By Ann Roosevelt
Northrop Grumman [NOC] is offering the Army a simple network integration kit (S-NIK) to connect soldiers and their equipment to a network that the company says is less than half the size, weight and cost of the system now slated for Infantry Brigade Combat Teams (IBCT).
Army Brigade Combat Team (BCT) Modernization plans to give soldiers an Internet-like capability by developing software services that hook into to a System of Systems Common Operating Environment (SOSCOE) middleware that links operating systems and software applications under the auspices of prime contractor Boeing [BA]. The NIK, as part of the brigade set of equipment called Increment 1, was initiated under the former Future Combat Systems program.
Northrop Grumman asserts that its Simplified NIK (S-NIK) offers similar capabilities to the Increment 1 NIK–video, imagery and unattended ground sensor management, plus synchronized communications and jammer, integrated signals intelligence, the ability to dismount, and deconflicted antennae.
“Our proposal is if you really want to get this capability out to the Increment 1 [brigade] set, we can do it at a lower cost, and we think it’s less risky, too, and you don’t need any of the SOSCOE software to do this, and that’s what we’re proposing,” Kevin Anastas, director, Business Development, Northrop Grumman Information Systems Sector, Ground Combat Division, recently told Defense Daily.
However, at this point in time, the Program Executive Office-Integration is not planning on formally evaluating the system, an official with the office said.
The BCT Mod NIK “was designed to show that SOSCOE can do a few simple things,” Anastas said. “In fact, the tasks selected are simple enough that we think we can do them on a computer that exists now that is current technology rather than the FCS technology.”
Army officials received private briefings on the Northrop Grumman solution last month.
Additionally, the company believes the procurement cost savings is valuable, he said. “This approach could be as much as $400,000 cheaper per NIK than the FCS solution.”
Meanwhile, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) recommends the Army “not field the Increment 1 network or systems until the identified maturity and reliability issues have been corrected,” according to March 10 congressional testimony by Michael Sullivan, director of GAO Acquisition and Sourcing Management.
Pentagon chief acquisition official Ashton Carter’s memorandum on low-rate initial production for Increment 1 Early IBCT program pointed to “significant” readiness challenges for the network, and requires a thorough review of network issues at an interim defense acquisition board review in April.
Defense officials told the company a key decision was made to fund FCS SOSCOE because “if they didn’t do that they wouldn’t be able to access the new sensors.”
Anastas said, “We believe we will be able to integrate the new increment 1 sensors into the Army’s current situational awareness and command and control system, (Force XXI Battle Command Brigade and Below FBCB2) today. Using surrogate sensors, we have proven that integration into the current FBCB2 is relatively simple.”
A past GAO report had said that SOSCOE required more than 100 million lines of code, which raises a host of questions, including how much a SOSCOE package costs, he said.
“It is difficult to determine the cost of SOSCOE,” Anastas said. “There are a number of COTS products wrapped in that [code].
However, Northrop Grumman said it knows its own costs.
“We know what our solution costs because we developed the Joint Capabilities Release (JCR) software,” Anastas said. JCR software is the next generation FBCB2 software. The Army in late February completed its formal evaluation of that software and will make a decision on whether to field it this summer.
All the S-NIK work has been done on Northrop Grumman’s own funds. While they would like to demonstrate S-NIK with the Increment 1 sensors, it is has not so far been possible.
Northrop Grumman said advantages of the S-NIK include not needing kits to integrate into a Humvee. Anastas said Humvees in the field today already have racks, and S-NIK fits into those, while the BCT Mod program is building new racks for the Increment 1 NIK.
S-NIK could be “less than half the size of the FCS system,” he said. And while BCT Mod is adding a counter-IED jammer to its radios, Northrop Grumman replaces that with a smaller package.
“We think we can do the functions they have asked for on our computer the Dismountable Computer System. We’re working with General Dynamics on this,” he said. The tablet comes off the mount so a commander can get out of his vehicle, take it to a command post, or otherwise move around. There are processors that stay with the vehicle, up behind the tablet, and another processor in the tablet.
“On the software side, we can run the current command and control and situation awareness sftware as well as the software required for ground sensor management and comms management on the DCS computer. By doing this, there is a size, weight and power savings, as well as the cost savings of the more expensive computer and the cost of using SOSCOE,” he said.
Colin Phan, director, Business Development Northrop Grumman Information Systems Sector Network Communications Systems, said, “We took a holistic approach. What we wanted to do was give the user back the space he originally had [in the Humvee].”
Northrop Grumman leveraged $2 billion of multifunction software defined technology from its Integrated Communications, Navigation and Identification (CNI) efforts on the F-22 and Joint Strike Fighter programs, to work under Lockheed Martin [LMT] on the airborne AMF JTRS radio, and other company work on CREW 3.3, the next IED jammer.
“We’re offering an integrated solution that can fit back into the original space while offering additional capabilities,” Phan said.”Those are three independent programs today…What we’re offering is one base solution, from maintenance and logistics, so you get significant cost savings. You get cost savings between the different platforms, as well as cost savings because the crew and the comms are the same.”
In their demonstration, an FBCB2 screen showed live video from from a camera set up in a corridor. Two Scorpion sensors with daylight and thermal cameras were set up to detect motion and then take a picture. A man obliviously sweeping the corridor triggered a picture, and an icon popped up on the FBCB2 screen showing where that man was. The icon soon turned green, indicating an image was available. A mouse click later, an image displayed. Thus, a soldier could see something triggered the sensor, and then view the picture to see if action was needed.