Land Warfare - LHD: Indra offers amphibious planning tool | ADM Oct 08
ADF amphibious planners are showing interest in a new amphibious warfare planning tool that Spanish electronics firm Indra is developing for the Spanish Navy and Marines; it should be fully operational in about 12 months time.
Gregor Ferguson
The ADF and DSTO have asked Spanish defence electronics firm Indra Sistemas SA for information about the Amphibious Operations Command & Control Information System (AOCCIS) it is developing for the Spanish Navy and Marines.
As the RAN’s amphibious landing ship LHD program gathers pace and the ADF develops and refines its operational concepts for amphibious operations, it has begun to examine its requirements for amphibious planning and command support tools.
The AOCCIS is being developed for Spain’s amphibious warfare community and will equip Spanish amphibious and land force headquarters embarked on the Spanish Navy’s amphibious landing ships.
That includes the Buque de Projeccion Estragica (BPE) Juan Carlos I, from which the RAN’s Canberra-class LHDs will be derived.
The system being developed for Spain consists of servers (fixed and transportable), storage devices, wireless and fixed networks, desktop and laptop computers (many with webcams), and a Visualization Sub-system consisting of large-scale high-definition screens and smartboards.
It has 30 work stations, 10 of them with twin 20-inch LCD displays.
Down at tactical level it includes ruggedised PDAs.
The whole supports a common operating picture with interfaces to higher-level command centres and coalition partners.
The AOCCIS is an open architecture construct designed for the Windows XP operating system and is ported for the W2003 Server OS as well as PocketPC for mobile, tactical applications.
It is designed to be used throughout the operational cycle: by planning staff ashore, during the embarkation phase, by staff aboard the flag ship, during shaping operations, during mission rehearsal, and then by both the land force and amphibious task group commanders and their staffs during and after the disembarkation of the landing force.
The key tool sets provided by AOCCIS enable concurrent planning activities within a single staff and parallel activities between corresponding echelons across separate headquarters teams within a coalition or joint task force.
They embrace Planning, Operations, Intelligence, Logistics, Supporting Arms, CIS (Communications), Personnel & Admin, and Situational Awareness.
And AOCCIS is designed for coalition-wide connectivity also: to NATO’s SHAPE Integrated Command and Control Software; to the parent navy’s maritime command and control information system, the ship’s own Combat Management System, and to coalition logistics, air and fire support assets.
One of the tools of AOCCIS is an RFID-based Personnel and Materiel Control System (P&MCS).
This is designed to facilitate planning for the loading and unloading of the troops, vehicles and equipment embarked on the LHD.
Each person and piece of equipment will have an active or passive RFID tag, with antennas and tag readers distributed around the ship; these track the movements of troops and equipment through the hangar, tank deck, well dock, accommodation spaces, and the ship’s various thoroughfares and ramps during the loading and disembarkation process.
Not only does this help with tactical loading before an operational deployment, its data can be fed to the ship’s platform control system to help with stability computations.
As conceived for the Spanish armed forces, the ACCIS employs Savi active RFID tags and readers and Intermec passive devices.
Indra says the Savi-based system has already been proven in a successful trial aboard a Spanish LPD.
Connectivity is a key requirement for AOCCIS, says Indra, and the system is designed for Satellite (64Kbps), VHF/UHF combat net radio and wireless broadband (802.16 d/e - >1Mbps) links.
Its footprint, as configured for the Spanish armed forces, is very low: the entire AOCCIS system employs a single 24U Rack server.
It also employs the High Level Architecture (HLA) protocol to enable interoperability with land-and ship-based simulators and team trainers.
The company doesn’t believe integration issues with extant command and control or command support system will be a significant issue.
Indra presented an AOCCIS proof of concept prototype to the Spanish Armed Forces in September last year.
The system including its Man-Machine Interface (MMI) passed its preliminary design review in February this year, with a more detailed second iteration in May.
Testing of the P&MCS was due to begin last month.
Initial testing of the AOCCIS’s full operational capability is due to start in December, with a final review of specifications in January, followed by Final Acceptance tests in December 2009.
ADM understands the company briefed DMO officials in Spain earlier this year, with a follow-up visit planned before the end of 2008.
It’s not clear how or when the ADF’s requirement for an amphibious planning tool will emerge, nor whether or not existing systems such as the Joint Command Support System (JCSS) or Battlefield Command Support System (BCSS) can be evolved to meet it. Nor even whether or not it’s a requirement that the Battle Management System to be acquired under Project Land 125/75 will satisfy some of these requirements.
Having a MOTS product that is being developed for an embarked force of the size and composition suitable for the BPE, and therefore the Canberra-class LHD, might stand Indra in good stead.
And the company has designed it to be easily integrated with other components of a task force’s command and control set-up.
Indra isn’t well known in Australia, but dominates Spain’s defence electronics sector: it recorded a profit of 257 million Euros in 2007 on revenue of 2.167 billion.
And it has a significant footprint here: it owns Interscan, the Sydney-based airways navigation equipment manufacturer which spun off several years ago from the old AWA.
Recently, Indra supplied the VLLAD Automatic Cueing System (VACS) which supports the New Zealand Army’s MBDA Mistral Very Low Level Air Defence (VLLAD) system.
This is based on a system in Spanish service and includes radar and Identification Friend or Foe (IFF) which enable the Mistral/VACS system to identify, track and destroy incoming threats out to 20km.
In Spain Indra manufactures a range of Electronic warfare equipments and radar and electro-optical sensors, as well as command and control systems and sonars – it teamed with Lockheed Martin to offer the F-100 sonar into the RAN’s Air Warfare Destroyer program.
Later on it plans to contest the AWD communications and EW programs also, offering solutions based on those it already supplies for the F-100 class.
While the company’s footprint in Australia’s defence sector is still small, it is looking for local partners, ADM was told, and seeking to exert maximum leverage from its knowledge of both the F-100 and BPE platforms and also its experience of integrating solutions with the Aegis air warfare system.