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Network-Centric Naval Forces: A Transition Strategy for Enhancing Operational Capabilities (2000)

Chapter: 6 Realizing Naval Command and Information Infrastructure Capabilities

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Suggested Citation:"6 Realizing Naval Command and Information Infrastructure Capabilities." National Research Council. 2000. Network-Centric Naval Forces: A Transition Strategy for Enhancing Operational Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9864.
×

6
Realizing Naval Command and Information Infrastructure Capabilities

This chapter provides a high-level assessment of the ability of the Department of the Navy to realize the functional capabilities that the Naval Command and Information Infrastructure (NCII) must provide, as defined in Chapter 4. The chapter begins with a discussion of the baseline naval systems contributing to these functional capabilities (where baseline is taken to mean what is planned over the next few years). IT-21 is the Navy’s major strategy for realizing NCII-like capabilities, and so the baseline description presents an overview of IT-21 followed by more detail on certain aspects of it (e.g., communications, Global Command and Control System-Maritime). The chapter considers each of the functional capabilities,1 discussing where they are likely to be in the near term (next several years) and in the longer term. Based on that assessment, the committee’s findings and recommended approach to achieving the NCII functional capabilities are presented in the concluding section.

6.1 BASELINE NAVAL SYSTEMS

6.1.1 Introduction

The communications and information needs of the Navy and Marine Corps follow from the unique characteristics of and tasks assigned to warships and Marine units. The maritime environment and the requirement to operate with

1  

Information assurance, however, is treated separately in Chapter 5.

Suggested Citation:"6 Realizing Naval Command and Information Infrastructure Capabilities." National Research Council. 2000. Network-Centric Naval Forces: A Transition Strategy for Enhancing Operational Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9864.
×

Army, Air Force, and allied forces further shape the configuration and capacity demands of the naval services.

Communications to and from ships are constrained by the limited space available for antennas and equipment and by the fact that such hardware is built in. As a consequence, ship communications suites are not readily reconfigurable to meet changing needs and, in general, a ship’s communications capability is largely fixed from the moment of deployment for wartime operations or routine peacetime presence missions. Additionally, antenna placement is a crucial factor because shielding by the superstructure, the motion of the ship induced by high seas, and even routine course changes can adversely affect communications connectivity.

Amphibious ships pose a special case. These vessels of course have the communications and information needs characteristic of any warship. Additionally, the requirements of embarked Marine units, which are wholly dependent on host ships for planning and executing landing operations, must be reflected in the design of amphibious ship communications suites and information systems.

For both routine peacetime deployments and combat, Marine Corps units are organized in Marine air-ground task forces (MAGTFs) in a form and in numbers that depend on the anticipated situation and mission. Once ashore, a MAGTF may be the sole ground element present or it may operate in concert with U.S. Army or coalition forces. During its movement from ship to shore and once established there, the MAGTF employs its own organic communications and information resources to link to Navy ships at sea and to neighboring land forces, if present. As time passes and dependence on immediate fire and logistics support from the sea diminishes, the MAGTF communications architecture takes on a form not unlike that of the Army, with ties to adjacent land force elements and higher-level commanders in theater.

Just as a MAGTF organization is tailored for a particular mission, the communications and information systems to be employed are specially shaped as well. Subject to lift constraints on the weight and cubage that can be transported during an operation, the Marines can and do supplement standard allowances of communication equipment to meet the requirements of the tactical situation the MAGTF expects to encounter. In general, therefore, Marine units are not subject to the kind of built-in communications limits of Navy warships. However, the special needs generated by new tactical concepts, such as Operational Maneuver From the Sea (OMFTS) make reliable connectivity a very real challenge and clearly call for enhanced capabilities.

Because of tightly coupled lift, communications, fire support, and logistics dependencies, it is hard to imagine the Navy and Marine Corps operating in a forward area in isolation from one another, although they may well operate independently of Army and Air Force units under some circumstances. Increasingly, however, naval forces must fit into a greater joint forces construct, and this, in turn, requires enhanced communications to assure connectivity with other

Suggested Citation:"6 Realizing Naval Command and Information Infrastructure Capabilities." National Research Council. 2000. Network-Centric Naval Forces: A Transition Strategy for Enhancing Operational Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9864.
×

forces and the joint command structure and to profit from information collected by National and other Service intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance systems.

What follows is a review of the status of the Navy’s IT-21 initiative, the new Navy/Marine Corps intranet, the communications and network posture of the Navy and Marine Corps, and the Global Command and Control System-Maritime, which is the key command and control tool for the naval forces. The committee focused on operations afloat and, for Marines, operations ashore in theater, in assessing the current status and adequacy of communications and information systems. While the committee recognized the essential support role played by Navy and Marine Corps commands in the United States, it decided to concentrate on the more challenging environment characterized by an absence of fiber-optic land lines and severe constraints on space for computers, servers, antennas, and communications equipment.

6.1.2 IT-21: The Navy’s Principal IT and C4I Thrust

The Navy’s reliance on and investment in communications, particularly satellite communications (SATCOM), has increased dramatically in recent years owing in great measure to the need to exploit the benefits offered by long-range precision weapons and by information from a variety of ISR systems, all in support of new concepts such as network-centric warfare and OMFTS, as well as the need to operate effectively with joint forces. The positive impact of these investments was first felt in Navy shore command centers when improved intelligence and situational awareness as well as enhanced connectivity to national and theater commanders were introduced. Additionally, special efforts were made to enhance command, control, communications, and computing (C4) capabilities and the availability of ISR information aboard aircraft carriers and fleet flagships, the major afloat command nodes for naval forces.

To realize the benefits offered by synergies between all ship types in a battle group or amphibious task force, it soon became evident that the communications and command and control (C2) capabilities of vessels other than nuclear-powered aircraft carriers (CVNs) and amphibious assault ships, general purpose and multipurpose (LHA/LHDs), would also have to be upgraded. And here the Navy was faced with the challenge of making hardware and software changes to a variety of ship types, each of which had an overhaul and maintenance schedule different from the schedules of other ships in the battle group with which it was to deploy. Only by solving this problem and deploying ships with matching capabilities could the battle group commander be assured of having ships with communications and information systems that permitted full exploitation of the potential of the naval weapon systems embarked.

As a consequence, IT-21 was born in 1998 as a fleet-driven initiative to coordinate and accelerate the installation and testing of modern information tech-

Suggested Citation:"6 Realizing Naval Command and Information Infrastructure Capabilities." National Research Council. 2000. Network-Centric Naval Forces: A Transition Strategy for Enhancing Operational Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9864.
×

nology (IT) and command, control, and communications (C3) systems already in the acquisition pipeline as well as the training of personnel to operate them. The goal is to ensure that capabilities are in place at deployment time to effect a bridge between ships afloat, space assets, and command centers ashore. Because of funding constraints, the initial focus was on ships at sea, and investments in shore infrastructure were limited to those necessary to support forces afloat and Marine operations ashore.

The principal elements of IT-21 are as follows:

  • Full SATCOM capability for all surface combatants;

  • Major capacity enhancements to amphibious ship communications;

  • Improved shipboard command and control capabilities such as GCCS-M and improved planning and decision tools;

  • Enhanced support communications, processing, and storage;

  • Robust shipboard local area networks;

  • Modern personal computer workstations and commercial-based operating system;

  • Matching capacity upgrades at shore communications hubs; and

  • Measures to improve information assurance and security.

It is important to note that this initiative is not a program in the sense of an acquisition but, rather, a strategy to install improved C4 hardware and software, most of it already being procured, in an orderly and controlled fashion. The goal here is to install enhancements such that all ships in a carrier battle group and amphibious task group will have compatible C3 capabilities upon deployment.

The mechanism employed in IT-21 is essentially a spiral installation process whereby the configuration is fixed well in advance of the deployment date so that sufficient time is available to install, test, and train personnel to operate the new hardware and software elements. Recommendations derived from operating new systems during deployment are then integrated with assessments of the value and availability of new technologies and components from the acquisition pipeline. From this process emerges a configuration that is specified for installation in time for the next deployment of the battle group and, depending on its complexity, possibly earlier in groups deploying sooner.

If a ship type is said to be IT-21-capable, this does not mean it has the same C4 capabilities as, say, an aircraft carrier. Rather a smaller IT-21-capable ship will have modern IT inserted and enough SATCOM capacity for it to apply its weapon system capabilities in support of the overall battle group mission.

A prototype IT-21 suite was deployed in 1998 in the Abraham Lincoln battle group and was the basis for refining the concept and developing a standard installation. The first of these deployed in summer 1999, and the spiral upgrade and installation process will continue through 2002, at which time full IT-21 capability will have been realized for all ships. The spiral process could very

Suggested Citation:"6 Realizing Naval Command and Information Infrastructure Capabilities." National Research Council. 2000. Network-Centric Naval Forces: A Transition Strategy for Enhancing Operational Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9864.
×

well continue after 2002. However, plans for the future are not determined at this point and probably will be keyed to the evolving Navy/Marine Corps intranet (N/ MCI) initiative discussed below.

6.1.3 Navy/Marine Corps Intranet

At the time IT-21 was initiated, funding constraints precluded inclusion of the business side of the Navy and its shore support infrastructure in a comprehensive IT upgrade program. Nevertheless, the need to upgrade and integrate the several shore networks that have developed over the years was recognized. These networks include those built around regions or base areas, the Marine Corps enterprise network, and the Naval Air, Naval Sea, and Naval Supply Systems Commands (NAVAIR, NAVSEA, and NAVSUP) networks. All of these, and others, were developed independently; they do not interoperate well (or at all), they lack adequate security provisions, and in aggregate they are expensive to operate and maintain. The Navy/Marine Corps intranet (N/MCI) concept was thus developed to address the goal of having a federation of networks and computers that work as a single integrated system.

The N/MCI concept has been approved by the Secretary of the Navy (SECNAV), the Chief of Naval Operations (CNO), and the Commandant of the Marine Corps (CMC), resources for implementation are being identified, and design and procurement actions are under way. As stated in a recent briefing to industry, the N/MCI is the Department of the Navy enterprise-wide network capability that will provide end-to-end, secure, assured access to the full range of voice, video, and data services by year end 2001, as depicted in Figure 6.1. A coherent department-wide network is the goal, resulting in increased efficiencies and enhanced business and warfighting processes.

The task of implementing the N/MCI is to be given to industry. Bidders for the integration and system operation contract have been informed that they are not bound by any preconceived architecture and are not required to use existing information system or technology infrastructure. The DOD architectural framework will be followed and the resultant network or system is to be defense information infrastructure/common operating environment (DII COE) compliant. The precise relationship of this initiative to IT-21 is not yet clear, but was to be elucidated before the contract bid package was issued in late 1999.

6.1.4 Communications and Networks

Communications and networking services have evolved over the history of the Navy and Marine Corps as a critical component in the accomplishment of any and all assigned missions. This capability extends from the days of visual means (signal flags and lights) for communicating between and among various command elements, high-frequency circuits using Morse code, frequency shift key-

Suggested Citation:"6 Realizing Naval Command and Information Infrastructure Capabilities." National Research Council. 2000. Network-Centric Naval Forces: A Transition Strategy for Enhancing Operational Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9864.
×

FIGURE 6.1 Naval and Marine Corps intranet conceptual view. ITSC, information technology service center.

SOURCE: Fleet and Allied Requirements Division (N60), Office of the Chief of Naval Operations. 1999. “End-to-End Capability” in Information Technology for the 21st Century [IT-21 Generic Brief]. The Pentagon, Washington, D.C., June 18. Available online at <cno-n6.hq.navy.mil/n60/documents.html>.

Suggested Citation:"6 Realizing Naval Command and Information Infrastructure Capabilities." National Research Council. 2000. Network-Centric Naval Forces: A Transition Strategy for Enhancing Operational Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9864.
×

ing (FSK) and other modulations for long-haul communications, to more modern, high-capacity multimedia (voice, data, video) terrestrial-, satellite-, and airborne-relay and line-of-sight tactical connectivities. It is safe to say that virtually all usable regions of the physical frequency spectrum (acoustic, electromagnetic, and optical) have been and are continuing to be employed by naval forces for basic communications in all types of operational and physical propagation environments. These capabilities have been operated in combinations of network configurations, including point-to-point, broadcast, and multicast, using a wide range of protocols for access and use of the network.

Because of the need for mobility, much of the naval communications infrastructure is provided by radio-frequency circuits and networks that operate over a wide portion of the electromagnetic spectrum, from extremely low frequencies (ELFs) at tens of hertz (Hz), to extremely high frequencies (EHFs) at tens of gigahertz (GHz). Radio frequency propagation characteristics, information bandwidth, and operational posture are the key parameters for selecting the frequency band of operation for a particular application. For example, communications to submarines use the lower frequency bands (ELF, VLF, and LF) to allow the signal to penetrate seawater or reach floating wire or towed buoy antennas at long distances (thousands of miles) when the platform is submerged. The information bandwidth at these frequencies permits only low data rates, however, generally from a few bits per minute to roughly 50 bits per second (bps).

Operation in the high-frequency band allows increased data rates (up to several kilobits per second) at beyond line-of-sight distances using both ionospheric and ground wave propagation modes. One must move to the ultrahigh-frequency (UHF), superhigh-frequency (SHF), and EHF bands to realize high information throughput (tens to thousands of kbps). In doing so, however, the operator must be willing to deal with line-of-sight distances (requiring relays for long distance connectivity), point and tracking systems because of the narrow antenna beam widths, and various deleterious effects from atmospheric attenuation due to water vapor and scintillation.

The myriad communications paths linking ship to shore, ship to ship, and one Marine unit to another carry a variety of information (Figure 6.2). This includes urgent command orders, critical intelligence, tracking data on friendly and enemy forces, information drawn from data repositories remote from the requesting ship, routine peacetime “business” communications, urgent requests for spare parts, and also quality-of-life items (e.g., personal phone calls and e-mail).

It is, however, the increasing call for and availability of synthetic aperture radar (SAR) and electro-optical/infrared (EO/IR) imagery collected by airborne and space sensors that is a principal driver in determining shipboard communications capacity and equipment needs. On the other hand, moving-target indicator (MTI) and signal intelligence (SIGINT) data from platforms such as the Joint Surveillance and Target Attack Radar System (JSTARS), the U-2, and Rivet

Suggested Citation:"6 Realizing Naval Command and Information Infrastructure Capabilities." National Research Council. 2000. Network-Centric Naval Forces: A Transition Strategy for Enhancing Operational Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9864.
×

FIGURE 6.2 Communications paths and connectivity today. Courtesy of the Director of the Space, Information Warfare, Command and Control Directorate (N6), Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, Washington, D.C., March, 1999.

Suggested Citation:"6 Realizing Naval Command and Information Infrastructure Capabilities." National Research Council. 2000. Network-Centric Naval Forces: A Transition Strategy for Enhancing Operational Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9864.
×

FIGURE 6.3 Communications bandwidth trends. CSS, combat support systems; TAV, total asset visibility; VTC, video teleconference.

SOURCE: Defense Science Board. 2000. Modified from Figure 3.2, “Findings: DoD Requirements; DSB Assessment,” in Report of the Defense Science Board on Tactical Battlefield Communications, Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Technology, Washington, D.C., February, p. 53.

Suggested Citation:"6 Realizing Naval Command and Information Infrastructure Capabilities." National Research Council. 2000. Network-Centric Naval Forces: A Transition Strategy for Enhancing Operational Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9864.
×

Joint require comparatively little bandwidth even though they need special data links and surface terminals. Figure 6.3 shows this trend in bandwidth, brought on, in great measure, by the need for imagery.

Figure 6.4 depicts many of the networks and communication paths to, from, and between ships at sea, their transport capacities, and the services that travel over them. Of particular note is the significant overall increase in SATCOM capability compared to the limited UHF SATCOM bandwidth available during Desert Storm, as well as the increasing use of commercial satellites. Not shown are line-of-sight UHF/VHF circuits, tactical data links, and special links with airborne imagery platforms. Also not indicated is HF radio, which continues to play an important communications role, today carrying some 10 percent of all traffic, including supplying essential connectivity to allied forces.

The communications configurations of individual ship categories are shown in Table 6.1. Capabilities being installed incident to the IT-21 initiative vary between ship types and are dependent on mission needs. Not shown are certain mine warfare vessels and MSC-operated logistics support ships; however, these are being equipped appropriately as well. Of particular note are the special data links that, if installed and matched with appropriate terminals and exploitation segments, can provide real time, direct imagery feeds, along with SIGINT and MTI data, to ships so equipped.

