with Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense for Networks and Information Integration Cheryl J. Roby to assess applicability of the SIMON/VRMTC integration architecture.

The EAMDA’s synchronization efforts in this area will continue and increase, always recognizing the need to provide the most effective resources at costs the nation can afford. For the long term, the plan is to implement a VRMTC suite at each combatant-command headquarters, which will allow partner nations to collaborate via a Web-based platform. This will also permit combatant commanders to display VRMTC information on their own user-defined operational pictures.

Overall, it will go far to achieve the overarching U.S. maritime-domain-awareness requirements articulated by the U.S. Navy Vision for Confronting Irregular Challenges and Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower, as well as National Security Presidential Directive 41. This directive defined MDA as the “effective understanding of anything associated with the global maritime domain that could impact the security, safety, economy, or environment of the United States.”

It also underscored the need for “enhanced capability to identify threats to the Maritime Domain as early and as distant from our shores as possible by integrating intelligence, surveillance, observation, and navigation systems into a common operating picture accessible throughout the U.S. Government.”

Mr. Sisto is the senior technical adviser in the Office of the DOD EAMDA. Ms. Belmas is the office’s senior IT-policy specialist.

Backcasting for prior ASW-NCAPS lessons learned:

1. Picasa Web Albums - geoWIZard - Schooner Luce...

   FOCCPAC-ADP Plans (C35) co-created WWMCCS Ocean Surveillance Systems (OSS)
   Information Integrity Assurance (IIA) functional requirements for Group DSS ...
   picasaweb.google.com/lh/idredir?uname=RJBurkhart&target... - Cached

2. Talk:USS Iwo Jima (LPH-2) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

   of more advanced WWMCCS Ocean Surveillance Systems (OSS)
   for "Navy Control" and "Protection of Shipping" (NCAPS). See also: ...
   en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk%3AUSS_Iwo_Jima_(LPH-2) - Cached

SEEKing Social Responsibility Pathfinders (thinkLets) - TheSRO ...

How to Cite

CAMPBELL, J. S. (1980), C³ SYSTEMS LAND-BASED TESTING.
Naval Engineers Journal, 92: 35–42. doi: 10.1111/j.1559-3584.1980.tb04733.x

C3 SYSTEMS LAND-BASED TESTING

ABSTRACT

The increasingly important role of land-based test sites (LBTSs) in military command, control, and communications (C³) is discussed, with particular reference to system integration, R&D, and testing. The LBTS at the Naval Ocean Systems Center (NOSC), San Diego, is described in detail, and lessons learned from the operation of the and other LBTSe are considered in terms of both their tactical and strategic implications.

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