USJFCOM: Integration center conducts interoperability assessments

Integration center conducts interoperability assessments

U.S. Joint Forces Command's Joint Systems Integration Center's Joint Systems Baseline Assessment is examining command and control and intelligence systems that will help commanders make decisions in a variety of environments. The assesment is also helping support Empire Challenge 09, an intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance demonstration the command is conducting with its partners.
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By MC2 Katrina Parker
USJFCOM Public Affairs

(SUFFOLK, Va. – July 10, 2009) -- U.S. Joint Forces Command (USJFCOM) Joint Systems Integration Center’s (JSIC) Joint Systems Baseline Assessment 2009 (JSBA 09) technical assessment phase began this month to examine certain command and control (C2) and intelligence systems, that ultimately will provide better situational awareness in today’s multifaceted military environment.

According to the event’s organizers, JSBA 09 focuses on the C2 and battlespace awareness (BA) systems that provide critical information encompassing a variety of systems and security domains supporting the joint task force (JTF) commander.

“The overall idea behind JSBA is to better match up our C2 systems with our intelligence systems” said Frank Hunt, the project lead for JBSA 09.

Focus areas include collection management, joint targeting, joint command and control system (GCCS), and distributed common ground systems (DCGS).

“We work with the program offices that are building and fielding systems and we bring them into our assessments and work as a team on the systems,” said Hunt.

JSBA 09 provides the venue and resources needed to identify and resolve critical system interoperability shortfalls that inhibit timely delivery of needed mission information to warfighters and JTF commanders.

Results from JSBA 09, which runs through July 31, will enable program sponsors and managers to make needed system corrections and informed acquisition decisions according to Hunt.

Additionally, JSBA 09 provides warfighters a unique training opportunity on evolving systems and the Joint Interoperability Test Command a needed certification venue according to Hunt.

In a joint environment, services must be able to exchange information for a commander to make the most informed decision. JSBA assesses the DCGS and GCCS capability to share intelligence data between the systems and people across the services.

“One of our key efforts is going to be assessing a machine-to-machine interface to allow a user to log straight into the intelligence system, DCGS, from the GCCS,” Hunt said.

There are separate DCGSs to meet the differing needs of the services. An integrated backbone that connects the systems together allows an individual to log into one of those systems (e.g. Air Force DCGS), request data, and then receive that data from other DCGS such as DCGS Navy, Army, Marine Corps, or Special Forces.

Essentially, this ease of access provides actionable information faster.

“Actionable information is information that is quickly displayed and understood by the people running the operations center,” Hunt said. “They can say, ‘that’s clear. We need to attack that target, bypass that area, or we need to stay away from there due to a risk.’ Given the operational situation, the warfighter is receiving all layers of information that act upon each other and sees a clearer picture as a result.”

JSBA also works to create an environment with more efficient system-to-system relationships to help operators.

“No longer do you have to have three people accessing three different systems to collect data,” said Air Force Capt. Dan Shinohara, JSBA-09 assistant project lead. “Now the commander and JTF can see the assets, engage the target, and conduct reconnaissance to see the results. We are making that process more seamless and efficient than it used to be.”

All of JSBA 09’s efforts are running concurrently with Empire Challenge 2009 (EC 09), an under secretary of Defense for intelligence - sponsored intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) interoperability demonstration conducted by USJFCOM and several partners.

EC 09 focuses on providing ISR support to warfighters at the combined task force level and below. Like JSBA 09, it also examines emerging technologies to ensure they can work with existing equipment and standard procedures.

“We have separate objectives from EC 09, but one of the things that we do for them is provide GCCS systems support,” Hunt said. “By providing them with this support, they don’t have to buy and build their own servers. For JSBA, EC has live intelligence sensor data that is transmitted to us, so we have live data to use during our interoperability assessment.”

“If a warfighter does not know to designate or destroy a dynamic target because we do not have targeting databases that can talk to each other, then this is an area of warfighter support that can be improved," said Shinohara. "That is what we work at. We try to get all the ones and zeros working back here so the guys on the ground can have the best tools available to win the fight.”

Overall, JSBA is part of an ongoing effort to provide warfighters with optimum C2 and BA support.

“At the end of the day, we are going to have collected volumes of critical information on the system data exchanges,” Hunt said. “This data will be used to achieve the goal of identifying key interoperability problems between the C2 and BA capability portfolios that impede the smooth delivery of information to warfighters. JSBA 09 results will enable system sponsors and managers to address these critical issues and incorporate remedial actions in future releases.”