Next Phase Of Battlefield Surveillance And Recon System To Be Tested

US forces operating in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere may soon be able to use "MAJIIC" to locate an enemy position on the battlefield and share intelligence information and imagery with coalition allies in near-real time.

And it all might be possible from a secure Web site.

In September, the Defense Department will test the next phase of MAJIIC -- which stands for Multisensor Aerospace-Ground Joint ISR (intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance) Interoperability Coalition Architecture -- during an advanced-concept technology demonstration.

Joint Forces Command, based in Norfolk, VA, is the operational manager for the project, which is taking place at Fort Huachuca, AZ; at New Mexico State University at Las Cruces; and at the command's headquarters.

"It's all about a single-point query to get at all of the ISR information that's available based on location, time, status of the ISR," said Navy Capt. Allan Nadolski, director for intelligence at US Joint Forces Command. He was speaking at the C4ISR Integration Conference here May 18.

C4ISR is an acronym for Command, Control, Communications, Computer, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance. The theme of this year's conference is "Actionable Intelligence for the War Fighter and Decision Maker."

"(MAJIIC) uses a Web-services approach, ... and it gets you away from having to get to different Web sites to go and have to find information and pull them together yourself," Nadolski said. "It really is all about pulling all the information together first, getting it on a network, and then being able to query that all at one time."

The Defense Department is hopeful the new capability, which went through its first validation in August 2004, will allow ISR information to be shared among coalition partners and alleviate massive data backlogs generated during operations.

Such was the case during Operation Iraqi Freedom. Nadolski said ISR was in great demand, but because of the "huge volume of data, analysis and dissemination of ISR data lagged behind military operations that were very accelerated."

One of the demonstration's goals is to make ISR data available to the customers who need it right away, he said.

The demonstration, he said, will be "heavily focused" on joint and coalition ISR interoperability and data accessibility and will enhance "battle-space awareness" and provide ISR support to "time-sensitive operations and combat assessment."

Nadolski said MAJIIC will use a variety of sensors to transport information.

During the demonstration, JFCOM will develop concepts of operation and tactics, techniques and procedures for coalition ISR operations, and demonstrate enhanced ISR interoperability between coalition ISR systems.

The demonstration also will provide an enhanced ISR exploitation and display of multinational data in support of a common coalition operational picture and enable US and coalition partners to share ISR data to support time-sensitive operations in a "netcentric" environment.

Allied countries collaborating in the MAJIIC project include the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Norway, Canada, Italy, the Netherlands, and Spain, as well as the NATO Consultation, Command and Control Agency. However, he added, those countries will not take part in the demonstration.

"Networking the information and making it available across the different domains, including the coalition-sharing piece, is going to be a critical part of our focus," Nadolski said.

"We have to make the data accessible; it can't be done in a vacuum," he said. "As my boss would say, 'We have to blur the lines between operations and intelligence.'

"It really is all about making the information broadly available and integrating it with the operation," he added.

Nadolski said a separate technology demonstration will link MAJIIC with another project called the Adaptive Joint C4ISR Node.

That effort will integrate the two platforms in an effort to pass information from the joint task force headquarters down to the brigade level and then to troops out on combat patrols.

The Defense Department plans to have these capabilities, MAJIIC and AJCN, in place by 2008, Nadolski said.

(ANN salutes Sgt. 1st Class Doug Sample, USA)

FMI: www.jfcom.mil