CEC – Network Centric Warfare

CEC – Network Centric Warfare

Joining the dots: networked platforms extend air defence
Richard Scott

Improved networking and advanced air battle management functionality offer the prospect of significant enhancements in the provision of force-level air defence at sea. Richard Scott reports.
Operational practitioners of anti-air warfare (AAW) are all too aware that it is a dynamic, difficult and highly complex domain that is prone to command-and-control (C2) failures attributable to component deficiencies, human error and/or systematic weakness. Degraded performance in one or more parts of the command process can lead to a breakdown of the AAW functional chain, with potentially disastrous outcomes. This might be as a result of actions taken on the basis of unsatisfactory or incomplete information, a failure to respond to a readily identifiable threat, or incorrect decisions resulting from operator stress or cognitive overload.
One pertinent example is the loss of the UK Royal Navy Type 42 destroyer HMS Sheffield, crippled by an AM39 Exocet missile launched from an Argentine Super Etendard aircraft while on patrol as an air-defence picket off the Falkland Islands (Malvinas) in May 1982. The ship’s electronic support measures (ESM) equipment was blanked by satellite transmissions, inhibiting detection of the sea-skimming threat until just six seconds prior to impact. This lack of ESM detection prevented the necessary prompt for radar detection and tracking, causing a failure in the picture compilation and situation awareness components.
Another case in point is the errant destruction of an Iran Air A300 airliner by the US Navy (USN) Aegis cruiser USS Vincennes in July 1988. On that occasion Vincennes’ command team, already stressed by a small-boat surface threat, mistakenly identified track number 4131 – Iran Air Flight 655 climbing out from Bandar Abbas at relatively slow speed – as an Iranian F-14 descending towards the cruiser. Believing track 4131 to be a threat, the command sanctioned the launch of two Standard Missile SM-2 missiles, resulting in the destruction of the A300 and all 290 passengers and crew aboard.
Subsequent replay of radar tapes showed that the A300 was in fact ascending along a commercial air corridor while being tracked by Vincennes’ radar. Furthermore it was ‘squawking’ a standard Mode III identification friend-or-foe (IFF) response. It posed no threat whatsoever to the US cruiser.
Scenario fixation appears to have overridden the contrary evidence from the sensor and command systems aboard Vincennes. Confronted with the problem of reconciling the manifest mistakes made in interpretation of technical evidence, the board of inquiry that later investigated the incident concluded that “stress, task fixation and unconscious distortion of data may have played a major role”.

Joined-up thinking

In order for any group of individual platforms – ships, submarines and aircraft – to operate as a cohesive task force, a commonly agreed understanding of the tactical situation is necessary. This enables C2 functions to be exercised with the knowledge that those involved share a common appreciation of the tactical context, and hence are more likely to act appropriately. Without this shared understanding, it is highly probable that misinterpretation of the tactical situation will arise, which can lead to incidences of fratricide, avoidable collateral damage or exposure to unnecessary hostile actions.
Thus the force-level tactical picture is a representation of the immediate environment of interest to the command. It assists the operators in forming a mental representation of the world and acting upon it, and guides the command in taking the most appropriate actions.
Historically, the compilation and maintenance of the force tactical picture has required extensive operator supervision and interaction; the command system itself provides only minimal assistance, being principally a means of storing and displaying tracks. The benefits accruing from the use of multiple sensors covering a wide spectral range, dispersed on different platforms in the force, have long been recognised, but have conventionally been limited in extent through the exchange of tracks over tactical datalinks.
Anecdotal reports from the Type 42 destroyer HMS Edinburgh following its participation in Operation ‘Telic’ – the UK contribution to US-led operations in Iraq -demonstrate continued weaknesses. The ADAWS Mod 1 command system was augmented by a stand-alone Link 16 fit, plus two additional laptops displaying the wide-area picture relayed through the Command Support System. But information management in this cluttered operations room environment was judged to be extremely difficult, and the non-integrated Link 16 fit was felt to offer little benefit in a theatre so dense with contacts.
Integrated Link 16 and IFF auto-tracking facilities will shortly be introduced into the Type 42 fleet. However, the most important lesson to emerge from Edinburgh’s operations room was the need for a single integrated air picture (SIAP), fused from multiple sensor inputs and shared over datalink, offering the robustness and clarity demanded for force-level situational awareness and resource allocation.

