Key Takeaways:
- The more vital that joint and combined operations become, the more critical it is for the Navy and Marine Corps to have seamless communications and data interoperability.
- With a common data layer, the Navy and Marine Corps can transform data into actionable intelligence for proactive and timely decisions in the operations environment.
- Enriching the common data layer with external data can expand situational awareness, enriching information shared in coordinated operations.
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Fifth- and sixth-generation warfare challenges traditional combat and military strategy. In this era, the Navy and Marine Corps will never fight alone. Naval forces will out sense, out decide, and out fight any adversary by accelerating decision cycles with secure, survivable, and cyber-resilient networks, accurate data, and artificial intelligence (AI). Connecting sensors, weapons, and decision-makers across all domains, enables naval forces to mass firepower and influence without massing forces.
The multi-domain nature of modern warfare demands coordinated actions across the armed services and with foreign allies across air, land, sea, cyber, and space operations. The more vital that joint and combined operations become, the more critical it is for the Navy to have seamless communications and data interoperability.
New Paradigm, New Data Access Challenges
Data access is critical in the network-centric to data-centric transition. In the network centric paradigm, the link between sensor and weapon is a single thread with specialized hardware and protocols. In a data-centric paradigm, any sensor with the requisite fidelity can enable any weapon. However, there is no way to directly link myriad legacy platforms and their sensors with today’s cutting-edge data platforms. Doing this requires significant and bespoke work to connect to legacy platforms, access the sensor data and format, clean, and connect it with the big data platforms of the future. SAIC’s Joint Range Extension (JRE) gateway is an available solution—a start to tackle this data access challenge.
Data interoperability is more critical than ever
Advanced communications and networking technologies have undoubtably had a profound impact on Naval operations. The biggest transformation related to how information is gathered, processed, and disseminated is the shift from a network-centric environment to a data-centric environment where users need to make sense of the data and act on it. Project Overmatch and Project Dynamis—the Navy’s and Marine Corps’ respective contributions to the Pentagon’s multi-billion-dollar CJADC2 (Combined Joint All-Domain Command and Control) effort—reflect the push to connect forces across land, air, sea, space, and cyberspace and support seamless international partner collaboration.
However, current Navy and Marine Corps communication networks and mission command and control systems were not designed, developed, or deployed to enable seamless data sharing to support a common operating picture (COP) for joint or combined operations. This creates stovepiping challenges, which exist across all the services and at the joint level. This paper focuses the technical discussion on the Navy and Marine Corps, but these principles carry across the services and joint and coalition command and control.
Create a common data layer: connect disparate data with access controls
Creating a common data layer is a necessary solution for the Navy and Marine Corps to enable this data-centric paradigm and accelerate decision making from the enterprise level to the edge. In simple terms, a common data layer allows the right data to get to the right decision maker at the right time—whether they are commanding an aircraft carrier, coordinating a multilateral military exercise, or operating an uncrewed vehicle from a remote location.
A common data layer is a breakthrough in the -Navy’s ability to continuously transform data into actionable intelligence for proactive and timely decisions in the operating environment.
There are “zero-trust for data” platforms that create a common data layer and are well suited for the DoD environment. With fine-grain attribute-based access control, these platforms support the integration and analysis of data from federated data sources of varying classification levels. Combined with best-in-class data management services for rapid data transport, ingestion, and indexing, these platforms support end-to-end, multi-level security. Data tagging capability safeguards clearance levels, unlocking data that was previously fully restricted due to classification for sharing among authorized personnel. And very importantly, zero-trust solutions enable a leap ahead in cyber security over current/legacy network centric architectures.
With the right zero-trust for data platform, the Navy and Marine Corps can quickly integrate millions of records per second from structured, unstructured, and real-time streaming data sources to prepare data for low latency ingestion into decision-support applications and analytics. These platforms manage the synchronization and prioritization of data to target information sharing with surgical precision. They enable the resilient data and networking operations required for ubiquitous access to targetable data, even in DDIL environments.
A common data layer can evolve and adapt. Sustained effectiveness requires ongoing monitoring and optimization, security enhancements, and continuous development to ensure the common data layer is optimized for reliability, responsiveness, and scalability, all of which are necessary to adapt to shifting operational requirements. Given the speed of technology enhancement, there will always be opportunities to integrate new technologies in areas such as AI, targeting, intelligence, and battlespace awareness to further improve capability.
Joint Fires Network:
Common Data Layer in Action
SAIC is a key integrator for the Joint Fires Network (JFN) common data layer. The JFN is a large-scale prototyping and integration effort that addresses immediate warfighter needs in the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command (USINDOPACOM). It also serves as a pathfinder for the DoD’s broader Combined Joint All-Domain Command and Control (CJADC2) effort to speed dynamic decision-making by digitally connecting its armed services, combatant commands, and partners.
JFN common data layer integrates feeds of Blue and Red Force information from disparate data platforms, weapon systems, and applications in real time to display actionable threat and fires information to joint and combined forces. It combines a suite of command and control, battle management, and sensemaking applications organized within an application layer.
These applications securely access tagged, labeled, and structured data via APIs from the JFN common data layer, which manages data ingestion from authoritative data repositories; data transformation; and analytic tasks like correlation, deduplication, and fusion. This cloud agnostic architecture enables rapid integration of new technologies within a multi-vendor ecosystem through plug-and-play API integration. It supports modern applications and rapid system integration for more complex or legacy systems.