Turning to the Marine Corps, a MAGTF commander is able to communicate with ships and between his units using UHF/VHF line-of-sight and HF radios during the early phases of a classic amphibious operation. But because of the fluid nature of such operations, establishing and maintaining communications between units has always been challenging. Now, two new factors have added to the difficulty: (1) the need for imagery feeds and products that demand much higher frequencies and greater bandwidth and (2) implementation of the OMFTS concept, which calls for over-the-horizon operations by dispersed units, at least during the early phases of a campaign, as shown in Figure 6.5. As a consequence, forward small units will require SATCOM and airborne communications relay resources, items that have not heretofore been included in a standard equipment list.

Table 6.2 shows the networks applicable to selected MAGTF units moving to or operating ashore, along with the equipment considered standard for a given level of command. As noted above, however, communications suites for MAGTF units can be, and usually are, tailored for the particular tactical situation. Capabilities can be added, subject to the availability of transport to lift the equipment into the objective area.

6.1.5 Global Command and Control System-Maritime

Global Command and Control System-Maritime (GCCS-M) is the principal Navy command and control tool for commanders and ship commanding officers.

Suggested Citation:"6 Realizing Naval Command and Information Infrastructure Capabilities." National Research Council. 2000. Network-Centric Naval Forces: A Transition Strategy for Enhancing Operational Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9864.
×

FIGURE 6.4 Satellite communications services and systems. Acronyms are defined in Appendix H.

SOURCE: CNO N6 PRO1 Baseline Assessment Memorandum (Draft), December 17, 1999.

Suggested Citation:"6 Realizing Naval Command and Information Infrastructure Capabilities." National Research Council. 2000. Network-Centric Naval Forces: A Transition Strategy for Enhancing Operational Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9864.
×

TABLE 6.1 Communications Configuration by Ship Type

 

Suggested Citation:"6 Realizing Naval Command and Information Infrastructure Capabilities." National Research Council. 2000. Network-Centric Naval Forces: A Transition Strategy for Enhancing Operational Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9864.
×

 

Suggested Citation:"6 Realizing Naval Command and Information Infrastructure Capabilities." National Research Council. 2000. Network-Centric Naval Forces: A Transition Strategy for Enhancing Operational Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9864.
×

FIGURE 6.5 High-level OMFTS operational concept. SOURCE: Marine Corps Combat Development Command, Quantico, Va., 1999.

Suggested Citation:"6 Realizing Naval Command and Information Infrastructure Capabilities." National Research Council. 2000. Network-Centric Naval Forces: A Transition Strategy for Enhancing Operational Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9864.
×

TABLE 6.2 Marine Corps Communications Network and Equipment Capabilities, Current (FY98) and Planned (FY06)

 

 

 

MEF (FWD) CE

MEU CE

Regimental CP

Battalion CP

Company CP

Platoon CP

Air Element

FSSG (FWD) CP

 

 

 

FY98

FY06

FY98

FY06

FY98

FY06

FY98

FY06

FY98

FY06

FY98

FY06

FY98

FY06

FY98

FY06

Networks

 

1

SIPRNET

 

G

G

G *

G

R

G

R

G

R

G

 

G

G

R

G

2

NIPRNET

G

G

G *

G

R

G

 

G

G

R

G

3

JWICS

G

G

G *

G

 

4

Secure Switched Voice (TRITAC Voice)

G

G

G *

G

G

G

 

G

G

G

G

5

HF (Long haul Combat Net Radio)

G

G

G

G

G

G

G

G

G

G

G

G

G

G

G

G

6

VHF Freq-Hopping (LOS Combat Net Radio)

G

G

G

G

G

G

G

G

G

G

G

G

G

G

R

G

7

UHF TacSat (DAMA) (Satellite Combat Net Radio)

G

G

G

G

R

G

G

 

R

G

R

G

8

UHF LOS

G

G

G

G

G

G

G

G

G

G

G

G

G

G

G

G

9

SHF SATCOM (Stepsite/Teleport)

G

G

G *

G

 

10

SHF Broadcast

R

G

R

G

R

G

 

R

G

R

G

11

EHF LDR/MDR SATCOM (Intra/Inter-MAGTF)

R

G

 

R

G

 

12

JTIDS/MIDS LVT

 

R

G

 

13

VTC

G

G

G *

G

 

System/Equipment

Network(s) Supported

 

 

STAR-T

1, 2, 3, 9, 13

R

G

R

G

 

SMART-T

1, 2, 3, 9, 11, 13

R

G

 

R

G

 

TROJAN SPIRIT

3

 

AN/TRC-170(V)5

1, 2, 4

G

G

 

G

G

G

G

MRC-142

1, 2, 4

G

G

 

G

G

 

G

G

G

G

DWTS

1, 8

G

G

 

G

G

 

G

G

G

G

EPLRS

1, 8

 

R

G

R

G

R

G

R

G

 

AN/PSC-5

7, 8

Y

G

Y

G

Y

G

 

Y

G

Y

G

SINCGARS

6

G

G

G

G

G

G

G

G

G

G

G

G

G

G

G

G

JTRS

5, 6, 7, 8

R

G

R

G

R

G

R

G

R

G

R

G

R

G

R

G

GBS Receive Terminal

10

R

G

R

G

R

G

 

R

G

R

G

JSTARS CGS

8

R

G

 

JTIDS/MIDS LVT

12

 

Y

G

 

NOTE: R, Capability not fielded (pre-initial operational capability); G, capability fielded; Y, between initial operational capability and full operational capability;

*capability exists if equipped with the AN/TSC-93B and ancillary equipment;

capability exists if equipped with the SB-3865 switch and ancillary equipment.

SOURCE: Compilation of data courtesy of Marine Corps Combat Development Command (MCCDC), Quantico, Va., 1999.

Suggested Citation:"6 Realizing Naval Command and Information Infrastructure Capabilities." National Research Council. 2000. Network-Centric Naval Forces: A Transition Strategy for Enhancing Operational Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9864.
×

According to the system mission statement, GCCS-M is intended to provide commanders with a single, integrated command, control, communications, and intelligence (C3I) system that receives, processes, displays, and maintains current geolocational information on friendly, hostile, and neutral land, sea, and air forces as well as intelligence and environmental information. In addition to receiving data from sensors and maintaining a common operational picture, all system variants are required to communicate with other GCCS-M locations and transmit, receive, review, and record message traffic. GCCS-M systems interface with a variety of communications and computer systems. As shown in Table 6.1, GCCS-M is currently operational on most Navy ships and, where germane, includes MAGTF command, control, communications, computing, and intelligence (C4I) software applications. It is installed at major fleet headquarters ashore and at tactical support centers (TSCs) to support antisubmarine and surface warfare missions. GCCS-M is also available in several mobile configurations.

GCCS-M is a system in transition—from a number of Navy-unique command and control systems to a single system fully compliant with the DOD’s common operating environment (COE) and able to interface seamlessly with regional CINCs and Army and Air Force units. The transition to today’s GCCS-M began after the Gulf War, when three principal families of Navy C2 systems were brought together under the Joint Maritime Command Information System (JMCIS) umbrella. At that time, many elements of existing C4I systems were aging and becoming expensive to operate and maintain. And because most of these systems were based on proprietary hardware, operating systems, and standards, the exchange of data among them was difficult and expensive, generally requiring unique communication interfaces to achieve interoperability within the Navy. So, rather than further the development of new stovepipe systems, the evolution to JMCIS was initiated. Finally, upon successful completion of a comprehensive operational evaluation, JMCIS ’98 was renamed GCCS-M in recognition of the Navy’s intent to bring its C2 system into DII-COE compliance, with a goal of full joint interoperability.

The JMCIS ’98 program, now GCCS-M, set forth several key tenets that were to guide future system development. Three of them are worthy of mention:

  • Migration from a Navy-unique JMCIS COE to the DII COE. GCCS-M today (version 3.1.x) is a level 5 system, the minimum required DII-COE compliance level. All Navy ships, Marine Corps units, and Navy and Marine Corps headquarters are fully interoperable. They also have seamless message traffic connectivity with other military services and joint headquarters and can exchange the track data needed for the common operational picture, provided a common COE software version is installed. Some ships have certain segments installed that are now DII-COE level 7 (fully interoperable), and the Navy has plans in place to migrate GCCS-M to full compliance (level 8) over time, subject to funding constraints.

Suggested Citation:"6 Realizing Naval Command and Information Infrastructure Capabilities." National Research Council. 2000. Network-Centric Naval Forces: A Transition Strategy for Enhancing Operational Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9864.
×
  • Migration from Navy-specification UNIX-based hardware to commercial PC workstations, servers, and Windows NT operating systems. This transition is under way and, as a component of IT-21, is planned to be completed by the end of 2002.

  • Combining tactical and nontactical networks, thereby permitting fleet personnel to perform both tasks on a single workstation. This, too, is planned to be achieved by the end of 2002.

There are three basic GCCS-M system variants: afloat, ashore, and tactical/ mobile, each with a heritage linked to the three Navy C2 system categories that existed before JMCIS. The afloat system variant is installed in some 250 ships and submarines and at certain shore sites. As noted previously, its purpose is to provide commanders afloat with a timely, authoritative, fused, and common tactical picture, along with integrated intelligence services and databases. It disseminates intelligence and surveillance data in support of mission planning, execution, and assessment. While core capabilities are identical for all afloat systems, such items as databases, support applications, and mission applications are tailored by individual class of ship.

At major headquarters ashore, the GCCS-M ashore variant is a C4I system that receives, processes, displays, maintains, and assesses the unit characteristics, employment scheduling, materiel condition, combat readiness, warfighting capabilities, positional information, and disposition of U.S. and coalition forces. It provides current geolocational information on hostile and neutral land, sea, and air forces integrated with intelligence and environmental information and near-real-time weapons targeting data to submarines.

Tactical/mobile variants are fielded at shore sites to provide commanders with the ability to plan, direct, and control the tactical operations of forces. These systems tend to be tailored for special purposes. One subvariant, for example, is a complete mobile command center for use by a naval component commander in joint operations. It provides connectivity with the joint task force commander, other component commanders, and afloat naval forces.

GCCS-M comes with a number of mission and support applications. Some common mission applications, not all of which would be installed in every class of ship, follow:

  • Additional communications and messages

    • Tactical Information Broadcast System

  • Integrated imagery and intelligence (I3)

    • GCCS-M tracks associated with modernized intelligence databases

    • Naval intelligence reference databases

    • Graphical plotting national intelligence reporting

    • Imagery displayed within the common operational picture

  • Command and control links and nodes

Suggested Citation:"6 Realizing Naval Command and Information Infrastructure Capabilities." National Research Council. 2000. Network-Centric Naval Forces: A Transition Strategy for Enhancing Operational Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9864.
×
  • Spectrum management

  • Tactical electronic order of battle

  • Tactical warnings

    • Detect and display threat information

  • Mine and antisubmarine warfare (ASW)

    • Sensor Performance Prediction Expeditionary Decision System

    • Integrated Carrier ASW Prediction System

  • Meteorology

  • Water space management

  • Theater ballistic missile defense (TBMD)

    • Correlation of Theater Event System tracks

  • Air tasking order (ATO) support

    • Parse and store incoming ATO messages.

6.2 FUNCTIONAL CAPABILITIES ASSESSMENT

This section elaborates on the description of the functional capabilities required in the NCII (see Figure 4.2 in Chapter 4) and discusses how and the extent to which these capabilities are expected to be realized in the near-term and more distant future. Addressed first are functions of the NCII’s supporting resource base—communications and networking, plus system resource management. (Information assurance is discussed in depth in Chapter 5.) The treatment of communications and networking is divided into two parts, general considerations and some important particulars of wireless transport.

6.2.1 Communications and Networking—General

Three kinds of requirements for communications and networking are fundamental for the considerations of this section:

  • Connectivity and configurability: the ability to establish communications among the required parties in a timely manner;

  • Capacity: the availability of bandwidth for the voice, data, and video information that must be transferred in operational missions; and

  • Interoperability: the ability to exchange information with other parties, including with other naval forces, with other Services and joint elements, and with coalition partners.

Security of the information transferred and assurance of its delivery, which are also critical, are discussed in Chapter 5. Affordability is also an important factor but is beyond the scope of this study, other than to note that increased reliance on commercial technology can help to reduce costs.

Suggested Citation:"6 Realizing Naval Command and Information Infrastructure Capabilities." National Research Council. 2000. Network-Centric Naval Forces: A Transition Strategy for Enhancing Operational Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9864.
×
6.2.1.1 Near-term Assessment
6.2.1.1.1 Connectivity and Configurability

Current and planned long-haul communications consist mainly of DOD and DOD-leased commercial satellite and terrestrial (wire and fiber) communications systems. These systems provide connectivity via dedicated trunk circuits. For both satellite and terrestrial services, most existing network control facilities do not allow for a timely (or adaptive) precedence-based preemption of service (i.e., bandwidth on demand). They do, however, support the requirement for transparent connectivity through the use of interfaces at the gateways, wherein multiplexing and demultiplexing of trunks and protocol conversion is achieved. Tactical networks continue to be typically unique systems, usually dedicated to specific applications and not amenable to precedence-based preemption of service. They are generally not transparent to the user, nor are they easily reconfigurable.

Thus, current long-haul and tactical naval communications networks can generally be characterized as dedicated circuits and rigid network structures. Planned systems will increase the inherent flexibility of some networks. In particular, the Military Strategic, Tactical, and Relay (MILSTAR) satellite communications system will decentralize the control of subnetworks, so that they can be rapidly reconfigured by tactical control terminals. The UHF follow-on system will maintain centralized control from gateways (e.g., the Naval Command and Telecommunications Area Master Station–Atlantic), but is implementing demand assigned multiple access (DAMA), which will allow the rapid reassignment of satellite channels to tactical users. This will allow the assignment of dedicated circuits for relatively short duration (hours rather than weeks or months).

6.2.1.1.2 Capacity

Leased commercial terrestrial communications systems are generally capable of providing long-haul circuit-switched and dedicated links between user nodes at throughput rates ranging from tens to hundreds of megabytes per second. DOD and DOD-leased satellite communications for long-haul services support trunk rates between tens of kilobytes per second (UHF follow-on and MILSTAR) and tens of megabytes per second (Defense Satellite Communications System (DSCS) and commercial satellites). Tactical data links typically have data rates well below 1 Mbps, although some direct tactical feeds from sensors have data rates up to hundreds of megabytes per second (e.g., the common data link (CDL)).

Application of near-term technologies and advanced waveforms will provide significant increases in data rates for the communication systems (such as taking 16 kbps rates up to nearly 100 kbps for the UHF follow-on system, and 2.4 kbps rates up to 1 Mbps for MILSTAR). In addition, the Global Broadcast System (GBS) will add spot beam capabilities in the range 1.5 to 24 Mbps. The scope of this study did not allow for any detailed analysis of communications capacity

Suggested Citation:"6 Realizing Naval Command and Information Infrastructure Capabilities." National Research Council. 2000. Network-Centric Naval Forces: A Transition Strategy for Enhancing Operational Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9864.
×

requirements. However, an attempt was made to compare the projected enhancements against stated naval requirements. As reflected in the following, the committee experienced some difficulty in understanding the requirements.

Naval forces assess their communications bandwidth requirements annually as part of the program objective memorandum (POM) process, with fleet commanders playing a key role. The POM results are summarized in the Navy’s bandwidth baseline assessment memorandum.2 The requirements submitted by CINCPACFLT3 figure prominently in that memorandum. Other statements of requirements presented in the POM bandwidth memorandum derive from naval SATCOM user requirements4 and Emerging Requirements Database (ERDB) for Satellite Communications, Version 6.5 These requirements studies considered the satellite communications requirements of naval forces deployed in a single major regional conflict (MRC), as well as in two simultaneous MRCs in two different theaters. The requirements reflected full-time communications use under wartime conditions (although one peacetime case was also given) and refer to the maritime component of a joint task in each theater. The naval task forces included a carrier battle force consisting of five carrier battle groups (CVBGs) and an amphibious task force consisting of five amphibious ready groups (ARGs). In addition, the analysis considered one Marine expeditionary force (MEF) and one to two independent operations groups (IOGs) depending on the specific theater.

Individual Ship Requirements. The requirements from the above-noted documents for each type of ship are summarized in Table 6.3 and are seen to vary widely. For example, the CINCPACFLT study recommends equipping every ship with a minimum core SATCOM capability of 128 kbps, thereby providing what was indicated to be sufficient for essential services such as the common tactical picture, record traffic, and command voice links.6 Large ships were indicated as having greater needs, up to 1.28 Mbps, for activities such as collabo-

2  

Director, Space Information Warfare Command and Control, N6. 1999. “Program Objectives Memorandum (POM) [20]00 Bandwidth Baseline Assessment Memorandum,” Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, Washington, D.C.