CEC at the centre

How to achieve the ‘holy grail’ of a SIAP delivering the clarity, continuity, accuracy and completeness demanded by operational commanders has long vexed combat system engineers. But it may now be coming within reach as technology enables navies to move to increasingly network-centric concepts of operations within which individual assets are linked so as to become participating nodes in a wider information grid. Thus, information is shared force-wide in order that commanders can take decisive decisions on the basis of the best and most timely information.
The USN is in the vanguard of this transformation, with the service’s Cooperative Engagement Capability (CEC) seen as the key enabler. The concept of co-operative engagement was first conceived in the mid-1970s, with requirements development and critical experiments performed under the umbrella of the Battle Group Anti-Air Warfare Coordination (BGAAWC) programme, a USN-sponsored research initiative led by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (JHU[APL]). BGAAWC, later incarnated as the Force Anti-Air Warfare Coordination Technology (FACT) programme, embraced a series of air-defence co-ordination exploratory development programmes designed to improve force-wide air defence.
CEC improves force-wide AAW capability by co-ordinating all force radar sensors into a single, real-time, composite track picture capable of fire-control quality. Sensor data from each appropriately configured ship and aircraft is distributed to all other co-operating units in the force through a real-time, line-of-sight, high-data-rate sensor and engagement data distribution network. Raytheon Network Centric Systems is CEC design agent and prime contractor for the USN, while JHU(APL) remains technical design agent for the system.
In operation, each co-operating unit independently employs high-capacity, parallel processing and advanced algorithms to combine all distributed sensor data into a shared fire-control-quality track picture. CEC data is presented as a ‘superset’ of the best AAW sensor capabilities from each unit, all of which are integrated into a single input to each co-operating unit’s combat system. The result is an integrated, netted, air-defence system that greatly enhances detection, tracking and identification of air targets, as well as providing engagement co-ordination.
CEC consists of two principal components, namely the Data Distribution System (DDS) and the Cooperative Engagement Processor (CEP). The DDS is a mobile microwave radio-based digital communications system, including networking capabilities that provide co-operating units with system-wide high-capacity data delivery in real time. The DDS network is self-forming and assures connectivity among all nodes in the network.
The CEP is a high-capacity distributed processor that is able to process force levels of data in near-real time. CEC is a directive system providing precision gridlocking and high throughput of data, encoding and distributing organic sensor and engagement data.
To date, Raytheon has delivered more than 100 CEC systems to the USN. Of these, 73 Block 1 systems are currently fielded on the front line aboard 31 ships (using the AN/USG-2 terminal) and 28 aircraft (configured with the smaller AN/USG-3 terminal). In addition, CEC installations exist at land-based test sites and in mobile demonstration units.
The USN has now begun to implement a programme of Pre-Planned Product Improvement (P3I) for CEC, which will see the progressive introduction of smaller, more reliable and lower-cost hardware into fleet service. In parallel, the USN and its contractor team are examining the potential for new functionality to be introduced into the CEC system.
The P3I programme is designed to replace current Block 1 hardware in order to meet reduced size, weight, cost, power and cooling objectives, while at the same time maintaining full interoperability and promoting open-architecture initiatives compliant with Category 3 Open Architecture Core Environment (OACE) standards.
A new planar-array antenna assembly (PAAA) is the first embodiment of the P3I initiative. Previously known as the Low Cost Planar Array Antenna, the PAAA maintains the functionality of the ‘donut’ antenna it replaces, but in dual shipboard antenna configurations only one PAAA is needed. The PAAA contains a new transmit/receive module design that is significantly less expensive than that used previously.
USS Bulkeley (DDG-84), a DDG-51 Flight IIA destroyer, became the first ship to receive the PAAA earlier in 2005. All future CEC fits will receive the PAAA, with a backfit programme for existing CEC ships also planned.
The next P3I spiral involves the replacement of the USG-2/USG-3 terminals associated with CEC Block 1 with a re-architectured Mini-Terminal based on commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) technology, to provide substantial size, weight, power and cost benefits. Based on a commercial ATR chassis with standard ARINC connectors, the Mini-Terminal re-hosts existing DDS and CEP software – re-coded in C++ – in an open computing environment, while retaining full Baseline 2.1 software functionality and backwards compatibility.
Developed by Raytheon using approximately USD10 million of company funds, the Mini-Terminal introduces an OACE-compliant architecture that decouples software from the underlying hardware, utilises industry-standard computing products and enables rapid and affordable COTS refresh and technology insertion. Other features of the Mini-Terminal include G-Bit Ethernet external interfaces, air cooling, and operation on 115 VAC 50-400 Hz while consuming 600 W.
By exploiting continuing advances in processing technology, the processor card count has been significantly reduced: a single Radstone Technology G4 card has replaced the 23 discrete boards previously associated with the CEP, while a second G4 replaces the nine cards earlier used in the DDS. In addition, 16 legacy hardware circuit cards are replaced by just three programmable digital common architecture cards, a receiver device and a frequency generator device.

