FORT HUACHUCA, Ariz.: Raytheon Company demonstrated several significant firsts at Empire Challenge 2010 with its High-Speed Guard cross-domain security solution passing streaming video from an unmanned aircraft system.
Empire Challenge is an annual joint and multinational intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) interoperability demonstration sponsored by the U.S. under secretary of defense for Intelligence. The exercise highlights emerging ISR capabilities and provides vital lessons to improve joint and combined ISR interoperability to support warfighters at the tactical edge.
Innovative Raytheon technology, including the Cross-Domain Enterprise All-Source User Repository (CENTAUR), was prevalent in several key systems during the demonstrations. CENTAUR seamlessly exchanged ISR information with U.S. and multinational partners at sites worldwide using proven, secure, cross-domain technologies.
CENTAUR consists of the Raytheon Multi-Sensor Aerospace-Ground Joint ISR Interoperability Coalition Data Broker, the Raytheon-developed Distributed Common Ground System Integrated Backbone (DIB) and Raytheon High-Speed Guard to share secure data between enclaves. CENTAUR provides cross-domain query and product retrieval capability between DIB- and coalition-shared database instances in different security domains.
For the fourth year, Raytheon High-Speed Guard passed streaming video from unmanned aircraft systems and this year added 12 other streaming video sources. Additionally, High-Speed Guard transmitted multiple, simultaneous high-definition and standard-definition video feeds (up to 18 simultaneous video streams, another Empire Challenge first) while supporting thousands of cross-domain DIB queries and product retrievals. In addition to video, High-Speed Guard supported low-latency messaging requirements of about 700,000 messages per day.
“This exercise depicts how technology can increase situational awareness and intelligence sharing by combining common and open joint network-centric environments,” said Todd Trapp, director of Tactical Intelligence Systems for Raytheon Intelligence and Information Systems. “Our capabilities allow warfighters to work more efficiently in the full spectrum of operations by easily sharing information in a common operating environment.”
Empire Challenge 2010, which ended Aug. 13, focused on near-term capabilities that can be delivered rapidly to Afghanistan. Requirements from Afghanistan drove the event schedule, venues and scenarios, which were conducted through a combination of modeling and simulation, laboratory and live events. The demonstration participants included the combat support agencies, services, multinational partners, academia and industry.
Raytheon Company, with 2009 sales of $25 billion, is a technology and innovation leader specializing in defense, homeland security and other government markets throughout the world. With headquarters in Waltham, Mass., Raytheon employs 75,000 people worldwide.