3  

Commander in Chief, U.S. Pacific Fleet, “FY 98 Theater C4I Bandwidth Assessment,” a briefing presented to the Resources, Requirements Review Board (R3B), Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, January, 1998; Munns, RADM(S) Charles L., USN, Deputy Chief of Staff for C4I, “Knowledge Centric Future,” a briefing presented to the Committee on Network-Centric Naval Forces, January 26, 1999.

4  

Naval Space Command, “Naval SATCOM User Requirements,” a briefing presented by LT Michael Finnegan, USN, on Naval SATCOM Industrial Day, Dahlgren, Va., October 22, 1997.

5  

Joint Staff, J6. 1999. Emerging Requirements Database (ERDB) for Satellite Communications, Version 6, Washington, D.C.

6  

Note also that the minimum IT-21 core capability for all types of ships is 128 kbps.

Suggested Citation:"6 Realizing Naval Command and Information Infrastructure Capabilities." National Research Council. 2000. Network-Centric Naval Forces: A Transition Strategy for Enhancing Operational Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9864.
×

TABLE 6.3 Communications Requirements (Mbps) by Ship Type

 

 

NAVSPACOM 2005

 

Type of Shipa

CINCPACFLT 2000

Wartime

Peacetime

Joint Staff 2010

CVN

1.28

13.4

10.6

30.6

LHA/LHD

1.28

13.4

10.6

29.0

CG

0.512

2.84

4.95

23.0

DDG

0.128

2.84

12.40

10.7

SSN

0.128

1.51

3.77

5.16

aCG, guided-missile cruiser; CVN, nuclear-powered aircraft carrier; DDG, guided-missile destroyer; LHA/LHD, amphibious assault ship (general purpose)/amphibious assault ship (multipurpose); SSN, nuclear-powered attack submarine.

SOURCE: Data courtesy of Marine Corps Combat Development Command, Quantico, Va., 1999.

rative planning and receiving imagery. On the other hand, the Naval Space Command (NAVSPACOM) and Joint Staff requirements figures given in Table 6.3 are much greater than the CINCPACFLT figures, typically by a factor of at least 10 and sometimes much more. The difference is perhaps explained by the later time frame of the NAVSPACOM and Joint Staff figures, but there was no discussion to that effect in the POM bandwidth report that presented all these figures (see footnote 3). Overall, the committee believes that the CINCPACFLT requirements could be a significant underestimate, especially if the increasing demands of imagery are considered.7

Aggregate Requirements. The aggregate communications requirements from the above-referenced documents, by composite force and total theater, are summarized in Table 6.4. They show, in the FY05 case (wartime), that for the most stressing theater of operations, each CVBG requires a data throughput of roughly 32 Mbps, or 162 Mbps for the carrier battle force (five CVBGs). Similarly, the amphibious task force total throughput requirement is 76 Mbps, including 15 Mbps for each ARG. For IOGs the total requirement is 25 Mbps, while for the fleet broadcast and tactical networks it is 31 Mbps. Adding all these figures up produces the fleet theater requirement of 293 Mbps for total channel capacity.

The briefing by a CINCPACFLT representative (see footnote 4) indicated that in FY03, the planned SATCOM capacity would be approximately 185 Mbps

7  

For example, if a 1 square nautical mile area is resolved into 1 ft increments in each of its two dimensions, it would take 3.3 min to transmit the image of this area (uncompressed) at 1.5 Mbps.

Suggested Citation:"6 Realizing Naval Command and Information Infrastructure Capabilities." National Research Council. 2000. Network-Centric Naval Forces: A Transition Strategy for Enhancing Operational Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9864.
×

TABLE 6.4 Aggregate Communications Requirements (Mbps)

 

POM 00 Bandwidth Baseline Assessment Memorandum

NAVSPACOM 2005

Joint Chiefs of Staff Emerging Requirements Database 2010

Carrier battle group

32.3

71.0

Carrier task force

161.7

Amphibious ready group

15.2

47.8

Amphibious task force

76.0

Independent operations groups

24.9

Fleet broadcast and tactical networks

13.8

30.5

Total theater requirement

45.9

293.0

Total ships

133 (ships)

92 (ships)

 

SOURCE: CNO N6 PR01 Baseline Assessment Memorandum (Draft), December 17, 1999.

per theater.8 This is stated to be a 500 percent increase in global capacity and a 2,500 percent increase in total capacity including spot beams, relative to FY98.9 This 185 Mbps figure is roughly consistent with the FY05 fleet theater requirement of 293 Mbps listed in Table 6.4 (assuming that most of the 185 Mbps theater capacity is allocated to the fleet). Thus, in contrast to the situation for individual ships, the CINCPACFLT figures for aggregate capacity are roughly comparable to the NAVSPACOM figures.

The committee was not able to resolve this discrepancy—that is, the comparable aggregate figures but the very different individual ship figures. The communications capabilities of the individual ships could be a factor. That is, a ship cannot make full use of available SATCOM capacity unless it has adequate antennas and terminal equipment, and antenna space is well known to be at a premium on ships. Still, while this is an important factor, it does not seem to adequately explain the discrepancy.

8  

The explicit figures are as follows: Southwest Asia (SWA): 41.1 global + 145 spot = 186.1; western Pacific (WESTPAC): 40.2 global + 145 spot = 185.2; continental United States (CONUS): 44.2 global + 49 spot = 93.2; Mediterranean (MED): 40.1 global + 145 spot = 185.1, where all figures are in megabytes per second.

9  

The timeliness of data delivered via spot beams (GBS) warrants further examination. For example, recent tests showed that data transfer from the Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) to forward elements took 3 h, 22 min, via GBS and 2 min, 45 s via a direct down link (High-Altitude, Endurance (HAE) UAV ACTD Quick Look, ER 4.1, 19/20 Oct 1999). Mention has also been made that routine dissemination over GBS required scheduling several hours in advance.

Suggested Citation:"6 Realizing Naval Command and Information Infrastructure Capabilities." National Research Council. 2000. Network-Centric Naval Forces: A Transition Strategy for Enhancing Operational Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9864.
×

Tactical Line-of-Sight Communications. The above discussion pertains to SATCOM. It is also necessary to consider tactical line-of-sight communications, which are divided into two major types—the tactical digital information links (TADILs) among platforms and the direct data links to platforms from theater sensors (e.g., the common data link—CDL). The best current capability among the TADILs, and all that is planned for near-term enhancements, is given by TADIL J (Link-16). Its capacity range is 28.8 to 115.2 kbps. This is a low data rate compared to what has become the norm for commercial use (although there are stressing demands in the tactical environment not met in commercial use). If network-centric operations are going to involve significantly increased information transfer over the tactical data links, increased capacity could well be required. The committee was not aware of any naval assessment of future requirements across all mission areas for TADILs. Available and emerging technology would seem to be available to support increased capacities (see Appendix E).

Direct real-time data links from in-theater sensors to ships might be particularly relevant in scenarios involving strike warfare or warfare in littoral regions. Analyses such as those associated with Tables 6.3 and 6.4 apparently did not consider such requirements. These data feeds are sizable, ranging, for example, from the Pioneer and Predator UAV video at 4.5 Mbps (analog equivalent rate) through Global Hawk’s 24 Mbps SAR interleaved with 24 Mbps EO/IR, up to 137 to 274 Mbps for U-2 imagery (see Appendix E). Data link receivers and terminals (processors) exist for such sensor feeds (e.g., CDL and JSIPS-N) and in some cases are unique to the sensor. This equipment is being deployed to the fleet (see, for example, Table 6.1). The question is whether these receivers and terminals will be deployed to a large enough set of platforms and in a timely enough manner to meet anticipated tactical needs.

Summary. The discussion above indicates that the sources differ greatly in their estimates of requirements for a given type of ship for SATCOM capacity, and that the lower of these estimates (as expressed in the CINCPACFLT requirements) could significantly underestimate future needs. The matter is further complicated by the fact that it might be possible to satisfy increased individual ship requirements (relative to the CINCPACFLT requirements) by virtue of the significant increase planned in total theater SATCOM capacity. The discussion above also pointed to the importance of assessing future tactical line-of-sight communications requirements across all mission areas. Thus, the committee strongly suggests that the Navy take a systematic and comprehensive look at future communication requirements and the projected ability to fulfill them. The goal of this assessment should include reconciling the SATCOM estimates and providing a broad look across all tactical missions.

Suggested Citation:"6 Realizing Naval Command and Information Infrastructure Capabilities." National Research Council. 2000. Network-Centric Naval Forces: A Transition Strategy for Enhancing Operational Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9864.
×
6.2.1.1.3 Interoperability

Interoperability among the current and planned long-haul communications systems still relies heavily upon multiplexing and demultiplexing and protocol conversion at communications gateways. This situation will be improved somewhat by a reduction in the number of Service-unique tactical communications systems. An important step forward is expected with the development of the Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS) family of radios. The future Navy/Marine Corps intranet development effort and the ongoing IT-21 effort will not only provide an expanded range of communications services to extended user population, but will also enhance interoperabilty among naval forces. Also, the evolving deployment and use of MILSTAR terminals will produce significant improvement in joint interoperability since all MILSTAR terminals share a set of common modes (along with Service-unique modes). Likewise, the planned use of both 5 kHz and 25 kHz UHF follow-on channels by all Services (contrary to the current circumstance, in which most Services use only one type of channel) will greatly enhance joint interoperability. Further increase in interoperability will also come from the use of JTIDS terminals by all the military services. However, current and planned naval communications capabilities have very limited potential for interoperability with foreign government and commercial communications systems. Several recent military operations witnessed the use of U.S. Navy communications systems by allied forces in order to achieve the necessary exchange of information.

6.2.1.2 Future Capabilities

Because of the Joint Technical Architecture (JTA) requirement for adherence to commercial standards and products, the future of commercial communications systems will strongly influence the future of DOD communications systems. Both evolutionary and revolutionary changes will occur in commercial systems in the future, and a reasonably clear vision of that future is forming. Commercial terrestrial systems will continue to evolve toward the establishment of virtual private networks and multimedia services relying on asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) switching and multiplexing technologies and optical-fiber-based link technologies. The revolutionary aspect of the future of commercial systems rests on the establishment of constellations of low Earth-orbiting satellites implementing fast packet switching via onboard ATM switches and laser cross-links. Already, two such constellations are being planned, Teledesic and Celestri. Both plan to employ hundreds of satellites providing multimedia services with data rates between tens of kilobytes per second up to hundreds of megabytes per second. The result will be to extend ATM-switched virtual private networks (VPNs) and their associated multimedia services to globally distributed fixed and mobile users.

The extremes of the vision for DOD communications in the midst of this

Suggested Citation:"6 Realizing Naval Command and Information Infrastructure Capabilities." National Research Council. 2000. Network-Centric Naval Forces: A Transition Strategy for Enhancing Operational Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9864.
×

burst of commercial communications innovations are relatively clear and depend on the extent to which the different communications infrastructures can access and employ the new commercial services. If little use of commercial services can be made, long-haul communications systems will evolve with the development of the MILSTAR follow-on program, advanced EHF, which will probably emulate commercial advances by using onboard switches (most likely ATM switches). As the need for gateways is diminished, the use of cross-links as well as onboard ATM switches will significantly blur the distinction between the sustaining base and long-haul links, as provided by advanced EHF. However, since the DSCS follow-on program, Advanced Wideband, will probably not include onboard switching because of the enormous investment already made in DSCS ground terminals, DSCS gateway terminals and associated terrestrial switched networks will still be required. In addition, because DOD communications satellites will continue to be in geosynchronous orbit, terminal antenna sizes will continue to limit the application of these systems to mobile units.

On the other hand, should it prove possible for the DOD to make extensive use of the future commercial communications infrastructure, the distinction between sustaining base, long-haul, and tactical communications systems will fade, and a majority of naval forces on land, at sea, or in the air will become members of a universal naval multimedia VPN, which will be a subnetwork on the commercial infrastructure. In either case, a critical systems engineering task facing the Department of the Navy is to determine the best mix of commercial communication services required to supplement the military communications infrastructure so that established requirements are met.

As a practical matter, as pointed out in an earlier Naval Studies Board study,10 bandwidth requirements will inevitably push the naval forces toward the use of commercial satellite and other communication links (as has happened already in the Balkan operations, for example). The naval forces will do best by adopting the commercial systems without change and adapting naval uses and operational approaches to them. Provision will have to be made for security, priority, and preservation of access and service continuity in emergencies.

6.2.2 Communications and Networking—Wireless Transport

This section is titled “wireless transport” rather than the more commonly understood “radio” for two reasons. First, there may be a role for acoustics in underwater wireless transmission. More important, however, is the commingling of various layers of the protocol stack into what are usually called radios or

10  

Naval Studies Board, National Research Council. 1997. Technology for the United States and Marine Corps, 2000-2035: Becoming a 21st-Century Force, Volume 3, Information Warfare. National Academy Press, Washington, D.C.

Suggested Citation:"6 Realizing Naval Command and Information Infrastructure Capabilities." National Research Council. 2000. Network-Centric Naval Forces: A Transition Strategy for Enhancing Operational Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9864.
×

datalink terminals. This section focuses on wireless transport of bits and discusses three topics: waveform interoperability, antennas, and terminal equipment for dismounted forces.

6.2.2.1 Waveform Interoperability

The transport mechanism need not (and should not) have to know the meaning of the bits. Once the bits are moved, interoperability depends on the applications and network control processes and on adherence to common standards. But a radio transmitter cannot move the bits unless it emits an electronic waveform that the intended receiver can demodulate to produce the bit stream that will travel up the protocol stack. Waveform characteristics include carrier frequency, signal bandwidth, signaling rate, and modulation method.

6.2.2.1.1 Present Situation

Military radios use a wide variety of waveforms. The reasons for this variation include the following:

  • The allocation of RF spectrum to different communications services;

  • Differences in required signaling rate;

  • Differences in required resistance to interference;

  • Differences in required resistance to interception;

  • Different needs for directional and omnidirectional antennas; and

  • Improvements in modulation schemes.

Consequently, the likelihood that two randomly selected radios will have the same carrier frequency, bandwidth, modulation scheme, and signaling rate is low. Instead, clusters of similar users using common radio equipment to ensure waveform compatibility are seen. This arrangement is satisfactory within the cluster, but if that cluster has to interact with another cluster that uses different waveforms, direct communications between members of different clusters is impossible.

Outside of the datalinks engineered as closed systems, there is little uniformity of modulation type. Simple, binary frequency shift keying was once widely used, but differences in carrier frequency, bandwidth, and signaling rate have long been with us. Furthermore, new modulation schemes are being introduced to increase the efficiency of the transmission (the number of correct bits per joule) or to increase resistance to interference or interception.

The usual approach to obtain waveform interoperability is to provide a gateway, that is, a pair of radios that understand both waveforms and transfer the bits between the two domains. Sometimes the wireless gateway is combined with a protocol gateway, such as in the Navy’s equipment that interfaces Link 11 and

Suggested Citation:"6 Realizing Naval Command and Information Infrastructure Capabilities." National Research Council. 2000. Network-Centric Naval Forces: A Transition Strategy for Enhancing Operational Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9864.
×

Link 16. One difficulty with gateways is that they increase the total number of radios in the system. Another is that the gateway must be part of the forward footprint of the force. A third is that by introducing additional wireless hops, the gateway raises the probability of accidental or deliberate adversary interference with communication.

One possibility would be to make every node a gateway by equipping it with a large set of radios compatible with those on the units with which it may have to interoperate. However, many of the radios are of old design and are unnecessarily heavy and large. The number of radios needed by a unit would be determined by the total number of the types of equipment used by the set of entities with which the unit must communicate. Furthermore, sometimes these legacy systems are out of production. Even if they are in production, there may be little competition, which could mean a low-production-volume environment and high prices.

6.2.2.1.2 Modular Radios

Waveform interoperability will not be achieved by legislating and enforcing a universal waveform; there are too many legacy systems to be ignored, and there are legitimate reasons to use different waveforms over different paths. Rather, a solution is needed that respects the legacy waveforms but uses modern technology to produce a wide variety of waveforms from a single equipment set that can be produced competitively in large numbers. The most promising way to achieve this is through modular radios. If the major components of a radio—RF amplifiers, detectors, modulators, demodulators, cryptographic apparatus, power supplies, and so on—are modules with carefully defined interfaces, respecting a new waveform involves changing only modules, not radio sets. Producing more radios (compared to legacy systems) offers the possibility of significant cost savings. The Navy’s Joint Maritime Communications System (JMCOMS) program has been pursuing a “slice radio” to achieve flexibility and cost savings.