Proving interoperability

Having commenced development of the Mini-Terminal in mid-2003, Raytheon was able to demonstrate a brassboard model to the USN in a laboratory environment just 10 months after commencing its engineering effort. A racked assessment system was delivered to a USN land-based test site in the third quarter of 2005 for a programme of audited tests designed to prove interoperability within the existing CEC network prior to production go-ahead.
It is planned that the Mini-Terminal will form part of the USN’s CEC hardware procurement for Fiscal Year 2006. Whereas the current USG-2/USG-3 costs in the order of USD6 million per system in series manufacture, Raytheon believes that each Mini-Terminal shipboard system will cost about USD3 million in volume production. The company adds that further economies could be achieved if the USN opted to pursue an extended multi-year buy, with a requirement for about 200 more systems currently forecast.
While the Mini-Terminal does not introduce any additional functionality to the CEC system, Raytheon notes that the new processor offers significant extra capacity for future technology insertion. One option is a new distributed network scheduler, which would deliver higher data rates and facilitate a ‘several-fold’ increase in network size over the 11-node net tested to date.
According to Raytheon, the existing global scheduler must recalculate network transmit-and-receive time slots on every occasion that a new co-operating unit enters or departs the CEC network, cumulatively increasing the processing load on the system and thus limiting the size of the network that can be supported. By introducing a distributed scheduler, the transmit-and-receive slots become fixed, thereby reducing the processing overhead and allowing an expanded net. Testing of a distributed scheduler has already been undertaken at the Wallops Island land-based test site.
Although the USN has yet to determine a schedule for the introduction of this functionality, the capability is incorporated in a proposed DDS Technical Refresh (DTR), which would be hosted in the Mini-Terminal. Raytheon adds that a Mini-Terminal with the DTR upgrade would automatically configure legacy CEC systems to operate seamlessly on the distributed scheduler.

New functionality

Another new functionality studied for CEC is the integration of non-radar sensor data to further improve track quality and robustness. The architecture studied by Raytheon would add an extra processor card to the Mini-Terminal to process multi-source sensor inputs (including radar, ESM and Link data) into fused tracks.
Following on from extensive prototype evaluation and exercise use, the USN has funded the development of the AN/UYQ-89 Area Air Defense Command Capability System (AADCCS) – previously known as the Area Air Defense Commander (AADC) system – an advanced planning and execution tool to support joint and combined theatre air operations. An industry team led by General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems (GD AIS), also featuring participation from JHU(APL), was downselected to undertake engineering and manufacturing development in July 2000. This followed the completion of three parallel six-month concept design contracts in April 1999 by teams led by Boeing, Litton/CSC and GD.
Founded upon research undertaken by JHU(APL), AADC prototypes have been demonstrated on land and aboard three USN warships over the past eight years. The concept has emerged from the same FACT umbrella programme that spawned CEC; the core technology has evolved from the Force Threat Evaluation and Weapon Assignment (FTEWA) command aid, which presented a three-dimensional (3-D) view of the battlespace with realistic, easy-to-understand icons representing aircraft and missiles. On the back of this FTEWA pedigree, JHU(APL) was contracted in 1996 to develop the AADC module as a prototype joint-theatre air and missile defence planning and execution tool employing similar airspace visualisation techniques.
Combining advanced planning facilities, tactical execution functionality and a high-fidelity 3-D representation of the tactical picture, what is now known as the AADCCS (renamed to eliminate confusion between the commander and the system) is an integrated theatre air-defence battle management system designed to automate planning, co-ordination and execution of area-wide air-defence operations through optimal use of assets, a higher degree of force collaboration and rapid situational understanding. As such it enables operational staffs to develop synchronised plans designed to deconflict the airspace, reduce response times and minimise damage to defended assets.
Based on an open, industry-standard computing and display infrastructure, the AADCCS combines information from datalinks and other intelligence sources into a fused and easily understood graphic representation of the battlespace. Friendly forces, neutral contacts and hostile aircraft, and cruise missiles and theatre ballistic missiles (TBMs) are identified, and their headings and impact zones are indicated in near-real time, providing the command with a complete view of the tactical situation.
One of the main advantages cited for AADCCS is its ability to facilitate collaborative force planning. The planning components include force laydown for optimal placement of defense assets; scenario generation addressing a prioritised defended-asset list and enemy order of battle/courses of action; and wargaming simulations for outcome and alternative analysis.
AADCCS allows planning staffs to verify plan effectiveness and perform unlimited ‘what-ifs’ on the force laydown by varying raid sizes and probability-of-kill thresholds. Users can investigate the effects of different attack schedules on defence, view graphical comparisons of results of multiple courses of action, and gain insight into quantified risk identification in each course of action through the built-in wargaming functionality.
AADCCS also offers a dynamic replanning capability, allowing for the generation of a new Air Defense Plan (ADP) within minutes and reducing the footprint of required staff for an ADP. For example, it might take a staff of 10 to 15 people a week or more to formulate a manually generated ADP. In comparison, the AADCCS module is able to compute a solution in less than two minutes.
Tactical executions include C2 of air-defence assets across the joint-operations area, engagement oversight of TBM threats, and generation and dissemination of air-defence warnings. AADCCS also provides record-and-replay for analysis of plan effectiveness or historical review.

