Achieving Precision Effect in a Network Environment

By Martin Hodgkinson and Dr Craig Smith
16 Oct 2006

[Full size illustrations available to the right (.zip)]

Network Enabled Capability (NEC) will progressively transform the capability of the British Armed Forces over the next decade. It will do so by disseminating information and sharing awareness, enabling properly informed decisions to be made at high tempo, and by co-ordinating action for greatest impact.

There is a risk that some key elements of NEC may not be integrated, so reducing the potential benefits of NEC. Precision weapons are central to modern warfighting across the spectrum of operations. Why and how weapon systems should be integrated is the theme of this article, which has been developed taking the current DEC ISTAR[1] strategy into account.

Context

The operational driver for integration of weapon systems is the Effects Based Approach to operations. The Effects Based Approach focuses on both the desirable and undesirable consequences of actions, and how effects of individual actions are co-ordinated and aggregated to produce higher level effects. Actions may have cognitive or physical outcomes or both, and so embrace the full span of military capabilities from physical force to information operations. The Comprehensive Approach widens the scope to co-ordinate the political, economic and military instruments of power. Thus the ability to generate effect is fundamental to all military operations.

Many physical effects will employ guided weapons. Precision in both space and time is vital to generate the desired outcome and minimise, or avoid, the undesired outcome, which will often be collateral damage. To support this approach, weapon systems will increasingly be able to offer a variety of tailored effects to achieve the desired outcome. Information from the network should be a key element in achieving this tailored approach.

UK operations must be demonstrably proportional and appropriate, operating within Rules of Engagement (RoE) that may be very tight, and the international legal framework must be observed. These factors are additional drivers for precision, bringing in both spatial and temporal elements, as target validity has a clear lifetime in terms of a known friendly and collateral environment.

The UK is entering a period when many sectors have had major investment, systems are coming into service and technology insertion will be used to maintain and enhance capability for the future. This is particularly true for guided weapons where few new developments are likely in the next 10 years. NEC must therefore embrace legacy systems, but can leverage technology insertion throughout the system of systems to adapt them to the new environment.

Key Issues for Integration of Weapons into NEC

The elements that address these drivers are:

A vision that recognises the potential of integration and plans appropriate increments to deliver it.
Digital integration across the engagement chain components.
Sensor to information analysis to decision maker to weapon connectivity.
Working within the infrastructure, plans and communications constraints.
Achieving the right effect (proportionate), in the right place (precision), at the right time (time criticality) – and avoiding collateral damage.

NEC will fulfil its potential if it has an eventual aim and vision, so that initial steps are waypoints to the full capability and do not become limiting constraints where potential functionality has been cut off. Current practices should not be merely replicated in digital form. There must be flexibility to embrace new opportunities as operational concepts, working practices and technology mature, ideally as a coherent set. The Defence Industrial Strategy for Complex Weapons announced recently provides the opportunity to control the incremental growth path, so providing the necessary freedom of action to achieve our ultimate goals.

Many analyses of NEC look horizontally across a layer – be it command, ISTAR, communications – as shown in Figure 1. There are many parts of industry addressing individual layers, developing applications, architectures, protocols and hardware for that layer.

Figure 1: Developing functions in isolation or connecting vertically for effect

Connecting vertically between the layers to form an engagement chain generates effect by addressing all functions of F2T2EA (Find, Fix, Track, Target, Engage and Assess). This focus has not been pursued by early NEC work – sensor to information analysis to decision making has been addressed extensively, but the remaining elements have been left largely disconnected, with manual transcription between the levels. Leadership across the engagement chain from top to bottom is required to ensure the ability to act as well as being able to watch.

Digital integration of the engagement chain elements enables full exploitation of information. There are many possible operational and cost benefits to using targeting and contextual data in weapon systems:

Better situational awareness through a weapon system’s contribution to the operational picture.
Better decisions through full and dynamic knowledge of weapon system status.
Better actions – greater tempo with flexibility to adapt execution to a changing situation.
Better, and synchronised, effects, exploiting all data to increase effectiveness.
Higher confidence in achieving the desired effect.
More useable weapons under restrictive RoEs.
Cost reduction – increased efficiency through optimised use of resources, leading to fewer weapons to do the same task, and through optimised system of systems design.