The scheme just described involves personalizing a radio to a waveform. If the personalization is done by plugging modules into a backplane (common communications distribution framework) before an operation, then the number of modular radios that will be needed will be at least the number of waveforms that might be encountered. But if this personalization can be done dynamically, the required number of modular radios may be as low as the number of waveforms that must be understood simultaneously, which may be a much lower number. This suggests that the personalization should be done by loading software rather than by unplugging and plugging modules. The term “programmable modular radio” (PMR) describes a modular radio with this capability.

The PMRs should have the following characteristics:

  • Modular. Hardware and software must be constructed to allow functions

Suggested Citation:"6 Realizing Naval Command and Information Infrastructure Capabilities." National Research Council. 2000. Network-Centric Naval Forces: A Transition Strategy for Enhancing Operational Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9864.
×

to be added or replaced without redesigning the entire radio. Repackaging to suit platform-specific needs should involve minimal change;

  • Open. Proprietary software or devices must be forbidden, unless generic substitutions are available. All information necessary to add waveforms or other functionality should be expressed in accepted federal or industry-wide standards, preferably available online to approved users;

  • Cost-effective. Any component or module must be acquired under free and open competition. Ownership and configuration management of software must rest with the government;

  • Assured. Message content, traffic flow, and routing information must be protected against interception, intrusion, and attack even if equipment or personnel are captured; and

  • Ready to support tactical operations. Modular radios must be programmable and adaptive to allow bit-by-bit assignment of the next bit to the next available link in accordance with the instantaneous operational need, and they must respond to distributed, survivable, information network management.

Most of these goals are achievable today. Consumers routinely download software to improve the performance of their programmable modems used over commercial telephone lines.

6.2.2.1.3 Programs Developing Programmable Modular Radios

New single-purpose radios are to some extent both modular and programmable, although they are seldom programmable by the user. They are usually microprocessor controlled and have a “front panel” that is little more than a graphical user interface that superficially resembles the familiar array of radio knobs and switches. Internally, the hardware is modular, in the form of either boards or chips, arranged by familiar functions according to the designer’s taste. Very wideband RF amplifiers are hard to build, so there would have to be a family of amplifier modules covering different bands that could be incorporated into the radio.

Any well-qualified engineer can come up with workable design for a PMR that uses some number of predetermined waveforms, and it is not surprising that a number of such initiatives have arisen in military and commercial laboratories. But there has not yet been a consensus on a common architecture that would allow any vendor to supply hardware or software components that could be plugged into an existing PMR or be assembled to create a new combination of functions that would interoperate with other components of the architecture.

The committee considered three PMR programs, although it is aware that there are more. The first was the Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS) program, initiated after DOD recognized that there was no mechanism to maintain synergism among the diverse Service programs. The first phase, now completed, was

Suggested Citation:"6 Realizing Naval Command and Information Infrastructure Capabilities." National Research Council. 2000. Network-Centric Naval Forces: A Transition Strategy for Enhancing Operational Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9864.
×

to define a program framework. The second phase, expected to be under contract soon and completed in FY01, will refine and finalize the core architecture. At that point, the Services will have a JTRS standard they can use in acquiring radios. The goal of the JTRS program office is to produce a documented and supported architecture, not a physical radio. A physical JTRS radio is one that is compliant with the architecture. Prototype radios that will support heritage waveforms will also be developed in the second phase, primarily to verify the architecture but secondarily as a source of potentially deployable JTRS radios. The third phase will be the acquisition or development of additional waveform descriptions.

The second PMR program considered was the Digital Modular Radio (DMR) program, a project of the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command (SPAWAR), PMW-176. Although some limited production prior to enunciation of the JTRS standard is likely, the DMR will become JTRS-compliant before full production. The committee does not know the extent to which DMR modules are programmable.

The third PMR considered was developed by the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) Joint Combat Information Terminal (JCIT) program for use in the helicopter-borne Army Airborne Command and Control System and is now in limited production. It is probably the most advanced of the Service programs in terms of implementation. Figure 6.6 is a block diagram of a JCIT supplied to the committee by the project office.

JCIT, as it now exists, can interoperate with a wide variety of waveforms, and its embedded information security (INFOSEC) can interoperate with a wide variety of cryptographic systems. However, it cannot currently interoperate with JTIDS terminals.

The claims made for the JCIT hardware architecture are as follows:

  • JCIT transceivers are software reconfigurable;

  • New waveforms are incorporated by adding software;

  • Radio suites can be tailored to meet a specific mission’s requirements;

  • JCIT INFOSEC embedded on Standard Electronic Module, Format E (SEM-E) cards emulates all three families of INFOSEC;

  • JCIT processors process, correlate, and fuse incoming data; and

  • New modules can be developed to meet a specific user’s requirements and mixed with existing modules to form an entirely new “box,” maximizing technology reuse.

These attributes are well aligned with the committee’s stated goals,11 and JCIT

11  

Because JCIT is a terminal, not a radio, the JCIT processor module may violate the confinement of the radio to transport. In addition to translating various transport standards, it apparently participates in the AAC2S application.

Suggested Citation:"6 Realizing Naval Command and Information Infrastructure Capabilities." National Research Council. 2000. Network-Centric Naval Forces: A Transition Strategy for Enhancing Operational Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9864.
×

FIGURE 6.6 Components, technical functions, and linkages of the Naval Research Laboratory joint combat information terminal. SOURCE: A2C2 Program Office, Space Systems Development Department. 1999. “JCIT Provides Integrated C4I Architecture (updated).” Army Airborne Command and Control System (A2C2S), Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, D.C.

Suggested Citation:"6 Realizing Naval Command and Information Infrastructure Capabilities." National Research Council. 2000. Network-Centric Naval Forces: A Transition Strategy for Enhancing Operational Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9864.
×

may be a point of departure in achieving them. Many JCIT waveform descriptions are being adopted by JTRS, and the JCIT radios will become fully JTRS-compliant after the standard is announced.

6.2.2.1.4 Achieving Waveform Interoperability

Many legacy radios will continue to be used in the years ahead. The Army is completing a large purchase of the Single Channel Ground and Airborne Radio System (SINCGARS), and the Navy is planning a large purchase of the Management Information and Distribution System (MIDS) JTIDS terminals. All planned modular radios are intended to interoperate with SINCGARS as well as older Navy datalink terminals, and the JTIDS waveform is included in the JTRS goal set. There are both technical problems in achieving the required high dynamic range and hopping rates and, at least in the past, political problems in seeming to compete with the MIDS terminal acquisition program.

However, the committee believes that PMRs are achievable for most communications waveforms. The technical problems in handling the JTIDS waveform in a modular radio can be overcome with a relatively modest investment; the political problem can be defused by pointing out that modular radios are just another way of implementing a JTIDS radio. The committee suggests that preference should be given to modular radio programs whose individual modules can switch dynamically among multiple waveforms. All modular radio programs should include modules capable of processing the JTIDS waveform.

PMRs can be used in three ways: to reimplement the waveforms produced by obsolescent legacy equipment, to implement highly flexible gateways, and to create direct transmission paths between dissimilarly equipped forces. The first use will occur to the extent that makes economic sense; the others will evolve with experience.

Thus, to take full advantage of the potential value of PMRs, an experimental program is needed to explore how this new capability can best be used. This suggests that, using JCIT terminals, the Marines should experiment with simultaneous interoperation with the Navy, Army ground units, and Army airborne units.

Finally, a strategy is needed to ensure future compatibility and to prevent developers from introducing new waveforms that transfer costs to the information infrastructure. This strategy can be addressed by requiring acquisition agencies contemplating the introduction or further purchase of radios whose waveforms are not emulated by existing PMRs, absent rarely granted waivers, to develop the PMR software that permits the emulation of these waveforms. The waivers would be needed for very high performance radios used in narrow niches as well as for commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) handsets. The deployment of single-purpose nonprogrammable radios would not be prohibited, but the code would have to be delivered that would permit existing PMRs to interoperate with

Suggested Citation:"6 Realizing Naval Command and Information Infrastructure Capabilities." National Research Council. 2000. Network-Centric Naval Forces: A Transition Strategy for Enhancing Operational Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9864.
×

the new radios. If the JTRS program is successful, a single code would be applicable to all PMRs.

6.2.2.2 Antennas
6.2.2.2.1 Shipboard and Aircraft Antennas

Microwave communication antennas need to be large for two reasons. First, for a given transmitter power and service area, sustainable information rates are a first order linear function of antenna area and are independent of carrier frequency and transmitter-receiver distance.12 If the service area is to be large, the antenna aperture will have to be large. Also, large-aperture antennas are directional, and directionality helps resist jamming and passive exploitation.

Antennas aboard Navy ships have to be stabilized, and mechanical stabilization of large antennas is expensive. Furthermore, there are many radio circuits connecting a ship to the rest of the network, and not enough real estate is available to accommodate multiple, large, mechanically steerable antennas. (The alternative of bringing all sensor flows to sanctuary ashore and providing a single robust link from ship to shore is unattractive for high-data-rate, in-theater sensors.)

The Navy has for some time recognized that it needs multibeam electronically steerable antennas of moderate-to-large aperture that cover at least its microwave communications carrier frequencies, that is, frequencies used for high-speed data satellite relay and for sensor links. Because such antennas will use phased-array technology, it is possible that in aircraft use they could be distributed over the body of the aircraft, thereby permitting larger-aperture antennas than would be possible with reflectors.

Among the difficulties to be overcome are bandwidth, dynamic range, and cost. Dynamic range requirements can be reduced by physically separating transmit and receive arrays. Bandwidth and cost remain serious problems. The committee reviewed the Office of Naval Research’s (ONR’s) ambitious Advanced Multifunction Radio Frequency System (AMRFS) and noted that even the test articles had unfilled apertures because the program could not afford to fill them.

There are two approaches to reducing cost. One is to utilize whatever commercial designs prevail, accepting whatever bandwidth and aperture these designs provide. Should Teledesic succeed, its mobile subscriber antennas would

12  

The maximum sustainable rate is a linear function of received power. The power received is equal to the power transmitted multiplied by the fraction of the service area intercepted by the antenna. For further elaboration, see Wald, B., 1997, Trade-offs Among UAV and Satellite Communications Relays, CNA Research Memorandum 97-84, Center for Naval Analyses, Alexandria, Va., October.

Suggested Citation:"6 Realizing Naval Command and Information Infrastructure Capabilities." National Research Council. 2000. Network-Centric Naval Forces: A Transition Strategy for Enhancing Operational Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9864.
×

be electronically self-steered and support T-1 transmission rates, but only at the Teledesic frequencies.

Antennas now exist for passenger aircraft to receive satellite-relayed TV, although the price of these antennas is consonant with airline rather than consumer use. In the consumer market, Hitachi is developing a system that will permit the receipt of satellite TV in moving cars; presumably the receive antenna will be priced to satisfy the consumer. However, satellite TV antennas are likely to have single beams, so the cited examples solve only the stabilization problem.

The other approach is to search for new technology that will make electronically steerable multibeam antennas of reasonable bandwidth affordable. The committee does not know which technologies will ultimately be successful, but it has been suggested that low-loss microelectromechanical switches make it possible to reduce greatly the number of RF amplifiers needed to feed an array; moreover, because they are switching delay lines, not phase shifters, they operate over relatively wide frequency ranges.

The committee concluded that the Department of the Navy is correct in continuing to give priority to the search for multifrequency, self-stabilizing, multibeam, electronically steerable shipboard and aircraft antennas. However, developmental antenna systems may not be affordable unless requirements are tailored or a breakthrough technology appears.

In the light of this conclusion, the committee suggests that the Department of the Navy, while continuing to push available technology in programs like the AMRFS, should also seek to validate potential breakthrough technologies and should attempt to adapt its transport architectures to the use of future low-cost electronically steered antennas developed for commercial applications.

6.2.2.2.2 Submarine Antennas

Submarine microwave antennas are smaller than their shipboard and even their airborne counterparts. Deployed submarine dishes have a 5-inch diameter; plans for a 16-inch foldable plate are uncertain. In contrast, shipboard antennas will have an aperture of a meter or greater. It is likely, therefore, that submarines, even when willing to broach the surface with an antenna and even when willing to radiate, will be at a communications disadvantage. They will not be able to receive some broadcasts. Other services will be possible only if a precise (small-service-area) beam is pointed at the submarine.

Historically, antenna sizes were constrained by the desire to mount them atop periscopes. Larger antennas would require a very different mount, and their provision in new submarines would be very expensive, while backfitting to existing submarines would probably be prohibitively expensive, if not impossible. However, the number of new submarines being constructed is very small; most of the force will consist of improved SSN-688s for a long time to come.

In the past, the limited data rate of submarine communications was not

Suggested Citation:"6 Realizing Naval Command and Information Infrastructure Capabilities." National Research Council. 2000. Network-Centric Naval Forces: A Transition Strategy for Enhancing Operational Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9864.
×

considered a liability by the “silent service.” On many missions, the submarine preferred not to communicate at all, either because of fear of detection or because it needed to stay at depth to perform its mission. Today, many submariners are interested in close interaction with other naval forces; more than one submarine commander has been heard to say, “I should be as well connected to the officer in tactical command (OTC) as any surface ship commander and I should be able to participate in the OTC’s videoconference.” The committee does not know how important these expressed needs are, but it does know that they would be very difficult to fulfill.

The need to communicate while at depth may be less pressing in littoral warfare than in open-ocean ASW. Submarines engaged in intelligence missions will be near the surface anyway. However, options exist for communications with a deeply submerged submarine.

For decades, submarines have been towing buoyant cable antennas, and nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs) have been towing receive buoys. Two-way communication has been demonstrated but not deployed. Data rates are low. Towing places some restrictions on a submarine’s speed and depth.

DARPA is pursuing the exploitation of modern signal processing to equalize the dispersive acoustic channel and increase the bandwidth that can be transmitted acoustically over modest distances. The idea is that the antenna would not be towed by the submarine but would be part of an autonomous vehicle acoustically linked to the submarine.

Overall, the committee concluded that the submarine will always be at a disadvantage in terms of maximum communications rate unless its antenna aperture can be made comparable to that of a surface ship, but that would be a very expensive undertaking. Two-way communication to a submerged submarine would be possible through the use of towed buoys or an acoustically linked autonomous vehicle.

One response to this situation would be to perform system engineering to quantify the effect of an improved communications rate, for both periscope depth and deeply submerged submarines, on the effectiveness of the entire network in relation to the cost involved. Based on those results, investments should be made as appropriate in improved submarine antennas.

6.2.2.3 Terminals for Dismounted Forces

The Operational Maneuver From the Sea and the Ship to Objective Maneuver (STOM) concepts contemplate deployment from the sea of ground forces that will not have large fixed bases ashore and that will penetrate deep inland while depending on support from the sea. The challenges in expeditionary warfare are discussed in more detail in Chapter 3 and in Appendix C; here only the wireless terminals that will be used by dismounted forces will be considered.

The terminals will have to provide highly reliable, over-the-horizon commu-

Suggested Citation:"6 Realizing Naval Command and Information Infrastructure Capabilities." National Research Council. 2000. Network-Centric Naval Forces: A Transition Strategy for Enhancing Operational Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9864.
×

nications between dismounted forces and supporting ships to receive situational awareness and to send requests for fire and other support. They should also provide reliable position location information (PLI) to avert friendly fire and to facilitate force synchronization. Neither current architecture nor current physical terminals support these functions well.

6.2.2.3.1 Physical Properties

Terminals used by dismounted forces must function as radios and as personal digital assistants and must be affordable in large quantities. They must be light, rugged, and operable in bright sunlight or total darkness and must not reveal the user’s position. They should have long battery life. Preferably, they should allow hands-free operation or at least have a more convenient input device than a keyboard. Their transmissions should be cryptographically secure and they should support PLI. Their antennas must not constrain the position or activities of their wearers. They must operate well in both open terrain and urban areas.

6.2.2.3.2 Architecture

Commercial wireless LANs supplied by the extended littoral battlespace (ELB) program were used in the 1999 Kernel Blitz exercise, where they demonstrated the promise and limits of the technology. For reasons discussed in Chapter 3, small, local networks with relatively constant connectivity performed reasonably well; extended networks with variable connectivity performed poorly.

It is likely that this exercise exceeded the ability of single-level, peer-to-peer implementations, and that a hub-and-spoke architecture would have been more effective. In the latter, the hub, perhaps mounted on a light vehicle and equipped with PMRs or possibly a variant of the VRC-99, would be robustly connected to remote information networks but would use single-level wireless networking to interoperate with nearby handsets. Single-purpose terminals from both military and commercial sources could be used at the end of the spokes, with the choice determined by range, rate, information warfare threat, and so on; the radio at the hub would be able to deal with all the waveforms.

