By Geoff Fein
As systems for Navy ships, aircraft, and shore facilities get more complex and more dependent on other systems, it is important to have the right policies and standards in place to ensure interoperability, according to a Navy official.
“It isn’t just something we talk about, but something we have actually effected in the field,” Jim Thomsen, principal civilian deputy assistant secretary of the Navy for research, development and acquisition, told Defense Daily in a recent interview.
Ensuring interoperability of systems can be a challenge, especially as the Navy introduces newer platforms while continuing to rely on legacy systems. But Thomsen said the Navy is doing a good job and has interoperability right.
“We have had tremendous examples of interoperability working well for the Navy today, whether it’s CEC (Cooperative Engagement Capability), whether it’s some of the work we do on the SM (Standard Missile), whether it’s undersea warfare that we do, and underwater weapons,” Thomsen said.
“We work well with other navies today because we have a good posture with regard to interoperability. Even with the current systems we have today, we can make adjustments to do that,” he added.
But the policies and standards are really for future naval systems, Thomsen added.
“Think [about] the degree of difficulty for ensuring that we have the right interoperability built in,” he said. “Yeah it’s hard, but it really comes down to really thinking through clearly what kind of requirements we want for it and then being very clear about what we don’t have to have and doing that early.”
That’s where Navy Secretary Donald Winter’s new acquisition governance process (formerly known as the two pass six gate process) is really going to bear fruit, Thomsen added.
“It really allows us to have those early conversations about interoperability, where they need to occur…and that’s right up front in the program, at the senior level, so that we can make good, well-thought out conscience decisions about how much is enough,” he said. “And that doesn’t just go for interoperability…it’s really for a number of things.”
It is really putting back in to the Navy’s own process the discipline to ensure they can have a senior level conversation about interoperability, Thomsen added.
“I am encouraged by the governance process because it has really brought together a focus on the discipline, on getting the requirements understood early in the first three gates before we get into a contract posture, and then knowing what we want to buy and how we want to buy it,” Thomsen said. “I have already seen some good results in the way we are buying things different from last year.”
Establishing interoperability policies and standards for legacy systems isn’t a problem, Thomsen said.
But the way the individual systems and platforms have been architected that certainly can be a limitation, he added.
“But at the same time what we are finding from an interoperability point, if you look at LCS…the mission modules…we have learned an awful lot on how to create interoperable systems both mechanically, from a transportation point of view, to a handling point of view, to an application point of view with the electronic level…so both mechanically and electronically,” Thomsen said.
Separating out the sea frame from the modules, and bringing in a computing environment that can be loaded onto the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) really has been an eye opener in just how the Navy increased interoperability on this platform, he added.
“It’s amazing what we have been able to design in. Even on the first set of mission packages of LCS, think about we will be able to bring ASW, MIW, SuW on and off that platform, really within a few dozen hours,” Thomsen said.
Even though the ability of the ship to interoperate with the mission packages still needs to be proven on the lead ship, the USS Freedom (LCS-1), Thomsen said Navy officials are encouraged by what they have seen in the design, and lead up to the design, and the efforts between the industry partners–Lockheed Martin [LMT] and General Dynamics [GD]–and government. “I am encouraged, as I look forward, with what we have learned on LCS, and as we think about DDG-1000…[and] the interoperability created on that platform.”
Building the number of lead ships the Navy is undertaking, from LCS, DDG-1000, Joint High Speed Vessel, to the CVN-21-class of aircraft carriers, gives the service an opportunity to apply the lessons the service has been learning and to be able to separate, in some appropriate cases, both the different functions and the architectures, Thomsen said.
“It really does. Think about LCS or JHSV or even the Virginia-class submarines. Some of the modularity built into that platform, both from a HM&E and combat system point of view,” he added. “We are seeing those lessons learned built up on every new ship design that’s delivered.”
Thomsen added he sees the efforts in modularity, interoperability and open architecture, all being cut from the same cloth. “We are trying to fabricate and build the Navy of the future.”