Some legacy systems have a swivel-chair interface to the weapon system that can cause inconvenience, delay and the potential for errors in transcription. It denies the ability to grow by technology insertion – a short-term replication of current working procedures can prevent the achievement of a longer-term vision through establishing an inadequate interface. It would not support the wide variety of data types and latencies that could be required in the future. It would prevent the achievement of rapid and dynamic synchronisation of effects. Implementing an open architecture with a digital interface provides the opportunity for growth. The digital connectivity will address the issues that can make separately developed systems incompatible and deal with synchronisation by decoupling timing constraints, data transformation between different axes systems, while respecting the security of each through appropriate firewalls.

Incremental growth of capability can be achieved through a mixture of hardware and software technology insertions provided the architecture is designed appropriately from the outset. With modern-structured architectures, software changes in weapon systems can be managed in through-life capability terms. This can unlock the latent potential of exploiting information as the whole NEC environment evolves.

The functions that need to be connected cover data-gathering from sensors, information analysis, decisions throughout the engagement chain, control of the engagement, the engagement itself and battle damage assessment. The scope of these different aspects is shown in Figure 2. The different tasks to be accomplished require different types of data, at different latencies and throughputs. They range from co-ordination and deconfliction tasks at the higher levels to very high-rate data to prosecute the engagement. This will produce a Service Orientated Architecture focused on generating the desired effect, but with full functionality to support the other related operational tasks.

Figure 2: Different communication bearers for different types of information

The NEC architecture must be designed from the start to enable delivery of data at the correct latency. It will not be possible to incrementally upgrade the network later as the data messages, formats, timelines, and correlation requirements are too different. Weapon system information needs are not the same as the information required for higher-level decision-making, which is based primarily on situational awareness. Weapon systems require information with specific spatial and feature details, with very low latency and at very specific times – hence the origin of the ‘sensor to shooter’ concept.

The competition for available bandwidth between functions such as ISTAR and generating effect is notional rather than real as shown by Figure 3. Engagement may demand very high utilisation of the network to conduct the engagement, but this is for a very small slice of the total operational time. Engagements are rare – they create a short spike in demand for communications – and so the network can be managed to reduce services to less urgent functions temporarily. Therefore there is no need to bolt new bespoke communications on to the infrastructure, but we can use common services – provided this need is recognised in the overall design of the NEC implementation.

Figure 3: Balancing bandwidth and latency on the communications infrastructure

Exploitation of information is essential to achieve the synchronised precision in space and time that modern warfighting relies on. The environment is becoming more complex, with increased operations in urban areas and with significant potential collateral damage. Use of all information is needed throughout the engagement chain to choose the correct target and ensure that the best engagement outcome is achieved. This includes passing data to the missile in flight. For example, trajectories can be chosen that minimise the likelihood of any collateral damage, and target acquisition data can be used to assist the weapon seeker in selecting the correct target in a confused and dynamically changing environment. Only this approach will provide compliance with the tighter rules of engagement in a high-tempo environment. Figure 4 shows what modern weapons with accurate targeting data can achieve.

Figure 4: Precision attack – no collateral damage

Summary

Achieving precision effect in a networked environment is both the ultimate goal and a challenge. The goal is achieving the right effect (proportionate), in the right place (precision), at the right time (time criticality); and, further, doing so in a cohesive manner that builds from the tactical to operational levels to deliver the desired outcome. Integration of weapon systems into NEC will achieve this goal and avoid collateral damage in the dynamic and complex environments of future operations. This must be delivered through a clear vision of the potential and flexibility of NEC so that incremental steps build capability and do not cut off future functionality.

The challenge lies in ensuring digital integration throughout the engagement chain components, where each component has been approached in lateral functional terms. There must be no weak link in the sensor to information analysis to decision maker to weapon connectivity, with seamless and transparent transfer of information as needed by both non-real-time and real-time functions to produce a Service Orientated Architecture. Furthermore, this could be accommodated within the infrastructure that is being developed, with only minimal bespoke communications. A flexible approach to prioritisation of bandwidth usage could provide this if the opportunity is grasped. Only joint studies with weapon system providers taking the engagement chain approach can determine appropriate architectures that will enable capability growth through future technology insertion.

Notes

[1] Director of Equipment Capability (Intelligence, Surveillance, Target Acquisition and Reconnaisance)

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