This would not be a subversion of the uniform NCII—each handset would be addressable through the system-wide NCII scheme—but the hub could perform routing and buffering functions and act as a proxy for the handsets, to simplify the handsets and lower their weight and power requirements.

6.2.2.3.3 Implementation

The committee found no Department of the Navy program dedicated to developing architecture and apparatus to permit dismounted troops to interoperate well with other component systems, although multiple technology and PLI pro-

Suggested Citation:"6 Realizing Naval Command and Information Infrastructure Capabilities." National Research Council. 2000. Network-Centric Naval Forces: A Transition Strategy for Enhancing Operational Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9864.
×

TABLE 6.5 Link Resistance to Adversary’s Actions

Service

Rate (log10(bps))

Methoda

Resistance to Jamming

Resistance to Exploitation

Terrestrial

 

Link 4, etc.

4

None

Poor

Poor

SINCGARS

4

SS

Fair

Poor

JTIDS

5

SS

Good

Fair

Satellite

 

UHF

4

None

Poor

Poor

Challenge Athena

6

DIR

Fair

Fair

DSCS

5

DIR

Fair

Fair

MILSTAR

4

DIR, SS

Good

Good

GBS

7

DIR

Fair

N/A

aSS, spread spectrum; DIR, antenna directivity.

grams exist. This suggests that agreement should be obtained between MCCDC and the Army’s Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) on the characteristics of terminals for dismounted troops, and on an architecture that will permit interoperability in communications and PLI. Further actions would be to experiment with hub-and-spoke implementations of this architecture and to procure appropriate terminal equipment jointly.

6.2.2.4 Resistance to an Adversary’s Actions

Connectivity must be maintained in the face of an adversary’s attempts to disrupt or exploit the wireless signals. The principles involved are discussed in Sections 5.5.3.1 and 5.5.3.2. Table 6.5 assesses some current systems in this regard. It should be noted that directional transmit antennas do not support broadcasts and that spread spectrum radios occupy much more spectrum than their data rate would suggest, probably requiring unavailable spectrum to convert many high-data-rate unprotected services to spread spectrum.

6.2.3 System Resource Management

6.2.3.1 Introduction

The NCII is intrinsically a shared network, including many resources that will be shared by users and applications. These shared resources include not only the transmission links, multiplexers, and routers that move packets from one location to another but also servers that perform such functions as translating domain names into Internet addresses, authenticating users, and providing directory services. As with most modern networks, the NCII should be designed for

Suggested Citation:"6 Realizing Naval Command and Information Infrastructure Capabilities." National Research Council. 2000. Network-Centric Naval Forces: A Transition Strategy for Enhancing Operational Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9864.
×

intermittent bursts of traffic, so that network resource capabilities (e.g., link capacity) are shared in time and space on an ad hoc basis and not typically reserved in advance. In this way, users can have an effect on one another, particularly if the aggregate demand from the users in a geographical region of the network is anywhere near the peak capability of the local network links, routers, or servers. Mechanisms must be provided to manage overloads and to grant and implement priorities.

Thus, the allocation of limited, shared resources (sometimes referred to as traffic management) is one of the key resource management functions required in the NCII. Other equally important functions include the following:

  • Monitoring the network (all shared resources) to detect problems (e.g., equipment failures) and to take necessary actions to repair or work around those problems (e.g., network reconfiguration);

  • Authorizing users and applications to access shared network resources;

  • Defining and updating closed user groups; and

  • Maintaining directories needed by a large number of applications (e.g., information about the current network locations and the technical characteristics of specific end systems, required to establish communication).

The NCII network must react explicitly and instantaneously to rapidly changing demands for transfer of time-critical information. In some important cases, network resource management policies may have to be adjusted or negotiated in near-real time without the intervention of human users and managers. Clearly, not all users will be equal in their ability to obtain critical resources. In addition, the network must be self-configuring and self-adapting in the face of the dynamics anticipated in naval missions, to include adapting to natural or man-made disruption. This requires, for example, an ability to recognize multiple, nearly simultaneous discontinuities of service, locate the sources of the interruption, and invoke work-arounds that minimize the disruption.

Quality of service (QOS) is a network property receiving increased attention. QOS is a property of a network enabling it to ensure one or more attributes for a particular end-to-end connection. Those attributes may relate to the transport itself, such as delay, throughput, or accuracy (packet loss rate), or to more mission-relevant properties such as security, priority, and availability. Included in QOS could be the ability to request (reserve) infrastructure capacity, either indirectly through the needs of specific traffic types or directly through the assignment of priority or capacity. In short, QOS is a means by which users can specify needed NCII performance, including availability or capacity.

6.2.3.2 Near-term Assessment

Resource management systems that can perform some of the functions noted

Suggested Citation:"6 Realizing Naval Command and Information Infrastructure Capabilities." National Research Council. 2000. Network-Centric Naval Forces: A Transition Strategy for Enhancing Operational Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9864.
×

above exist today in telecommunications networks. These commercial systems must respond to changing demand and disruptions, although the rapidity of change and severity of disruption for which these systems are designed are much less stressing than might be encountered in a military situation. These systems are expensive, complex, and custom-designed, costing on the order of $10 million to $100 million, although their cost is spread over many users and applications since they are usually sold (or licensed) on a systemwide basis. Typically these network resource management systems are found in traditional circuit switched networks, but as the Internet grows and matures, such systems are beginning to appear in the networks of various Internet service providers.

The Internet today has self-healing properties, in the sense that routers (switching nodes) will slowly adapt their routing tables as paths to neighboring routers come and go and as neighboring routers change the information they advertise about which destinations they can reach and in how many hops. However, the Internet and intranets, as they are implemented today, generally cannot assign priority to a specific traffic type or a set of unusually important users.13

Commercial requirements to assign priorities to certain types of time-sensitive or critical applications are leading to the introduction of various mechanisms that can be used to assign priorities, although these mechanisms are not yet widely deployed. Over the next few years new versions of the underlying Internet protocols may provide the means to offer new network resource management capabilities of military importance. For example, version 6 of the Internet Protocol (IPv6) has recently been introduced. Networks that implement IPv6 will provide new QOS-related capabilities such as the specification of flows of multiple, related packets traveling between the same source-destination pairs.

Resource Reservation Protocol (RSVP), a new capability within the Internet Protocol suite, is now being tested. It should enable end systems to specify QOS requirements to an IP network. If implemented, RSVP will enable a network to tailor a user’s connection in specific ways, such as latency (delay and delay variability), guaranteed/reserved capacity, and packet loss rate. When the use of this new IP software migrates throughout the packet switched networks of the world, including any NCII-like networks, it should be possible to satisfy military QOS specification needs relatively easily.

How long it will take the commercial QOS offerings to emerge is uncertain. Before such graded service is offered commercially, a philosophical change in the use of the Internet must occur. Costs to users now vary only with the peak and/or average transmission rate to the host Internet service provider and are not content-dependent. To change to a more dynamic QOS, billing systems able to recognize, record, and bill the dynamic and QOS-specified use of capacity or other traffic-dependent network services will have to be in place.

13  

Firewalls and virtual private networks can be utilized to manage which users and applications may access protected domains.

Suggested Citation:"6 Realizing Naval Command and Information Infrastructure Capabilities." National Research Council. 2000. Network-Centric Naval Forces: A Transition Strategy for Enhancing Operational Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9864.
×

The committee concluded that there is now technology to provide some degree of system resource management for an NCII. The Navy and Marine Corps should take advantage of this technology in developing their networks. One example where that is the case is the Automated Digital Network System (ADNS), which allocates IP traffic from ships to the available SATCOM channels. Emerging Internet technology (e.g., IPv6, RSVP) should provide significant new QOS capabilities suitable to military needs. The naval services should take advantage of this technology to provide system resource management for the NCII. In fact, to ensure that these emerging technologies will best offer the means for introducing military-unique capabilities, the Department of the Navy should be tracking and influencing the course of their development.

Even if the emerging technical capabilities become available, the Navy and Marine Corps will still have to confront difficult questions in applying them to their needs. How access privilege gets assigned correctly to a limited set of users when people’s lives are at stake is one such difficult example.

6.2.3.3 Future Capabilities
6.2.3.3.1 DARPA Programs

The need for QOS guarantees for future DOD networks has been recognized at DARPA for some time. The Quorum program, which has been under way for several years, addresses many of the needs stated above. Figure 6.7 illustrates the goals of Quorum, expressed primarily in terms of assured dynamic response, arguably one of the most critical tactical needs.

Another DARPA program directly related to resource management and QOS is called the Agile Information Control Environment (AICE). The goal of this recently started program is to seek near-optimal algorithms for network resource management that will increase dramatically the operational value of the information received. Its construct is hierarchical, as shown in Figure 6.8, where the requests for QOS are imprinted via a meta-level virtual network that lies above the physical elements of what would be an NCII-like system.

These two DARPA programs are seeking to provide important services for system resource management in a military common-user infrastructure such as the NCII. Quorum, which has been ongoing for some time, may be furnishing capabilities that could be realized in the NCII in the near term. Because of the general resource management capabilities promised by the Quorum and AICE programs, the Navy should follow them closely and become actively involved. The Navy’s new class of destroyers has already been identified as one of the primary Quorum applications. More generally, the naval services should identify which Quorum and AICE capabilities are particularly important to their needs and beyond what is expected from commercial developments (see preceding

Suggested Citation:"6 Realizing Naval Command and Information Infrastructure Capabilities." National Research Council. 2000. Network-Centric Naval Forces: A Transition Strategy for Enhancing Operational Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9864.
×

FIGURE 6.7 DARPA Quorum program. SOURCE: Koob, Gary; figure modified from Quorum Figure (as of October 14, 1999), Information Technology Office, DARPA, Arlington, Va. Available online at <http://www.darpa.mil/ito/research/quorum/index.html>.

Suggested Citation:"6 Realizing Naval Command and Information Infrastructure Capabilities." National Research Council. 2000. Network-Centric Naval Forces: A Transition Strategy for Enhancing Operational Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9864.
×

FIGURE 6.8 The hierarchical structure of DARPA’s Agile Information Control Environment program. Acronyms are defined in Appendix H.

SOURCE: Beaton, Robert. Information Policy Management (IPM) viewgraph, from “Agile Information Control Environment,” Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Arlington, Va., no date.

Suggested Citation:"6 Realizing Naval Command and Information Infrastructure Capabilities." National Research Council. 2000. Network-Centric Naval Forces: A Transition Strategy for Enhancing Operational Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9864.
×

subsection), and then develop a plan to incorporate these capabilities into the NCII as soon as feasible.

6.2.3.3.2 Knowing Terminal Attributes

The ability of terminals (end systems) to explicitly advertise their attributes to authorized network entities without disclosing those same attributes to unauthorized entities is an interesting illustration of future capabilities. As such, it represents an example not known to be within current research programs but that the naval services should be considering and possibly pursuing for the NCII. Although it will have implications beyond resource management, the idea proposed here represents a major new adjunct to present infrastructure systems that will facilitate the military use of packet systems. This capability in a military network can offer the following end-to-end advantages:

  • An awareness of what devices are connected to the network at all times;

  • A knowledge of the capabilities of a terminal regarding its storage capacity, displays, input/output, location;

  • A knowledge of the status, health, or readiness of the terminal or other end device (e.g., battery life remaining);

  • An ability to know at the source just what kind and amount of information the destination device can accept, thus limiting the introduction of extraneous, unusable information into the network;

  • An assurance that the terminal is an authenticated attached device; and

  • With some assumptions, an authentication of the user as well.

As can be seen, many of these advantages are related to increased network assurance, at least by knowing what is connected to the network. Conceivably, a continuous monitoring of the network, its attached devices, and set of users would be possible. Given the ability to quickly validate both a terminal and a user identification (ID), additional network security may be possible.

Today’s Internet protocols (IPv4) are very limited in terms of the information they provide to both users and providers about what is attached to the network. In today’s IP connections, the attached end-system device or terminal has to be explicitly aware of the IP address of the port to which it is attached. Beyond that, the network is almost totally unaware of that address or its capabilities. This ignorance, then, is shared not only across the transport layers of the network (and below) but often at the middleware and application layers as well. Given this lack of awareness, sources intending to convey information to a given terminal cannot learn, from the present network, the attributes or readiness of a destination node.

However, the basic concept of advertising attributes is not new. Something like it was used in the packet radio network at the genesis of the Internet, in 1977.

Suggested Citation:"6 Realizing Naval Command and Information Infrastructure Capabilities." National Research Council. 2000. Network-Centric Naval Forces: A Transition Strategy for Enhancing Operational Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9864.
×

It could be called a “terminal awareness packet” (TAP). TAP would allow the network to become aware not only of the presence of a unique attached end system but also of the capability and readiness of that device. To an extent, the trend to unique terminal devices has already begun. The European Groupe Special Mobile (European cellular system) is a good example, with its unique cell phone ID plus user ID (sometimes including a PIN number). This concept tries to identify the user and to assure that the person is an authorized user. Another trend that has surfaced lately is the unique ID embedded in each Pentium III processor, a number that can be sensed remotely.

Given a uniquely numbered end device and an agreed-on set of device characteristics describing its capability and readiness, a communication of these parameters to the network is possible, either at connect time, boot time, or on demand using loop-back probes at run time. This information is the content of the above-mentioned TAP. While this kind of information may not be of interest for commercial and consumer use, it seems appropriate for military operations to know the location, status, and capability of a node or individual. In general, this information facilitates the achievement of interoperability and the efficient use of resources. Quite naturally embodied in this capability is a continuous depiction not just of network connectivity but of user connectivity for all or any subset of the network.

Using the existing Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP), end systems and servers can be configured with management information bases that describe their current capabilities and configuration, for example, and can make those attributes available to other network entities. IPv6 will have some features that could be adapted to military information needs. There, the so-called “flow ID” is tied to QOS and has about 20 bits to describe a wide range of traffic types including, say, their importance. Mobile hosts in a network that implements the emerging “mobile IP” will originate packets that can alert the network to their current network location. This dynamic name-address binding could be a natural component of the proposed TAP.

Thus, following through the above arguments, one can see that it might be feasible to implement a TAP capability. Because these new aspects of networking offer important features, the military needs to track and influence them. Additionally, they must also be examined closely for any vulnerabilities they add.

6.2.4 Collection Management

The collection management process determines the data collection plan for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) assets, based on needs specified by the operational commanders. The sensor assets involved can be global (e.g., space-based), regional (e.g., surveillance aircraft), or local (e.g., UAVs).14

14  

Sensors are discussed in detail in Chapter 3.

Suggested Citation:"6 Realizing Naval Command and Information Infrastructure Capabilities." National Research Council. 2000. Network-Centric Naval Forces: A Transition Strategy for Enhancing Operational Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9864.
×

The data collection plan will specify such factors as sensor flight path, flight times, and orientation. Overall, the collection management process is made quite complex by the need to balance tasking assignments among competing requests and to optimize the use of available sensor assets. Such optimization should occur across all available assets and not just in the tasking of individual sensors. Ideally, the data collection plan should be rapidly alterable to respond to information gained by the sensors, changes in the operational situation, and the possible malfunctioning of some sensors or platforms.

6.2.4.1 Near-term Assessment

Significant effort is now being devoted to collection management. Needs are managed by collection management tools unique to a given sensor and supported by many manual processes, although they are computer-assisted. Tactical, theater, national, and even commercial collectors are characteristically tasked with tools that manage a queue of needs for their own individual collection asset. There is little opportunity for a commander to influence the collection of platforms of all types and numbers through a collection manager who has a single (or even a few) tools to do so. Rather, the manager must submit a commander’s needs using many processes and many different systems. This means there is only a limited ability to deal with assets as an integrated set and realize the synergies of cross-cueing and improved responsiveness to the commander’s request.

Today, the approval and prioritization of needs for collection typically occur through a hierarchical process and a chain of command. Feedback is usually provided in days rather than minutes or hours. Consequently, redundant nominations occur, particularly across multiple platforms, and the collection process cannot be responsive to rapidly changing situations or newly gained information. In summary, current collection management capabilities have significant limitations and fall well short of the timely and flexible information management capabilities envisioned for the NCII.

The Joint Collection Management Tasking (JCMT) system and the Requirements Management System (RMS), both currently operational, provide good examples of what is available today. Modest enhancements in capabilities will be realized across the Future Year Defense Program (FYDP). They will provide some increased integration of assets through a shared requirements database and offer access to commercial imagery platforms. They will also enable order entry and tracking of requests for products and services, with more frequent reports on status.

