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• October 17, 2008
  • Task force to lay out Air Force UAV roadmap
    The U.S. Air Force's Unmanned Aircraft Systems Task Force is set to brief the service chief and Defense Secretary Robert Gates Dec. 15 on the long-term future of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).

    The task force is laying out a road map for UAVs all the way to 2047, the Air Force's centennial, said Col. Eric Mathewson, director of the Air Force Unmanned Aircraft Systems Task Force at the C4ISR Integration conference in Arlington, Va., Oct. 17.

  • Admiral: Navy should step up network security efforts
    Operators at all levels in the Navy, not just network security specialists, must take responsibility for safeguarding the sea service’s information grid, a top U.S. Navy network officer said Friday.

    Rear Adm. (select) Margaret Klein, operations officer for Naval Network Warfare Command, told attendees at the C4ISR Integration Conference in Arlington, Va. that the Navy must do a better job educating people at every level – from ships' captains to enlisted sailors – about the importance of the Navy’s network and its potential vulnerabilities.

  • Pentagon might divide Predator, Reaper fleets
    A U.S. official involved in budget deliberations has aired the idea of transferring the MQ-1 Predator unmanned aircraft fleet to the Army with the Air Force controlling the larger and faster MQ-9 Reaper aircraft.

    "One of the things you might see is maybe the MQ-1 mission goes over to the Army, and the Air Force takes on the MQ-9 role. You would split that between the two services," said Kevin Meiners, an assistant deputy undersecretary of defense in the office of the undersecretary of defense for intelligence.

  • Steiner: Open the GIG to collaboration
    Collaboration is the new face of the Web and it needs to be the face of the next iteration of the Pentagon's Global Information Grid (GIG), said Navy Capt. Jack Steiner, chief of staff for C4 systems for the Joint Staff, speaking at the C4ISR Integration Conference in Arlington, Va., Oct. 17.

    The GIG 2.0 is a fundamental shift in how existing networks operate and how users acquire and integrate new capabilities into their information networks. Much of that shift comes in the form of sharing and collaboration, Steiner said, frequently in the form of wiki-style informational sites, where users can add, subtract, edit and update information.

  • U.S. Coast Guard builds a C4/IT strategic plan
    The U.S. Coast Guard is looking for user and industry input as it continues to shape its C4 and information technology strategic plan, said Mark Powell, director of the service’s C4 and IT infrastructure operations, at the 8th annual C4ISR Integration Conference in Arlington, Va., Oct. 17.

    The plan focuses largely on end users, Powell said, and the capabilities the Coast Guard needs, rather than simply rolling out hot new technologies.

• October 16, 2008
  • C4ISR Journal names annual award winners
    Five diverse ISR efforts — a UAV video system, an automated flight-control system, a battlefield communications node, fast submarines and an anti-IED task force — now have something in common. They are winners of the C4ISR Journal awards for 2008.

    Journal staff announced the winners at the magazine’s first-annual awards banquet in Crystal City, Va., outside Washington, D.C., Oct. 16.

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  • LandWarNet to provide global, on-demand network support for war fighters
    The U.S. Army is rapidly moving toward more agile, intuitive network capabilities, Lt. Gen. Jeffery Sorenson told conference-goers on Oct. 16.

    Plans that have been discussed and in the works since 1996 are finally coming to fruition, said Sorenson, the Army's Chief Information Officer and the current driving force behind LandWarNet, the Army element in the Pentagon's Global Information Grid.

  
  • U.S. Navy to update, streamline shipboard C4ISR systems
    The Navy plans to spend $2 billion over the next five years to update and streamline its shipboard C4ISR systems. The goals are to reduce the plethora of different systems, eliminate hardware where possible and improve inter-operability, Cmdr. Phil Turner told a C4ISR conference Oct. 16.

    The undertaking, called Consolidation of Afloat Networks and Enterprise Services, or CANES, aims to present a draft request for proposal to technology companies by the end of this month and a final RFP ready in January, Turner said.

  
  • Noll: Domestic operations bring new challenges
    As the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) continues to shape and understand its mission, the intelligence community has to learn to roll with the domestic punches, said Michael Noll, director of intelligence for U.S. Northern Command (NORTHCOM) and the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD).

    Noll outlined some of the differences between intelligence gathering and sharing in a military setting versus a civilian one.

  
  • More robust data strategy called key to joint fight
    Continuing to develop a strong data strategy will drive improved data management and fusion for the future fight, said U.S. Air Force Maj. Gen. Kevin Kennedy.

    "We have got some awesome capability in the field today," said Kennedy, director of the Joint Capability Development Directorate at U.S. Joint Forces Command. "We're doing a lot of good things right now."

  
  • U.S. networking chief seeks to curb waveform proliferation
    The Pentagon is close to establishing a new policy that would require the military services to seek permission from the department's networking experts before embarking on development of new radio waveforms and the software necessary to decode them, said Ronald Jost, deputy assistant defense secretary for command, control, communications, space and spectrum.

    Jost told the C4ISR Integration Conference in Arlington, Va., that the Defense Department needs to compress the numbers of waveforms coursing through the airwaves among the radios used by U.S. forces. Development of new waveforms has to be integrated into a well-thought-out planning architecture, he said.

  
  • USAF cyber force adapts to change
    Despite a recent organizational change, the U.S. Air Force's cyberspace efforts are moving ahead just fine, the provisional command's mobilization assistant said Oct. 16 at the C4ISR Integration Conference in Arlington, Va.

    The decision to move Air Force cyber operations under the existing Air Force Space Command as a numbered air force, rather than stand up a new major command as originally planned, will not have much of an effect on what the service's cyber warriors will do day-to-day, said Maj. Gen. Dave Senty.

  
  • JFCom deputy looks toward the 'tactical edge'
    U.S. Joint Forces Command plans to publish an updated doctrine governing C4ISR approaches to irregular warfare within one to two months, said Army Lt. Gen. John Wood, the command’s deputy commander.

    Wood said the unclassified "Capstone Concept for Joint Operations" must be signed off on by Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, before it can be distributed.