Future Soldier C4I Capabilities

Requirements

By Patrick Comtois,

Chief Engineer ISSP

DND/ADM(MAT)/DSSPM-10

March 9-11, 2010

Le centre Sheraton Montreal

Montreal, Qc.

Soldier Systems Technology RoadmapC4I and Sensors workshop

• Vision statement• Caveat • Constraints and limitations• C4I Functional and Performance Requirements

• Themes:• Geo-location• Communication• C4I Human Interfaces• Information Integration and Situation Awareness• Security• Interoperability• Integration

• Questions

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Vision statement

In the next 5 to 15 years, the soldier should be capable of obtaining a complete relevant picture of an operation based on current situation with 99% confidence in the information accuracy in near real time within a seamless solution from a weight, volume and cognitive load perspective.

Caveat• This presentation will focus on functional and performance

requirements – not on solutions or products• Convergence/”mapping” of the requirements to potential solutions,

technology options and devices will be performed by the experts, the participants in the room

• The “future requirements” attempt to highlight “fieldable” capabilities within the next 5-10 years – “Fieldable” vs “demonstrable” in a lab

• As part of the workshops, participants are welcomed to challenge the requirements, whether too demanding or too “easy”

• Important note: The Dismounted Soldier System (DSS) is meant to be a fighting capability and the C4I “tools” should not lower soldier’s fighting capability but increase their individual and team lethality and mobility

Constraints and limitations

• Weight (miniaturization of C4ISR related technology)• Volume (miniaturization of C4ISR related technology)• Power consumption• Information overload• Policy (frequency spectrum allocation, security policies)• Programmatic realities – Integration issues highly

depend on coordination between many capital projects• Absence of “infrastructure” (on the ground or in the sky)• $$$

C4I Functional and Performance Requirements

Geo-Location

• Where am I now• Where are my buddies now • Where my buddies are not now• Where is the enemy now

• The user goal for friendly Position Awareness (PA):– 1m precision with currency of 1 second– High confidence in information– Available in GPS denied environment (intentional/non-intentional)– Available in areas where there are no infrastructure

Communication

Local comms -WPAN

Internal Dismounted Soldier System Comms – section level

Internal Dismounted Soldier System Comms – Platoon level

Communication

Internal Dismounted Soldier System Comms – Coy level

COI

COI

COICOI

COI

COI

COI

COICOI

COI

COI

COI

COICOI

COI

COI

COI

COICOI

COI

COI

Dismounted - mounted Comms

Communication

NGOAllies COI?COI?

Communication Summary• Wireless PAN• Dismounted Section, Platoon and company level voice and

data Communities of Interest (COIs)– Video– Imagery– Others

• Task Force wide high confidence Blue PA• Interoperability with vehicles, sensor platforms and JIMP

partners• Over 16 independent voice COIs and as many data COIs

within a single Coy which can be deployed over 1km to 10km wide

Communication Challenges

• A communication system that supports:– pure dismounted ops (no infrastructure)

– Combined-arms (mounted-dismounted ops)

• High throughput for rich services– Adaptable waveform

• Large coverage in different environment• Low volume – low weight: Target is to have a single

comms device per soldier• Flexible PAN: Adaptable to user preference on Tactical

Vest• RF friendly solution (EMC-EMI)

C4I Human Interfaces

• Visual display:– High fidelity visualization capability in a small form factor “device”– Heads-up display?– Virtual reality and 3D visualisation?

• Audio display:– Comfort – not same definition for everyone– Awareness of environment– Depending on the context, some users may want to have access to more than 2

voice COIs but users only have 2 ears– Multiple security domains

• Control and input devices – Location on tactical vest based on user preferences (WPAN)– Hands should stay on the weapon as much as possible. Voice recognition control

consideration?

• Other displays/interfaces?

Information Integration and Situation Awareness

• Appropriate information presented to the dismounted soldiers and commanders– What information he needs to do his job– “Context-based” information (mission based/task based)– Avoid information overload– Pre-processed /”Fused” information

• Decision aids tools in order to:– Support situation analysis– Achieve situation awareness faster– Provide options for better informed decision

Manual / Human-Only Systems?

Automatic / Independent Systems?

Spectrum of Human-Computer Interactions

Silent/Manual Informative Co-operative Automatic Independent

System

Operator(s)Decisions

System

Operator(s)Decisions

System

Operator(s)Decisions

Sup

port

Influence

Sup

port

Influence

System

Operator(s)

Info.

Requests

Influence

DecisionsSystem

Operator(s)

DecisionsDecisions

Synergy

Medium Medium

Highest

None None

Work

Distribution

Operator(s)Operator(s) Operator(s) System

System

SystemSystem

Configuration

Override

Operator(s)

GOAL

Security• Four pillars of security: Physical, Personnel,

Procedural, ITSEC • Policy is a key factor – hard to control• Transparent security solution

• DSS C4I is a tool to increase soldier’s fighting capability by increasing its Mobility and Lethality – security solution should not be a burden

• Simple access control• Prevent unauthorized access• No additional burden on the soldier

• Support multiple security domains

Interoperability• “Land Operations 2021 Adaptive Dispersed Operations” highlight clearly the

Joint, Interagency, Multinational, Public (JIMP) requirements for future operations.

• Interoperability within the Army, other CF elements, Allies, NGOs, OGDs.

• JIMP drives our C4I solution interoperability requirements in the area of communication, security and application space

• How do we achieve Interoperability without compromising the main DSS C4I requirement: “Dismounted Soldier System (DSS) is a fighting capability and C4I “tools” should not lower soldier’s fighting capability but increase their individual and team lethality and mobility”

• Complex security solutions to adapt to legacy systems?

• Complex Gateways to enable data exchange between different organization?

• Multiple communication platforms on soldier to support communication with different partners?

Integration issues and Other key requirements

Integration Issues• Growth flexibility

• Embedded instrumentation to:

– Allow continuous performance improvement

– Allow continuous system operation (TTPs) improvement

– Perform live operational training monitoring

• Mission rehearsal and embedded training

• Address the issue of modularity vs tight integration

– Trade-off: Cost, weight, volume, power, role based configuration, upgradability

• System Management (SM)

– Medium to high complexity for pre-deployment configuration (Big SM)

– Very simple and flexible reconfiguration during mission and tasks (small SM)

– Simple role based configuration – support rapid equipment replacement

• Power and Data infrastructure standards

• Human factors

Summary

• Vision and requirements are continuously evolving

• The solution involves many disciplines

• All of you are part of the move towards solution

Questions?

• Vision statement• Caveat • Constraints and limitations• C4I Functional and Performance Requirements

• Themes:• Geo-location• Communication• C4I Human Interfaces• Information Integration and Situation Awareness• Security• Interoperability• Integration

• Questions

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