The tasking, processing, exploitation, and dissemination (TPED) baseline/ modernization plan being developed by the National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA) is an example of how collection management systems are being evolved. Enhancements, programmed over the FYDP and beyond, will include

Suggested Citation:"6 Realizing Naval Command and Information Infrastructure Capabilities." National Research Council. 2000. Network-Centric Naval Forces: A Transition Strategy for Enhancing Operational Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9864.
×

access to emerging imagery architectures and to high-resolution commercial imagery platforms through a shared requirements database. Migration to an order entry and tracking capability should facilitate the submission of collection and production needs by the users and provide them faster feedback of results. Special enhancements are being developed for the tactical user. New work-flow management capabilities will provide faster distribution of collected data to expedite the production of intelligence and geospatial information. Expanding interfaces to other collectors, including airborne sensors, to promote cross-cueing will enhance responsiveness to user needs.

6.2.4.2 Future Capabilities

In the future, data collection capabilities will grow. The nature and number of collectors will make new data available to the NCII, such as from hyperspectral and ultraspectral imagery platforms, in greater volumes. The collectors available to strategic, operational, and tactical commanders—commercial, National, airborne, manned and unmanned, still and motion, and macro and micro—will grow in number and capabilities. There will also be an increasing demand to acquire mobile targets within shorter time lines. Future users will therefore require a new generation of collection management tools that treat ISR platforms as assets that are fully integrated and provide feedback within tactical time lines. This will require an investment of military research and development resources. New methods and new tools must be developed to provide intelligent cross-cueing, such as between signals and imagery collectors, between different imagery collectors, or between MTI and SAR, so as to acquire difficult, mobile targets. The methods and tools are needed to enable tactical echelons to get priority needs tasked and produce feedback sufficiently responsive to enable dynamic retargeting and retasking. They should be able to accomplish this retasking automatically.

The TPED baseline/modernization plan mentioned above should help steer current collection management systems toward such capabilities. An example that takes a dramatically different approach to next-generation tools is the DARPA Advanced ISR Management program. The intent of the program is to develop capabilities that would allow ISR confederations to operate so as to improve the capacity for synergistic collections. This would enhance time-critical targeting and battlefield awareness. The project is initially focused at the joint task force level. It addresses three major issues: the need for the development of information to factor in a commander’s intent, addressing those needs using large-scale optimization techniques, and synchronizing the multiple assets available in order to satisfy users’ needs in a near-real-time environment. To do so, the tools must include learning and inferencing capabilities to interpret complex plans and situations and predict and assess progress, as well as to optimize strategies over a massive decision solution space. Prototype products are scheduled for analyses

Suggested Citation:"6 Realizing Naval Command and Information Infrastructure Capabilities." National Research Council. 2000. Network-Centric Naval Forces: A Transition Strategy for Enhancing Operational Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9864.
×

in demonstrations through special projects from 1999 to 2001. The successful products could transition to various requirements and collection management systems and future architecture developments, or through the Community Integrated Collection Management program and the airborne/overhead integrated task forces.

6.2.5 Information Exploitation

6.2.5.1 Introduction
6.2.5.1.1 Definitions

Information exploitation as used here covers all aspects of how sensor and other data are processed to gain intelligence and geospatial information. The phases of information exploitation are depicted in Figure 6.9, which is intended to show that any or all of the individual steps can contribute to a consistent, structured set of information used to represent the current situation. However,

FIGURE 6.9 Phases of the information exploitation process. COP, common operational picture; CTP, common tactical picture.

Suggested Citation:"6 Realizing Naval Command and Information Infrastructure Capabilities." National Research Council. 2000. Network-Centric Naval Forces: A Transition Strategy for Enhancing Operational Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9864.
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the output of each step can also contribute to higher-level representations or abstract views of the battlespace.

Collection refers to all forms of data or information acquisition. From a set of raw collected data it may be necessary to extract a specific piece of information. Extraction often involves substantial processing, as when doing model-based recognition of an object in an image. Similarly, data objects of different origin may be fused to form a more authentic representation of that same object. Such extracted and fused data can then be aggregated with other unprocessed data or information to form a more composite representation. Aggregation is exemplified in the building up of an air or undersea defense picture. The final phase is abstraction, which is the replacement of a number of individual, not necessarily similar elements with a single, higher-level representation that spares the viewer excessive detail or clutter. That higher level may also involve information that has been integrated to form an insight that individual data elements might not reveal. This string of steps can be recursive as information is passed up the chain of command. Lastly, when information is exploited successfully, the result is a consistent representation of the battlespace situation that includes specific views, such as a common tactical picture (CTP) or, at the CINC level, the common operational picture (COP).

6.2.5.1.2 The Importance of Context or Metadata in Fusion and Abstraction

A key need in the fusion, aggregation, and abstraction of data is context. Context can be defined as supplemental information or metadata, providing the basis for more readily understanding a discourse, and it must be enlarged until the communicating parties are clear on what is being exchanged. All such information-bearing elements introduced in a discourse need a context for them to be meaningful.

So, what seems necessary, even critical to the emergence of a general battlespace picture, is the presence of two contexts. First, any information object, regardless of its size, must be attended by an explicit supplemental vector that describes what it is and the circumstances of its origin, including its veracity. Without such metadata, the information itself is difficult to integrate or use directly. Also, if there is ever to be the hope of automatic fusion, this background vector must be present. Ideally, the vector itself, and the definition of its elements, would be universally agreed to and accepted. That is much easier for basic or atomic units of information but probably more difficult as the scope of the information gets larger. For example, all sensor data must be attended by metadata that are equivalent to a camera model that enables an interpreter to merge that sensor output with the output of other sensors. Having the metadata and data together lets the couplet be an object with much broader utility in the information space.

A second critical context is one in which the information element gets inter-

Suggested Citation:"6 Realizing Naval Command and Information Infrastructure Capabilities." National Research Council. 2000. Network-Centric Naval Forces: A Transition Strategy for Enhancing Operational Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9864.
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preted or used. Just as in the case of the information element, this second or integration context can be defined more easily when the information elements to be aggregated are few and not complex. Because this second context is, by definition, one step higher in information abstraction, it may be harder to define and less adaptable to standardization. Yet it will still have common descriptors such as time stamps, perishability, scale or scope of resources (i.e., level of command), red or blue order of battle, veracity, and its ultimate name or use. At the highest level of aggregation or abstraction are the developing terms such as “common operational picture” and “image of the battlespace.” Their tailored nature may also make them too varied to be universally interpreted. Predefined templates, widely used as a point of departure, may help. “The right information to the right person at the right time” is a maxim that rolls easily off the tongue but ignores the fact that all three “rights” have no generally applicable meaning. Such maxims become useful only when defined in the context of each specific situation.

Clearly, the context of aggregation at one level becomes the context of an information element for use at the next point of integration or abstraction. Further, it is important to maintain the distinction between content and context. This emphasis on explicit and usable context not only draws attention to needed supplementation but also avoids the pitfall of having to define data and knowledge, terms that are mostly in the eye of the beholder.

6.2.5.2 Near-term Assessment

The process of information exploitation is practiced in many military and intelligence contexts today. Within the limited scope of this report it is not possible to comment on those applications in any detail. However, it is fair to say that as one proceeds to the right through the steps in Figure 6.9, the process becomes less automated. Indeed, the bulk of research efforts have been devoted to matters of extraction (e.g., target recognition) and fusion. Generally, one can say that automatic extraction is widespread, automated fusion has shown some success, and automated aggregation has been demonstrated in situations involving like data and a relatively fixed operational environment.

The COP/CTP stands as one particular and important example. The tracks of moving targets detected by an individual sensor can be determined automatically (extraction). However, significant manual intervention is required to process out redundancies and uncertainties among the tracks from multiple sensors to form the composite picture (aggregation). Part of the difficulty in forming the composite picture is the lack of metadata, or context, as described above.

Conceptually, the COP should mean a consistent and not a common operational picture because, ideally, it is derived from a single, consistent, structured representation of the battlespace. Under the present COP formulation, information is collected at all levels, with the lower levels percolating upward what they

Suggested Citation:"6 Realizing Naval Command and Information Infrastructure Capabilities." National Research Council. 2000. Network-Centric Naval Forces: A Transition Strategy for Enhancing Operational Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9864.
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believe is important. Thus, information in that distributed process becomes integrated with the perspectives and judgments of each level as the story moves on up. That is both good news and bad, for while insight, hopefully mostly useful, may be resident in that stream, it is more difficult to assure consistency. In other words, in the process by which the CTP/COP is now formed, consistency becomes subordinate to collective insight.

The process of exploitation is a difficult and long-studied one. While there do not appear to be major advances in the near term, evolutionary progress should be possible. One recommended avenue of pursuit is to be more systematic about the definition, capture, and use of context as described above. SPAWAR is very active in COP/CTP developmental efforts, and it should consider such context-based approaches. A worthwhile objective might be to find some type of template system that would permit tailoring tactical presentations while still retaining a consistent, perhaps standard ontology for the information used.

6.2.5.3 Future Capabilities

Information exploitation has a number of long-term requirements:

  • The ability to automatically extract common objects from different, non-orthonormal imagery, without manual intervention;

  • The fusion of information from disparate sources having different extraction methods (e.g., imagery, multi- or hyperspectral data, IR, and human intelligence);

  • General algorithms that enable the automatic building of abstract representations that convey their salient features to the level of command involved;

  • Rapid and synchronized interpretation of all-source data;

  • Automated extraction support to improve responsiveness and help compensate for the decreased availability of skilled and informed analysts; and

  • Harnessing the potential of video and other time-sequenced imagery with automatic monitoring and processing (e.g., tracking and classification of targets).

While these needs argue strongly for advances in the automation of extraction, they should not be taken to imply that all information and insight will come from machines. The exploitation process should be subject to human oversight and involvement, where appropriate.

There remain some profound difficulties in the automatic exploitation of information. One is the automatic composition of an accurate representation of the battlespace from elements with multilayered (repeatedly abstracted) uncertainties. Another is the integration of disparate input data. The normal technical approach to such compounded uncertainties is Bayesian statistics. Difficulties are caused by the lack of independence of the various conditional probabilities in a multidimensional graph and the sheer concatenation of uncertain events, even if

Suggested Citation:"6 Realizing Naval Command and Information Infrastructure Capabilities." National Research Council. 2000. Network-Centric Naval Forces: A Transition Strategy for Enhancing Operational Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9864.
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they are perfectly independent. As has been already mentioned, any aggregation of objects to be abstracted should have a resultant profile that includes its uncertainty. Humans have a propensity in handling such data or information to avoid deriving the uncertainty of a new, integrated object either because it cannot be computed or because the multiplication of independent probabilities leaves the person discouraged. At best, humans use judgment in choosing the confidence in what has been created. The danger is that unqualified computer output is too often accepted without question. In the design of information-centric systems, one must remember that the knowledge gained will rarely if ever be perfect. Appraisals will be best served if honest assessments are given as the information is aggregated and abstracted.

The needs indicated above are all important in the long-term realization of the NCII. Over the years, much research has been devoted to the problem of exploiting information, and much future research is necessary. DARPA, for example, has been active in the field: two examples of current work are the Dynamic Multiuser Information Fusion (DMIF) and Dynamic Data Base (DDB) programs. The naval services should track and participate in exploitation research and sponsor it in areas particularly germane to them, since such research is critical to establishing information products, such as the COP and CTP.

6.2.6 Information Request and Dissemination Management

Users have many sources of information; they, in turn, create more information using their own value-added processes. But in today’s information-rich environment, the burden is on the user to find the means to locate the right information. This situation will become more complex. The future will bring increased data collection capabilities in terms of the nature and number of sensors available to commanders at every level. It will bring a manifold increase in repositories of information from producers who are globally dispersed but accessible through networks. Given all the information that will be available, including that from open sources, the user may reach a state of information overload. New capabilities are needed that can provide users with ready means to easily discover and acquire the information that is most relevant to them.

The function of information dissemination management (IDM) is about managing the flow of information from providers to consumers who are globally dispersed but connected via networks. It is about providing integrated capabilities for awareness of, access to, and delivery management of information to support the full spectrum of military operations for users at the strategic, operational, and tactical levels. These distinct environments result in user requirements that differ in such parameters as time lines and interfaces and introduce different constraints that must be accommodated.

Suggested Citation:"6 Realizing Naval Command and Information Infrastructure Capabilities." National Research Council. 2000. Network-Centric Naval Forces: A Transition Strategy for Enhancing Operational Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9864.
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6.2.6.1 Near-term Assessment

Today, the user is often unaware of what information is available, or there are inadequate methods to access it without knowing beforehand exactly where it is stored. For instance, a user needing a specific imagery product but not knowing where it is located would have to query many servers to find the product. The means to tailor information flows for individual user communities or for individual users in accordance with a commander’s intent are limited. Dynamically adjusting information needs based on an emerging operational situation is very difficult. Such changes are achieved with manual processes or with workarounds, if at all.

Certain intermediate capabilities are emerging that promise to enhance significantly the accessibility and distribution of information to users. These early innovations are intended to provide end-to-end dissemination of information consistent with the commander’s intent and give select users an awareness of certain information as it becomes available. This represents a significant shift in capability through a focus on the end-to-end management of information to the user from the producer. These emerging services are tailored to specific user needs and user communities. Most are initially directed toward the strategic and JTF-level needs and use the DII-COE infrastructure.

More specifically, these new capabilities focus on the core services shown in Figure 6.10. These core services are transitioning from the DARPA Battlespace Awareness and Data Dissemination program and the Bosnia Command and Control Augmentation system, in conjunction with the DISA Information Dissemination Management and Global Broadcast System programs.15 The services, which will become part of the DII COE, comprise awareness, access, delivery, and support for information needs. They rely on user profiles, command policies for management of content and resources, and the use of metadata schemas to describe information needs and policies, coordinating information access and dissemination across a federated infrastructure of repositories and networks. Realization of the new capabilities also requires that the information producers adapt to the metadata schemas in their architectures, as is occurring, for example, in NIMA’s U.S. Imagery and Geospatial System.16

A series of demonstrations, exercises, and experiments was used to evolve and test these interim core services by providing geospatial information, imagery, intelligence order of battle, and logistics data. A recent military assessment of the results noted both the advantages and the shortfalls in their implementation

15  

The capabilities so implemented are often called “idm” (little IDM) in contrast to “IDM” (big IDM), a program aimed at providing the longer-term capabilities.

16  

Planned capabilities in this program go beyond the management of information for dissemination. They include deliveries of libraries to the Services, commands, and agencies for storage and access to imagery products and geospatial information.

Suggested Citation:"6 Realizing Naval Command and Information Infrastructure Capabilities." National Research Council. 2000. Network-Centric Naval Forces: A Transition Strategy for Enhancing Operational Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9864.
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FIGURE 6.10 Information dissemination management core services. BADD, battlefield automated data distribution; IDM, information dissemination management.

SOURCE: Beaton, Robert, from a briefing to the System Architecture Panel, Committee on Network-Centric Naval Forces, April 16, 1999, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Arlington, Va.

Suggested Citation:"6 Realizing Naval Command and Information Infrastructure Capabilities." National Research Council. 2000. Network-Centric Naval Forces: A Transition Strategy for Enhancing Operational Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9864.
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with respect to stability, performance, and ease of use. Some immaturities will need to be resolved by an evolving accommodation to joint warfighting requirements. An important issue at the moment is the absence of agreement on metadata standards for the publishers of information. The set of core services achievable in the near term is currently constrained to a subset of those needed by all the CINCs. They are also limited in the number of producers and consumers who can be linked, a constraint driven by the need for DII compliance, and the narrow set of producers who meet the metadata standards currently implemented (IDM, Link 16, and Intelink-S). In summary, the core services and associated developments are a significant step forward, but further effort is needed to achieve the longer term goal and set of needs.

6.2.6.2 Future Capabilities

Future IDM needs will be realized through a set of services that provides an information marketplace for users and functions in accordance with policies that may vary by the commander, by the operational region, and by the nature of the mission. The services require that all information producers have the means to advertise, publish, and distribute their information to a widely dispersed community. They require the ability to deliver published information to users over effective communication paths in a manner that is transparent to the user.

A program for longer-term IDM development has recently been established, with USJFCOM having the lead on developing the capstone requirements document17 and the Air Force serving as the executive agent. Given the importance of information dissemination management to the NCII, the naval services should closely monitor and work with this program. Several important challenges face the program. It must ensure that a complete and robust set of core services is established. The services must be easy for the user to apply and must adapt to rapidly changing information needs in the face of evolving operational situations. They must also guarantee that information dissemination follows the commander’s guidance. Furthermore, the program must ensure that adequate information assurance technology and practices are incorporated into the IDM functionality. Information dissemination poses critical vulnerabilities that must be protected against—e.g., denial of service, traffic analysis, and the insertion of false information.