Preparing for the Battlefields of Tomorrow: Joint Range Extension Gateway
The SAIC Joint Range Extension (JRE) gateway is a combat-proven Tactical Data Link (TDL) router that provides clear, real-time battlespace visualization in support of U.S. and Coalition forces across the globe. Fast, interoperable, secure, and with over 2,000 systems fielded worldwide, it is the backbone of every major U.S. operation, including Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) and Operation Noble Eagle (ONE).
JRE is a critical component supporting the communications backbone for U.S. and Coalition forces that rely on near-instant exchange of tactical communications for situational awareness. JRE answers the call, delivering visual, text, and digital commands over multiple Line-of-Sight (LOS) and Beyond-Line-of-Sight (BLOS) networks with very low latency. JRE is highly platform-independent, and it can function as a software-only gateway solution or run on a selection of provided imaged-hardware platforms that are cyber security tested and approved. Each solution bridges disparate networks in order to support a common operational picture.
Empower the edge with actionable intelligence: Integrate AI into C5ISR
AI-orchestration tools enable various components of the C5ISR to work in concert, reducing the cognitive load on Navy operators and increasing the speed of command.
The integration of AI into Command, Control, Computers, Communications, Cyber, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (C5ISR) is rapidly transforming the battlefield. In fact, AI makes the common data layer an even more powerful enabler of data interoperability. Moreover, for many command and control and intelligence challenges, AI cannot be fully effective when the data is trapped in legacy stovepipes. This is because a single AI application only has access to part of the data needed. The common data layer breaks the legacy stovepipes and makes all the relevant data accessible to the AI application—enabling the joint force to get the best decision support from AI. Commands can increase or connect multiple data layers, deepen analytics capabilities, and scale data analysis and interoperability quickly. Always with speed and precision.
AI orchestration tools can be added onto the common data layer to support such capability. Using cutting-edge algorithms and a scalable architecture, these tools sift through vast amounts of data, prioritize information, and present actionable intelligence. This is key in Naval C5ISR environments where the velocity, volume, and variety of data exceed human cognitive limits. By effectively managing sensor inputs, intelligence feeds, and various communication streams, AI orchestrators direct targeted and timely information to commanders, operators, and warfighters.
Joint Fires Network: Network Integration in Action
SAIC engineers worked in real time to integrate JFN led by OSD R&E, with a decentralized networking capability and a target management solution which included programmatic support from the Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office (CDAO) team and the PACFLT Offensive Maritime Information Operations Center (OMIOC). This integration made it possible to publish a previously unavailable tactical ISR picture directly into JFN common data layer. It was accessible to warfighters, decision makers, and other software applications in the JFN ecosystem. This integration was done in hours, not days due to the flexibility of the common data layer. It also passed SEC/REL data from system high to low, demonstrating enabling decision advantage opportunities for operational and tactical C2 echelons, both joint and coalition.
The best of these orchestration tools are highly adaptable and have robust integration capabilities. In the complex landscape of C5ISR, where systems and platforms are often a mix of legacy and modern technologies, AI orchestrators can be a unifying force. They seamlessly integrate with various data sources and platforms, using AI to harmonize the information collected. This data harmonization improves interoperability and provides the common operating picture that is so essential for coordinated action in fifth- and sixth- generation operational landscapes.
By leveraging these tools’ machine learning and predictive analytics capabilities, operators can forecast potential threats and suggest courses of action to mitigate countermeasures. AI algorithms analyze historical and real-time data to identify patterns, anomalies, and correlations that might signify emerging threats or opportunities. With this predictive threat analysis, C5ISR operators can share anticipatory intelligence grounded in pre-emptive actions with joint and coalition forces. This anticipatory intelligence is essential for maintaining a tactical edge in complex and dynamic operational theaters.
The most useful orchestration tools for the Navy support both “high-code, high-customization” and “low-code, no-code” capabilities that allow non-technical users to do meaningful work in secure environments. This ability to meet users where they are in terms of capability is very valuable in operational environments where resources and specialized expertise may be limited.
Multiply impact with network integration: Connect the common data layer with external data
Enriching the common data layer with external data can significantly expand situational awareness for the Navy and Marine Corps and enrich the value of information shared in coordinated operations. Strategically valuable external data sources include national intelligence data, DoD sensor data, coalition partner data, and open-source data.
To facilitate this integration, the underlying architecture must allow for the seamless integration of multiple and adapting battlespace networks to “feed” the common data layer. Once integrated, the networks must be resilient and have the speed, functionality, and interoperability to continually push data to the common data layer. When data is government owned, and the government has all of the data rights, the Navy can access and utilize any data via the common data layer. Further, this data can be distributed to any authorized user and vendor through customizable applications that are enabled via APIs.
With this foundation, the Navy can use AI to develop applications that address specific role and task queries while protecting classified information. The AI homes in on relevant data, finding the proverbial needle in the haystack amid vast data inputs to support commanders’, operators’, and warfighters’ situational needs.
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Specific, secure and shared: Data interoperability for modern warfare
Stovepiped communication networks and mission command systems are liabilities in the modern era. By developing a common data layer, integrating AI into C5ISR, and connecting the common data layer with external data, the Navy and Marine Corps can create support data interoperability in new ways, enabling the modern, extensible, and agile dynamic targeting capability that is essential for making battlefield decisions with confidence.
Learn more
SAIC has extensive experience helping the DoD achieve data interoperability to accelerate battlespace effectiveness and support operations in global and digitally integrated warfighting environments. To learn more about how to facilitate secure and efficient data-sharing among combatant partners, please contact Maysam Tawasha, Vice President of the C5ISR and Training Solutions Market at SAIC’s Naval Business Group or Sean O’Lone, Chief Technology Officer Navy Business Group.
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