TIMING IS EVERYTHING AND A PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS

The U.S. military has made substantial progress in developing and fielding C4ISR systems that can collect and gather overwhelming amounts of valuable raw sensor data. A new challenge that has emerged with the deployment of numerous state-of-the-art ISR collection systems is the effective and timely use of the collected surveillance and reconnaissance information, or simply stated an architecture that pushes the timeliness and accessibility of this situational awareness data to the tactical edge – “the right data at the right time to the warfighter.” Along with this information distribution challenge is the increased size, weight, and power implications of the numerous stove piped systems that are bolted on to the mechanized platforms. The tactical plug-and-play framework integrates cohesive, yet loosely coupled infrastructures for communications, Command and Control (C2) applications, sensor suites, and provides the “digital backbone” architecture. This architecture results in a configurable, single-screen interface for the operator to monitor and control all systems integrated onto a vehicle, and a reduction in the space claim required for operation of these systems.