One of the most critical challenges facing the long-term realization of the IDM paradigm is the scaling of the metadata standards that describe information needs, products, and policies. These standards must be satisfactory to and ac-

17  

A capstone requirements document (CRD) is a document that provides an overarching description of the goals or vision of its subject area. The capstone feature provides a shared vision of the top goals and objectives that guide the plans and activities of the individual supporting programs.

Suggested Citation:"6 Realizing Naval Command and Information Infrastructure Capabilities." National Research Council. 2000. Network-Centric Naval Forces: A Transition Strategy for Enhancing Operational Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9864.
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cepted by the entire user and producer community for the overarching IDM concept to work. Potential extension to allied and coalition partners must also be considered. Achieving such widespread agreement is a daunting task and quite possibly beyond the scope of an individual program office. It may well require concerted efforts at the senior levels of DOD and the intelligence community.

Even under the most optimistic conditions, one cannot assume that the IDM mechanisms will locate all relevant information. Thus, in implementing the NCII, additional search mechanisms should also be considered, such as those provided by software agents. DARPA’s Control of Agent-Based Systems (CoABS) program focuses on the technologies of software agents to help manage information in an environment of heterogeneous systems. As such, it has utility in many applications, one of which is information acquisition. Among the potential applications in the program are managing sudden, irregular increases in bandwidth and optimizing resource allocations, brokering open sources of information for the user, and negotiating among disparate legacy systems to achieve interoperability. Agents can be mustered into a mobile team to search for information that is not “plugged into” the standard infrastructure. In the heterogeneous environment of coalition operations, connected with disparate networks, agents have great potential in facilitating the movement of information from providers to users. A powerful but simple example was demonstrated in Operation Allied Force, when software agents were used to direct imagery users to the right source with one access request.

CoABS will implement a prototype agent grid supporting diverse systems and using different types of agents for various services, such as brokering, searching, visualization, and translation. The results will be used to determine the best types of agent control, such as to provide quality of service and efficiently manage routing. Implementation will also allow exploring the best ways to codify intelligence in agents. The dynamic nature of information management, its changing run-time environment, and the changing way in which information is used, even ad hoc, offer special challenges in adaptation to the teams of mobile agents.

6.2.7 Information Presentation and Decision Support

6.2.7.1 Introduction—The Common Tactical and Operational Pictures

Just how much a substantial increase in the amount and timeliness of information can help a commander achieve his military objectives is to a large degree determined by how and when that information is presented. As used here, presentation means the pictures being displayed, the tools used to produce those pictures, and, finally, the display technology itself. The most “official” of the presentation pictures are the common tactical picture (CTP) and the common operational picture (COP), which are supported by the common tactical data set

Suggested Citation:"6 Realizing Naval Command and Information Infrastructure Capabilities." National Research Council. 2000. Network-Centric Naval Forces: A Transition Strategy for Enhancing Operational Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9864.
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(CTD). Because the CTP and COP are so prominent, they are now described briefly.18

The COP is an integrated view of CINC-level operations provided through the Global Command and Control System (GCCS). The COP is formed from the CTD and is a composite of the various CTPs associated with individual operations within the CINC’s area of responsibility. Nominally, the joint task force and levels below that each develop their own CTP, but where in the hierarchy that ends is not clear. While the CINC is clearly responsible for creating and maintaining the COP in his area, Figure 6.11 shows that each Service also has its own COP, and other CINCs have theirs. Suffice it to say that the basic form of the COP is being defined and developed at the Joint Staff and DISA, and it is intended to become the means by which a high-level commander first obtains and then maintains situational awareness. For what follows, there is little need to distinguish between the various COPs or CTPs.

To increase its local utility the COP/CTP can be tailored by each of the joint force component commanders according to their mission and preferences. The COP/CTP is distributed horizontally to sister line and support units as an expression of the battlespace conditions that they have in common. Distributed vertically, the COP/CTP does three things: (1) it conveys to the next higher command level the substance of the subordinate commander’s available information and perspective, (2) it is handed downward to provide context for interpreting that level’s composed CTP, and (3) it helps distribute the commander’s intent.

The embodiment of both pictures is a semiautomated situational map, a graphical depiction of the information available at that time to the command level preparing it. The map base can be overlaid with a number of reporting and tasking orders, and its information can be selected hierarchically with links to more in-depth information. The various CTPs follow the established chain of command in a specific area of operations, with each commander being responsible for maintaining the CTP depicting his area of responsibility. The COP/CTP system can also portray future conditions or situations such as the impacts of impending weather.

For a variety of reasons, much of the CTP is now manually prepared. What each display shows is agreed upon in only the most general terms. Much of the present COP/CTPs has to do with the sighting and tracks of red, blue, and neutral platforms in the sea and air or on the ground. Some intelligence products such as

18  

The responsibility for maintaining the CTP, COP, and CTD, their general composition, and the associated information flow and management are outlined in the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Instruction CJCSI 3151.01, June 10, 1997, “Global Command and Control System Common Operational Picture Reporting Requirements,” Washington, D.C. Further descriptive information is contained in Joint Chiefs of Staff, 1999, Global Command and Control System (GCCS) Common Operational Picture (COP) Primer, presented in a briefing to the committee, March 4, 1999, Washington, D.C.

Suggested Citation:"6 Realizing Naval Command and Information Infrastructure Capabilities." National Research Council. 2000. Network-Centric Naval Forces: A Transition Strategy for Enhancing Operational Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9864.
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FIGURE 6.11 The common operational pictures (COPs) and their contributors as illustrated in the COP primer. Acronyms are defined in Appendix H. SOURCE: Joint Chiefs of Staff, 1999, Global Command and Control System (GCCS) Common Operational Picture (COP) Primer, p. 27; presented in a briefing to the committee, March 4, 1999, Washington, D.C.

Suggested Citation:"6 Realizing Naval Command and Information Infrastructure Capabilities." National Research Council. 2000. Network-Centric Naval Forces: A Transition Strategy for Enhancing Operational Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9864.
×

electronic intelligence (ELINT) and Theater Intelligence Broadcast System (TIBS) observations are also integrated. The integration or fusion of information for the CTD is done mainly by so-called track managers.

6.2.7.2 Near-term Assessment

The implementation of the COP and CTP is widespread and serves as a basis for information presentation in the NCII. The COP is distributed through GCCS, which makes it available on major ships, while the CTP is distributed through GCCS-M, making it available on almost all ships. For the Marine Corps, a variant of the CTP is the principal battlespace picture in exercises such as Urban Warrior and the Extended Littoral Battlespace ACTD. The use of COP and CTP is a big advance over the previous practices that relied on separate display systems, each containing different information of relevance to the overall battlespace picture.

As noted above, the COP and CTP draw their information from several sources. This is a strength in that it allows input from many sources that gather input on the battlespace (although input on ground targets is currently very limited). But it is also a weakness since there can be inconsistencies among these sources (as discussed above under information exploitation). In addition, the bottom-up formulation of the COP and CTPs with significant manual intervention can lead to time delays in distribution. Furthermore, the information from the individual sources is displayed in the composite COP and CTP without an overall concept for just what information is required and should be displayed. Because the COP and CTP are relatively new products, no doctrine or guidance for how best to use them operationally has developed.

Advances in COP/CTP implementation and means of presenting information over the next few years are expected to be evolutionary, not revolutionary. One key item that should be addressed by the naval services and the broader joint community is the content required in the information displays and the methods for using this information. These requirements should be driven by the warfighters. The experimentation process is an important way to develop and refine these requirements, as has been already seen, for example, in a limited way in Urban Warrior and the Extended Littoral Battlespace ACTD. Questions to be addressed include what information is needed at each command level, how to best portray it, and how soon it should be distributed. Additional questions of interest at the tactical echelons are how to deal with the limited bandwidth available, especially for the lowest Marine echelons, and how to use the CTPs to synchronize operations. Furthermore, given the variability in missions, constituent forces, and the preferences of command, none of the COP/CTPs will be the same. Experimentation should be used to ensure that these differences do not introduce inconsistencies or incompatibilities in operations.

One other aspect of decision support should also be noted—conferencing,

Suggested Citation:"6 Realizing Naval Command and Information Infrastructure Capabilities." National Research Council. 2000. Network-Centric Naval Forces: A Transition Strategy for Enhancing Operational Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9864.
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including video teleconferencing. This is an effective way for officers at physically separated locations to plan, exchange information, and reach decisions. The Navy has already explored this in IT-21. Over the next 5 years or so, high-quality, immersive, virtual roundtable conferencing is expected to become available in situations where wideband connectivity exists. The naval services should track these developments and consider their applicability to naval missions.

6.2.7.3 Future Capabilities
6.2.7.3.1 General Considerations

Research issues in information presentation that should be pursued to provide the flexible and responsive information management capabilities ultimately envisioned for the NCII include the following:

  • New viewing paradigms other than just two-dimensional maps that include ways to quickly and intuitively grasp items of importance while deemphasizing less meaningful items;

  • Automatic picture updates based on event-driven and temporal cues;

  • Consistency over time and between command and functional levels in the portrayal of the battlespace and the displays on which it is depicted;

  • Continuous planning methods that adapt to changing events or courses of action; and

  • Methods that can, from the assembled information, suggest an enemy commander’s intent or course of action.

While this is a daunting list of challenges, work is going on in the visualization area. For example, the DARPA Command Post of the Future (CPoF) program is concentrating on the types of visualizations that can increase the speed and quality of command decisions. CPoF will examine how pictures can be tailored and decision support tools adapted to changing conditions. It will build on the other programs at DARPA producing analysis, planning aids, and information management and will try to develop the following capabilities: decision-centered visualization, speech and gesture interaction, automatic generation of visualizations, and dialogue management. The Navy (SPAWAR Systems Center (SSC)) has been participating in CPoF and should continue. Hopefully, the Marines Corps can also participate in the present CPoF studies to examine how their particular tactical information presentation needs can be addressed.

6.2.7.3.2 Tool for Operational Architectures

One further topic deserves particular elaboration. The above near-term assessment notes that there is no overall concept for just what information is re-

Suggested Citation:"6 Realizing Naval Command and Information Infrastructure Capabilities." National Research Council. 2000. Network-Centric Naval Forces: A Transition Strategy for Enhancing Operational Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9864.
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quired and should be displayed in the COP and CTP and no doctrine or guidance for how best to use the COP and CTP operationally. This relates to the broader issue of the information needs and flow at the various levels of command to support an operation. As noted in Chapter 4, the operational architecture (OA) should lay this out. But, as also noted in that chapter, attempts at operational architectures have been too detailed and focused on the as-is situation to be useful generally.

What is needed is a tool (or tools) for developing OAs at the intermediate levels of abstraction, which in good measure is a research problem. This OA development tool would assist in defining the policies and rudiments of information flow with just enough precision that a system architecture could be defined for a specific operation. The tool should be easy to use and understand, have definable types of information and levels of detail, and be aware of the system resources available that carry and display the information needed. If developed, an OA tool would have broader applicability than just information presentation and decision support, but clearly it would be important to that functional area.

Since there is neither time nor need to start from scratch each time a naval force is assembled, an OA tool begins with templates. These can range from organizational charts and reporting relationships, to the most important information needs of specific units, to the available system resources and their characteristics that will eventually be represented in the associated system architecture. To the extent that the anticipated force structure is similar to one used in training and field exercises, templates derived from those areas will obviously expedite the task of defining a new operational architecture.

The OA development tool would be a computer-aided means to create operational architectures that are specific enough to define the information flow in general terms as well as to identify the system resources necessary to carry it out. Here are some features such a program ought to have:

  • A hierarchical structure. Such a structure is able to define information flow starting with the highest level units and delving to the lowest but stopping where detail is sufficient to define a system architecture. A logical point of departure in forming such a hierarchy is the naval force’s organizational chart with its joint and coalition linkages;

  • Interunit information relationships and descriptions of need organized by type and level of information. Different levels in the hierarchy will have different aggregations of traffic, and where specific types of information have critical capacity or priority aspects, they will be identified. Factors considered include the following:

    • Intra-Service or joint or coalition linkages,

    • Nominal information requirements for each unit, including types of information or traffic flow and quality of service (capacity, availability, accuracy, delay, security/privacy);

Suggested Citation:"6 Realizing Naval Command and Information Infrastructure Capabilities." National Research Council. 2000. Network-Centric Naval Forces: A Transition Strategy for Enhancing Operational Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9864.
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  • Location of units. This knowledge is useful when maintaining network equipment and for use by attached devices that do not carry such information themselves; and

  • System offerings. A catalogue of presentation and network transport equipment and systems indexed by particular information needs helps define the system architecture.

An important guideline for designing such a system is that there is an iterative relationship between the operational and system architectures. The “intelligence” of such a system is an ability to recall previous iterations and solutions for a given mission and to stipulate by means of previously defined templates that may in part be rule-based, the following:

  • All previously used information flows and their corresponding equipment;

  • Equipment required for a specific information need;

  • Needs not satisfied by equipment in the inventory, indigenous or leased; and

  • Unit or platform locations not covered by elements in the system inventory.

This type of tool should fit easily under a DARPA program now under way called Active Templates. The program, which has interface shells that permit the building or use of templates in the context of interactive planning, allows the incorporation and use of recent experience and can employ automatic reasoning, including temporal. While the program is not yet addressing the building of an operational architecture, such a task seems well suited for the technical methods now under way.

6.2.8 Execution Management

The functional capabilities discussed in the preceding sections provide support for making command decisions. Once those decisions have been made, they must be conveyed to the appropriate operating elements and, in the face of rapidly changing events, modified if necessary. That is the purpose of the execution management function. One might argue that the preceding functions are all that is needed to convey and modify decisions. In a sense that is true, but the need for rapid adaptation is so central to network-centric operations that it would be best to explicitly identify a function that supports the rapid direction and redirection of force elements.

Four capabilities seem particularly necessary for execution management:

  • Rapid, guaranteed delivery of command orders;

Suggested Citation:"6 Realizing Naval Command and Information Infrastructure Capabilities." National Research Council. 2000. Network-Centric Naval Forces: A Transition Strategy for Enhancing Operational Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9864.
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  • Effective promulgation of commander’s intent;

  • Rapid feedback of battle effects (e.g., battle damage assessment (BDA)); and

  • Rapid planning for force redirection.

In considering these capabilities, one should not think only in terms of a strictly hierarchical command model. That is, the initial orders could come from a senior echelon, but the rapid adaptation could involve decisions made only among the lower echelons.

6.2.8.1 Near-term Assessment

The delivery of command orders has long been a matter of high priority. While new means to improve communications are always being sought, especially in the face of limited bandwidth and jamming, effective means for communicating command orders have in fact been developed. The advances discussed earlier in communications and networking, information assurance, and system resource management should lead to further capabilities in this area.

The main method today of assuring that a commander’s intentions are absorbed and executed by the available forces is the pre-mission command briefing, relayed down the chain of command until all members of the force are able to act in unison. These briefings convey the mission objectives, the enemy situation, distribution of responsibility across the participants, and the timing of the operation. Most of today’s command briefings are based on two-dimensional map symbolism and the plan of execution is expected to hold until a new, similar briefing can be held. The question is whether more elaborate means are necessary to convey the commander’s intent (as distinct from some of the more detailed aspects of the battle plan). The MCCDC has examined this issue, and its thinking is that more elaborate means are not necessary. Rather, what is required is that the purpose of the operation, as distinct from the specifics of movement or attack, be clearly stated. That way when there are failed assumptions or changing circumstances in the course of a battle, the forces have a rationale for how to adapt. Learning to convey purpose is largely a matter of officer training.

Dedicated narrowband voice channels enable rapid feedback of the most salient points about battle progress. More detailed feedback would come through such means as the CTP. As discussed above, while progress has been made in establishing CTPs, matters such as latency and consistency still need attention. Activities such as the Extended Littoral Battlespace ACTD are examining procedural and technical means for the real-time distribution of friendly and enemy force situation data. Another factor is BDA. Even if damage information is rapidly conveyed back to force planners, it is necessary to rapidly assess the effects of this damage in order to decide if forces can be directed elsewhere because of target destruction, or if additional forces must be applied to the origi-

Suggested Citation:"6 Realizing Naval Command and Information Infrastructure Capabilities." National Research Council. 2000. Network-Centric Naval Forces: A Transition Strategy for Enhancing Operational Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9864.
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nal target. BDA is a difficult task, and means to carry it out much more rapidly are needed.

Traditional planning, for example, in assigning strike aircraft to their targets, is based on an air tasking order (ATO) prepared daily. Efforts to reduce ATO planning cycle time are under way and consideration is also being given to directing or redirecting aircraft in flight, based on recently gained information (e.g., the effectiveness of other sorties and the movement of enemy forces). One example of a planning system for such rapid redirection is the Real Time Targeting and Retargeting (RTR) program being carried out at SPAWAR. Other aspects of rapid force direction or redirection, to include the case of land forces, are being explored in the Navy fleet battle experiments and the Marine Corps Sea Dragon experiments.