‘God’s-eye view’

The AADCCS operational display provides a ‘god’s-eye view’ of the battlespace, and utilises easily recognisable symbology to represent real-world objects such as ships, aircraft, radar sites and missile batteries. It is also able to generate overlays to show, for example, commercial air lanes, AWACS orbits, combat air patrols and air corridors.
This use of 3-D visual representations is seen as a major advance. Studies undertaken by the USN have shown that the use of recognisable colour-coded icons provides operators with a rapid grasp of the operational situation, and reduces the likelihood of misidentification during an engagement situation when participants find themselves under extraordinary stress and time constraints.
Since June 1997 the AADC capability prototype at JHU(APL) has been exercised and evaluated by fleet commanders and staffs, while engineering work has proceeded in parallel to develop a cost-effective approach to delivering an at-sea capability. In addition, prototype systems installed aboard the command platforms USS Mount Whitney and USS Blue Ridge and the CG-47 Aegis cruiser USS Shiloh (CG-67) have been employed for exercise evaluation and proof-of-concept activities.
In April and May 1998 the prototype at JHU(APL) was trialled as part of Fleet Battle Experiment – Charlie (FBE-C), remaining laboratory-based but simulating the function of an Aegis cruiser for the purposes of the exercise. The Maritime Battle Center’s quick-look report on FBE-C suggested that AADC C2 functionality had “turned the planning workload upside-down”.
AADC enabled FBE-C planners to analyse several dynamic ADPs rather than focusing on the construction of a single static ADP. Furthermore, distributed collaborative planning was enhanced by installation of the common operational modelling, planning and simulation strategy in selected joint-task-force units. This installation allowed real-time exchange of ADP overlays and data between the Joint Force Maritime Component Commander, the Joint Force Air Component Commander, the Area Air Defense Commander and the Regional Air Defense Commanders.
Another finding of the Maritime Battle Center was the improved situational awareness afforded by the 3-D visualisation of the integrated air picture. This, its report noted, “revolutionises the watch officer’s ability to understand the battlespace”.
The AADC was subsequently employed in Theater Missile Defense Initiative [TMDI] 98, conducted in February 1999, again as a shore-based facility. In December 1999, the prototype capability was taken to sea aboard Second Fleet flagship USS Mount Whitney for ‘Joint Task Force Exercise [JTFEX] 00-1’, providing a first occasion to evaluate the performance benefits offered by the system, and offering opportunities for development and refinement of tactics, techniques and procedures supporting defensive counter-air and theatre missile defence.

