The Tarawa-class amphibious assault ship, the USS Nassau (LHA-4), will be the first Atlantic Fleet large-deck ship to receive General Dynamic‘s [GD] Common Network Interface (CNI) designed to improve situational awareness for Amphibious Readiness Group (ARG) commanders, the company said.
Installation of CNI on the Nassau will begin this month. The software package will provide a Link 16 tactical picture, modern displays and human-machine interface enhancements.
Additional Atlantic Fleet ships scheduled to receive the CNI system include USS Kearsage (LHD-3), USS Bataan (LHD-5), and USS Essex (LHD-2), according to General Dynamics.
Previous installations of CNI include the USS Boxer (LHD-4), USS Bonhomme Richard (LHD-6) and USS Peleliu (LHA-5), all of which belong to the Pacific Fleet. A Pacific Fleet ship in Japan, is also scheduled to receive CNI in 2010, General Dynamics added.
The CNI system introduces the surface Navy community to the rapid capability-insertion process that has been successfully used in the submarine community for over 10 years, providing frequent software upgrades with increased capability. CNI is being developed in a series of “flights” or generations, with each flight inserting additional tactical capability and improvements to the human-machine interface. It is anticipated that this system will eventually provide a single integrated display of correlated radar and link data as well as Automated Identification System (AIS) data. The Atlantic Fleet ships included in the program will receive the upgraded CNI Flight 0+ software through 2010, General Dynamics said.
This CNI effort continues work that began with a successful at-sea engineering demonstration on Nassau in 2007. The demonstration validated CNI’s use of an open architecture system by seamlessly incorporating new technology into the ship’s existing command and control systems, according to General Dynamics.