In summary, effective realization of execution management is, in some important ways, dependent on those functional capabilities discussed in previous sections. Some new items raised in the above discussion require continuing attention: clear statement of purpose in the commander’s intent (which may be largely a matter of training), faster BDA, and planning processes and tools that allow the rapid direction and redirection of forces. The planning capabilities are a matter of procedure as well as technology, so continued experimentation is critical to improvements in this area.

6.2.8.2 Future Capabilities

Ideally, the intent is to develop an integrated sensing, planning, and execution system that functions continuously, giving commanders timely situational reports and suggested options. Desirable features include tools that could be keyed by an operational plan to perform continuous assessments, that could enforce tightly synchronized action, and that could replan instantly as friendly or enemy assessments changed. Efforts to integrate sensor information are ongoing and are reflected in the discussion of functional capabilities in the previous sections. Efforts at rapid planning and replanning have begun with such activities as the SPAWAR RTR program, noted above, and the Joint Forces Air Component Commander (JFACC) program at DARPA. However, automatically generating battle options for typical situations is a difficult task and is likely to remain unrealized in the foreseeable future.

6.3 RECOMMENDATIONS

The committee’s findings and recommendations, based on the foregoing discussion and assessment of progress toward realizing the functional capabilities needed in a common command and information infrastructure for the naval forces, are presented and discussed here.

Suggested Citation:"6 Realizing Naval Command and Information Infrastructure Capabilities." National Research Council. 2000. Network-Centric Naval Forces: A Transition Strategy for Enhancing Operational Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9864.
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Finding: The Department of the Navy has valuable ongoing initiatives (e.g., IT-21, GCCS-M) contributing to the functional capabilities necessary for an NCII. However, the ongoing developments do not provide a comprehensive approach to realizing the set of capabilities necessary for a common information infrastructure. IT-21, for example, is improving long-haul communications to all ships, and GCCS-M (including the COE) is also providing necessary functional capabilities (e.g., for information dissemination management and information presentation). The value of these enhancements is very significant in facilitating and improving the treatment of information in naval operations. But as can be seen from the numerous shortfalls discussed in the functional capabilities assessment, the capabilities are not being fully addressed. Furthermore, and perhaps more importantly, IT-21 and GCCS-M/COE do not offer a systematic framework for filling out the full set of functional capabilities. IT-21 focuses mostly on end-to-end connectivity (roughly the “lower layer” or supporting resource base as shown in Figure 4.2 in Chapter 4), which is of course very important, but it does not recognize that a broader assemblage of functional capabilities is necessary. Likewise, GCCS-M/COE does not offer a systematic framework.19

The committee’s set of findings and recommendations drawn from its assessment of all the functional capabilities is given below. As is clearly seen, the set of recommended actions is large and, taken together, they make the point that much further technical advancement is required to realize the full range of functional capabilities required for the NCII.

6.3.1 Findings and Recommendations for Functional Capability Areas

6.3.1.1 Communications and Networking—General

Finding: Significantly increased in-theater SATCOM capacity is planned, but the Department of the Navy’s stated SATCOM capacity requirements could be unrealistically low, especially considering increasing imagery demands. In addition, no comprehensive statement of requirements for direct communication links from in-theater sensors (e.g., U-2, JSTARS, UAVs) to ships could be found by the committee.

Recommendation: The Department of the Navy should conduct a comprehensive analysis of communication capacity requirements and projected availability, and identify remedial actions if significant shortfalls exist. The analysis should include long-haul communications and tactical data links, including direct links from in-theater sensors.

19  

The COE effort has described as a layered software architecture, but that is different than a systematic presentation of the functional capabilities (which largely correspond to the common support applications in COE terms).

Suggested Citation:"6 Realizing Naval Command and Information Infrastructure Capabilities." National Research Council. 2000. Network-Centric Naval Forces: A Transition Strategy for Enhancing Operational Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9864.
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Finding: Communications interoperability is increasing with the forces of other Services and joint elements but is still very limited with allied and coalition forces.

Recommendation: The Department of the Defense should explore with allies the means for improved communications interoperability, in particular those based on common commercial technologies.

Finding: Rapidly advancing and potentially revolutionary commercial satellite communications developments (e.g., wideband LEO satellites) are anticipated.

Recommendation: The Department of the Navy should make maximum feasible use of emerging commercial satellite communications infrastructure and technology.

6.3.1.2 Communications and Networking—Wireless
6.3.1.2.1 Waveform Interoperability

Finding: Programmable modular radios are achievable for most communications waveforms. The technical problems in handling the JTIDS waveform in a modular radio can be overcome with a relatively modest investment. Any perceived competition with the MIDS program can be defused by pointing out that modular radios are considered just another way of implementing a JTIDS radio.

Recommendation: The Department of the Navy should give preference to modular radio programs whose individual modules can switch dynamically among multiple waveforms. All modular radio programs should include modules capable of processing the JTIDS waveform.

Finding: To take full advantage of the potential value of programmable modular radios, an experimental program is needed to explore how this new capability can best be used.

Recommendation: Using joint combat information terminals, the Marines should experiment with simultaneous interoperation with the Navy, Army ground units, and Army airborne units.

Finding: A strategy is needed to ensure future compatibility and to prevent developers from introducing new waveforms that transfer costs to the information infrastructure.

Suggested Citation:"6 Realizing Naval Command and Information Infrastructure Capabilities." National Research Council. 2000. Network-Centric Naval Forces: A Transition Strategy for Enhancing Operational Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9864.
×

Recommendation: Acquisition agencies contemplating the introduction or further purchase of radios whose waveforms are not emulated by existing programmable modular radios should be required, absent rarely granted waivers, to develop the PMR software that permits the emulation of these waveforms.

6.3.1.2.2 Antennas

Finding: The Department of the Navy is correct in continuing to give priority to the search for multifrequency, self-stabilizing, multibeam, electronically steerable shipboard and aircraft antennas. However, developmental antenna systems may not be affordable unless requirements are tailored or a breakthrough technology appears.

Recommendation: While continuing to push available technology in programs like the Advanced Multifunction Radio Frequency System, the Department of the Navy should also seek to validate potential breakthrough technologies and should attempt to adapt its transport architectures to the use of future low-cost electronically steered antennas developed for commercial applications.

Finding: The submarine will always be at a disadvantage in terms of maximum communications rate unless its antenna aperture can be made comparable to that of a surface ship, but that would be a very expensive undertaking. Two-way communication to a submerged submarine would be possible through the use of towed buoys or an acoustically linked autonomous vehicle.

Recommendation: The Department of the Navy should perform system engineering to quantify the effect of an improved communications rate, for both periscope depth and deeply submerged submarines, on the effectiveness of the entire network in relation to the cost involved. Based on those results, the Department of the Navy should invest as appropriate in improved submarine antennas.

Finding: The committee found no Department of the Navy program dedicated to developing architecture and apparatus to permit dismounted troops to interoperate well with other component systems, although multiple technology and position location identification (PLI) programs exist.

Recommendation: The Department of the Navy should obtain agreement between MCCDC and TRADOC on the characteristics of terminals for dismounted troops and on an architecture that will permit interoperability in communications and PLI, experiment with hub-and-spoke implementations of this architecture, and procure appropriate terminal equipment jointly.

Suggested Citation:"6 Realizing Naval Command and Information Infrastructure Capabilities." National Research Council. 2000. Network-Centric Naval Forces: A Transition Strategy for Enhancing Operational Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9864.
×
6.3.1.3 System Resource Management

Finding: Existing means for system resource management will be significantly enhanced by the quality of service (QOS) features available in the most recent and emerging internet protocols (e.g., IPv6, RSVP). DARPA programs (e.g., Quorum) are also promising significant QOS advances in the near future.

Recommendation: The Department of the Navy should track and apply advances in QOS-related commercial technologies, and work with the developers of emerging standards to address military needs. The Department of the Navy should apply DARPA advances in system resource management technology (broadening what is now being done with Quorum and the DD-21).

Finding: Knowing the attributes of the end devices connected to a network will provide useful status information on those devices (including authentication) and allow information feeds to them to be tailored to their capabilities. Very little end-device information is made available now.

Recommendation: The Department of the Navy should promote research to define and make feasible the disclosure of end-device attributes to authorized network entities.

6.3.1.4 Collection Management

Finding: Collection management systems are now largely associated with individual sensor systems and associated tasking often involves a hierarchical, manual process. This results in lack of timeliness, integrated collection planning, and cross-cueing, which could be exacerbated as assets for collecting data increase in the future.

Recommendation: The Department of the Navy should support both planned evolutionary advances (e.g., NIMA tasking, processing, exploitation, and dissemination baseline/modernization plan) and potential revolutionary advances (e.g., DARPA Advanced ISR Management program) for data collection management.

6.3.1.5 Information Exploitation

Finding: The common operational and tactical pictures are primary means for representing the battlespace situation. Automated extraction of individual targets is accomplished, but much manual intervention is required to build a consistent representation of the overall battlespace in the COP and CTP.

Suggested Citation:"6 Realizing Naval Command and Information Infrastructure Capabilities." National Research Council. 2000. Network-Centric Naval Forces: A Transition Strategy for Enhancing Operational Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9864.
×

Recommendation: In COP and CTP development, the Department of the Navy should apply more systematic techniques for the definition, capture, and use of context (metadata) for individual target data, to facilitate establishing consistent overall battlespace representations.

6.3.1.6 Information Request and Dissemination Management

Finding: Significantly increased ability for users to locate and transparently access information is promised by the information dissemination management (IDM) capabilities currently being deployed. Realization of a wide-scale IDM capability requires a more complete set of IDM services and, in particular, agreement across the producer community (defense and intelligence) on metadata standards for information products.

Recommendation: The Department of the Navy should work with the USJFCOM requirements developer and the USAF executive agent for the next-generation IDM program to achieve a widespread IDM capability. Agreement on metadata standards across the whole producer community could require concerted efforts at senior levels of DOD and the intelligence community.

Finding: While IDM could offer very widespread information search capability, not all information can be assumed to be “plugged into” its standard information products base, so complementary search capabilities are also needed.

Recommendation: The Department of the Navy should explore the use of software agent technology (e.g., in the DARPA CoABS program) as a means to provide users a rapid and transparent information search capability, and should incorporate it in more formal development programs as the technology matures.

6.3.1.7 Information Presentation and Decision Support

Finding: The COP and CTP represent important advances in combining information from many sources, but there is no overall concept for what information is required and how it should be displayed.

Recommendation: The Department of the Navy should continue to refine the development of information presentation through experiments. Warfighter input should drive information presentation development.

Recommendation: The Department of the Navy should develop a computer-aided tool to aid in the construction of operational architectures. In helping to elaborate information flows and needs, this tool will have broad utility, including

Suggested Citation:"6 Realizing Naval Command and Information Infrastructure Capabilities." National Research Council. 2000. Network-Centric Naval Forces: A Transition Strategy for Enhancing Operational Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9864.
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COP and CTP construction. A key aspect requiring research is the ability to specify the information flows and needs at intermediate levels of abstraction.

Finding: Near-term COP and CTP development is based on the use of tradition two-dimensional map-based displays. While such representations are certainly useful, they are limited in their ability to convey information.

Recommendation: The Department of the Navy should continue and expand participation in visualization research efforts (e.g., the DARPA CPoF program) and, as the technology matures, incorporate it in more formal development programs.

Finding: Conferencing, to include video teleconferencing, has proven valuable to naval forces in planning, exchanging information, and decision making.

Recommendation: The Department of the Navy should explore and incorporate as feasible the advances in conferencing capability (e.g., immersive, virtual roundtables) expected to be available through commercial technology in the next several years.

6.3.1.8 Execution Management

Finding: Conveying the commander’s intent is central to execution management, and a clear statement of an operation’s purpose is essential to expressing the intent.

Recommendation: The Department of the Navy, through training and experiments, should ensure that purpose is always clearly conveyed in statements of the commander’s intent.

Finding: Execution management, especially at the increasingly fast pace anticipated for operations, requires the ability to dynamically assign or reassign targets to forces (e.g., in aircraft strike missions).

Recommendation: The Department of the Navy should continue to pursue further development of planning processes and tools (e.g., the SPAWAR RTR tool) to allow rapid direction and redirection of forces and should continue refining the use and development of these processes and tools in military experiments.

6.3.2 General Cross-cutting Recommendations

Each recommendation above is worthy of consideration; however, since the assessment for each functional capability area is already given in the chapter,

Suggested Citation:"6 Realizing Naval Command and Information Infrastructure Capabilities." National Research Council. 2000. Network-Centric Naval Forces: A Transition Strategy for Enhancing Operational Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9864.
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these individual findings and recommendations are not discussed further here. Rather, the focus is on a general recommendation that builds on observations that cut across the assessments and will aid in realization of the individual recommendations.

Recommendation: The Secretary of the Navy, the CNO, and the CMC should develop a comprehensive and balanced transition plan to aid realization of the functional capabilities necessary for the NCII. Individual elements with which to begin building this plan are given in the individual recommendations above. General principles for use in developing the plan include the following:

  • Achieve balance within and across all the functional capability areas. Improvements should be made in proportion to the extent of the shortfalls noted in each area, the relative importance of each area, and the feasibility of making progress in that area. Furthermore, to ensure that a balanced approach is being taken to needs for a given functional capability, a general structure of the following sort might be considered. Associated with each functional area are both an operational process that must be carried out and technology (i.e., a hardware/ software) to support it. Furthermore, each function supports the warfighter, who will need direct access to it (recall the discussion of Section 4.1.2 in Chapter 4). Likewise, each function must also have certain capabilities in it to support the technical specialists who ensure its operations. Thus, there is a “2 × 2 matrix” (process, technology) × (warfighter, technical operator), and for each of the four elements of the matrix there should be a specified set of needs. Balanced planning for a given functional capability means that all these needs are defined and addressed.

  • Participate with the other Services, defense agencies, and the joint and intelligence communities in developing the functional capabilities. Many of the functional capabilities are not under the direct control of the Department of the Navy, as would occur in a traditional program management situation. For example, SATCOM assets are shared, collection management occurs partly in the intelligence community, and next-generation information dissemination management is being developed by a USAF executive agent and will most likely be maintained by DISA. The naval services must track and encourage such developments, and ensure that naval needs are being addressed in them, providing funding where necessary to make that happen. While staff-level working groups are important in this process, naval involvement cannot stop there. Senior-level naval officials must be aware of progress in cross-community activities and, where necessary, step in to facilitate them and to ensure that naval needs are being met.

  • Take full advantage of research products. For example, DARPA has (or has had) programs relating to every functional capability, and ONR/NRL has important programs in communications and networking and information

Suggested Citation:"6 Realizing Naval Command and Information Infrastructure Capabilities." National Research Council. 2000. Network-Centric Naval Forces: A Transition Strategy for Enhancing Operational Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9864.
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assurance. Such research offers the potential for significant advancement. Interaction with these research programs is a “two-way street”—both absorbing the technology and also influencing its direction. While there is some naval involvement in such programs, the committee observed a reluctance on the part of naval program managers. Incorporating research products into acquisition programs requires that the research products be matured (“hardened”). The naval services would have to allocate funds for this, which are perhaps best kept separate from the acquisition programs so they will not be absorbed for other purposes. Furthermore, explicit efforts to assess research programs to identify “low-hanging fruit” should be carried out.20

  • Utilize commercial technology as much as possible. The rapid advances in commercial communications and computing technology and their potential for reducing costs in military developments have been widely discussed. The individual findings and recommendations for the functional capabilities presented in Sections 6.3.1 and 6.3.2 noted the use of commercial technology several times. And even in cases where it is not explicitly noted, an examination of the functional capability shows wide use of commercial components in the makeup of the overall capability. Development of functional capabilities should give first priority to use of commercial technology, although it is recognized that there are situations where it is not able to meet the needs.

20  

Some activities of this sort do occur under the Chief of Naval Research, and the recently established Chief Technology Officer under the ASN (Research, Development, and Acquisition) could also be involved.

Suggested Citation:"6 Realizing Naval Command and Information Infrastructure Capabilities." National Research Council. 2000. Network-Centric Naval Forces: A Transition Strategy for Enhancing Operational Capabilities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9864.
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Network-Centric Naval Forces: A Transition Strategy for Enhancing Operational Capabilities is a study to advise the Department of the Navy regarding its transition strategy to achieve a network-centric naval force through technology application. This report discusses the technical underpinnings needed for a transition to networkcentric forces and capabilities.

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