Aegis suitability

Testing of an AADC prototype aboard Shiloh during the ‘RIMPAC 2000’ exercise off southern Hawaii in June 2000 provided the first demonstration of the system’s attributes aboard an Aegis ship, giving the USN an opportunity to plan and execute air-defence operations in support of a Combined Coalition Task Force Commander from a cruiser.
Installing AADC was a challenge owing to space confines below decks and bandwidth constraints consequent of antenna-siting limits topside. Two Aegis radar displays were removed in order to free up space to accommodate the AADC operational display.
During the RIMPAC exercise, a full 40-strong staff embarked aboard Shiloh for a 10-day period to man and utilise the AADC capability, with the ship acting as Anti-Air Warfare Commander for the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier battle group. Rear Admiral Philip M Balisle, then Commander, Cruiser-Destroyer Group 3, subsequently reported that the AADC module “showed outstanding value as a force enabler that will allow a… battle group commander to enter a troubled area and gain control of it quickly”.
The prototype AADC capability was also employed during ‘Millennium Challenge 2002’, a joint warfighting experiment bringing together live field forces and computer simulation at several locations in the US from 24 July to 15 August 2002. In this event, an AADC command centre was established using the land-based AADC Capability system installed at the GD AIS facility in Greenboro, North Carolina.
An AADCCS suite is now available at TACTRAGRULANT (Tactical Training Group, Atlantic). Participating in ‘MBGIE [Multi-Battle Group Inport Exercise] ’05’ and FST-J ’05, the system provided advanced planning and unparalleled situational awareness during these multi-unit synthetic training exercises.
Under the AADCCS programme, GD AIS has worked with JHU(APL) to engineer the system for wider fielding. Following downselection in June 2000 to conduct engineering and manufacturing development, GD (leading a team including SAIC, Paradigm Technology Inc., BAE Systems, Microsoft and INTECS International) was awarded a USD91 million contract by the Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) to develop the AADC Capability for fleet use and to design, develop, integrate, test and deliver a production-representative Engineering Development Model.
GD’s AADCCS solution features an open-systems architecture that is Level 6 DII-COE-compliant, fully expandable to meet current and future operational requirements, and minimises total operating costs. It has also been engineered to optimise re-use of existing data, software mission segments, application software, and computing technologies previously proved in the prototype modules.
SGI, which previously supplied servers, graphics processors and visualisation systems for the prototype solutions, has also delivering the open-architecture computing and display system powering GD’s AADCCS solution, which is based on 32-processor SGI Origin 3400 servers, SGI Onyx 3000-series graphics systems, Silicon Graphics Octane2 visualisation workstations and Silicon Graphics O2+ graphics workstations.

Attaining LRIP

In December 2002, GD received a USD21 million firm-fixed-price contract (worth up to USD45 million including options) from NAVSEA for engineering support services and low-rate initial production (LRIP) of two AADCCS systems. In the meantime, positive fleet input and the immediate requirement to address threats to US forces and homeland defence needs led the USN to rapidly field the AADC prototype system already developed by JHU(APL). As a result, GD has rapidly re-engineered a prototype module to a production AADCCS system for accelerated deployment.
LRIP systems have been fielded to the Missile Defense Agency’s Joint National Integration Center at Schriever Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and with the Joint Forces Command’s Deployable Joint Command and Control System in Panama City, Florida. Further production of full AADCCS remains dependant upon joint requirements and sponsorship.
Addressing the challenge for a smaller footprint and more net-centric battlespace management capability, GD developed the AADCCS Deployable Client (ADC). Using a much smaller hardware suite and with significantly reduced unit installation costs, the ADC provides the same planning functionality by using a secure network reach-back to a full AADCCS suite. When forward deployed, the ADC provides a stand-alone current operations capability utilising the same 3-D visualisation as the full AADCCS suite. The current operations display can be provided by the ADC’s organic situational awareness monitor, or sent to the knowledge wall of the deployed command centre.
The ADC was first deployed during ‘JTFEX 2004’, with a subsequent shipboard deployment aboard USS Coronado for Exercise ‘Ulchi Focus Lens’. Most recent deployments include the 32nd Army Air and Missile Defense Command during Exercise ‘Red Flag/Roving Sands ’05’, and embarkation with USS Abraham Lincoln and the Commander Third Fleet Command Center for Sea Trial 05. With its lower cost and significantly reduced footprint, the ADC enables the extension of AADCCS planning and current operations capabilities to new shipboard and land-based commanders.