By Ann Roosevelt
Boeing [BA] is working on ways to enhance the Army’s ability to connect systems with soldiers and improve the flow of information between differing echelons of command, a company official said.
Technical tests are under way now in New Mexico on the first iteration of the network that is part of the Army’s Brigade Combat Team Modernization (BCT M) program.
The basic network, what the Army sees as the first building block of the network in test, plans for the next level, Increment 2, are to add functions, to provide “more info to the soldier,” Betty Smith, business development at Boeing Network and Tactical Systems, said in an interview in a tent in the Pentagon courtyard as part of the BCT M displays.
The Army wants to add such things as plans, command, network management information management, collaboration, and situational awareness, in the next network iteration.
Boeing, prime contractor for BCT M, is considering next steps, as well, and using its own internal research and development funds to examine a hand held device, something like a smart phone, soldiers could use to tap into the network to send and receive information, pictures, and video.
At the courtyard display, computers lined up representing company, battalion and brigade levels, each loaded with the System of Systems Common Operating System (SOSCOE) that enables the network.
SOSCOE is the secure middleware that allows command and control systems to connect with legacy systems and operating system software.
A slice of secure SOSCOE was also loaded on a small handheld device, said Mimi Maloles, technical lead for Integrated Network Battle Command research at Boeing.
Here’s how it could work, Smith said. A platoon out moving around its operating area are told there’s a high-value target near certain coordinates and to go check it out. The soldiers find someone and detain them.
Soldiers back from Iraq told company officials they’d have to take the detainee back to headquarters, process them, then go back out, which ate up time.
With the handheld device, Maloles said, “You can do spot reports and attach an image to it,” and send it, for instance, to battalion.
“But everybody up through the chain could see that report,” Smith said, because SOSCOE and the network move the report and picture.
The soldier who sent the spot report back while standing with the detainee can also use the handheld keypad and note information such as they’re moving through an area with no problems, and send that as well.
Higher headquarters can look at the detainee’s picture, run it by analysts or through databases, and then tell the soldier to detain that person or let them go.
“Battalion can’t see you [this reporter] unless I give them your picture,” Smith said. “If they can see what you look like, they can give me instructions.”
“That information is done real time on the ground; that’s SOSCOE’s capability,” Smith said. “You share situational awareness with everybody.”
While sensors have proliferated on the battlefield, getting the information to those who need it can be complicated.
Sharing a common operating picture (COP) can be complex and cluttered on a company-level computer screen.
But Boeing has taken a look at providing the information in an easier to read fashion.
“With Level 1 Fusion, we have an algorithm that correlates sensor feeds to show a person walked this way and I believe he will be going that way,” Smith said. “I can collapse all those multiple [icons] into one. Declutter, but at the same time I don’t want to lose what I’m seeing.”
Even at higher levels of command, the COP can be complex, and the algorithm will help.
“You can mange all the sensor data you’re getting, intellectually and visually, Smith said.
To date, Level 1 Fusion can be done at all levels, but not on the R&D handheld, she said.
The data is there, Smith said. “This is how to share it, get situational awareness. This pulls it together and to the people who need it.”