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Northrop Grumman to Work with US Joint Forces Command to Assess Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Concepts
EL SEGUNDO, Calif.(DefenceTalk): Northrop Grumman Corporation and the U.S. Joint Forces Command have agreed to work together to improve how military forces conduct intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) missions.
The goal of the three-year cooperative research agreement is to identify ways to shorten the military commander's cycle of tasking sensors to collect intelligence, analyzing the information and disseminating it to warfighters. Shortening that cycle would enhance warfighters' situational awareness and increase the chance of mission success.
Northrop Grumman will provide its extensive modeling and simulation capabilities and its Cyber Warfare Integration Network (CWIN), which can generate an operationally based, virtual battlefield environment. Running operational scenarios in the CWIN environment will allow the Joint Forces Command to better evaluate weapon systems and tactics.
One of the research team's challenges is how to integrate different types of sensor platforms (for example, radar/infrared, airborne/space-based, strategic/tactical) into existing and future ISR architectures. Another challenge is to develop processes that reduce the human workload by allowing computers to handle more of the routine activities.
The research team will combine Joint Forces Command warfighters and analysts with Northrop Grumman's experts in airborne platforms, network-centric operations and systems architecture development. Participants will conduct the work with both virtual and “human in the loop'' exercises hosted in the CWIN environment.
“We've invested in system-of-systems architectures, experimentation and analyses to better understand our customers' needs,'' said Chris Frangos, director of Cyber Warfare Integration at Northrop Grumman's Integrated Systems sector. “This cooperative research effort will give us the opportunity to work with a critical military command and expand our role as a premier aerospace and defense system integration enterprise.''
Northrop Grumman launched its CWIN in 2002 to support full-spectrum battlefield operations and system-of-systems design, development and analyses. CWIN's open architecture allows seamless connection with other company units, industry teammates and customers via high-bandwidth, secure commercial and government lines, satellite communications and other specialized connectivity elements.
Northrop Grumman Corporation is a $30 billion global defense and technology company whose 122,000 employees provide innovative systems, products, and solutions in information and services, electronics, aerospace and shipbuilding to government and commercial customers worldwide.
