Empire Challenge 09

Empire Challenge (EC 09) is an annual live joint and coalition intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) interoperability demonstration executed by USJFCOM under the sponsorship of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence (USD/I).

EC 09, hosted by the Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division, will run July 6-31 at the Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake, Calif., with distributed locations in the Joint Intelligence Lab in Suffolk, Va., the Combined Air Operations Center-Experimental at Langley Air Force Base, Hampton, Va., service Distributed Common Ground/Surface System (DCGS) labs, coalition sites in the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and the NATO Consultation, Command and Control Agency in the Netherlands.

EC 09 stakeholders and participants include the Joint Staff, combat support agencies, services, coalition partners, academia and industry. During EC 09, live and virtual capabilities are demonstrated within the context of operations typically performed by a real world combined task force.

EC 09 objectives and activities evaluate the effectiveness of proposed ISR solutions to warfighter requirements identified by combatant commanders, services and coalition partners.

Objectives include:
• Improve ISR support to command and control
• Enhance coalition data sharing and interoperability
• Improve interoperability between national/strategic ISR and tactical ISR
• Assess the DCGS Initial Capabilities Document and Concept of Operations version 2
• Demonstrate multi-intelligence battlespace awareness
• Continue data standards development and system interoperability

EC 09 provides a venue to test technical interoperability among the DCGS family of systems. It uses a common set of services and data standards, the DCGS Integrated Backbone, which allows data to be discoverable and retrievable regardless of data location.

The Distributed Development & Test Enterprise, an experimentation network built exclusively for DCGS, tests service DCGS interoperability.

EC 09 will showcase emerging ISR capabilities and provide vital lessons learned that will improve joint and combined ISR interoperability to support the warfighters at the tactical edge.

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