L-3 ComCept: NCCT

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"L-3 Communications Corporation, ComCept Division is an innovative Systems Engineering contractor, specializing in networking, requirements development, modeling, simulation, communications, and systems integration (including sophisticated networking as well as coordinated, web-based techniques). L-3 ComCept develops advanced wireless Network-Centric Warfare concepts that will greatly enhance the use of our country's intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance assets."


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[edit] Objectivity Case History

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[edit] Important

This information is an archive, so any use of the present sense in the text should be taken in the historical context, generally determinable from the Status section below.

[edit] Customer Information

[edit] Status

  • First Contact:
  • Lead came from:
  • Evaluation Start Date:
  • Evaluation Finish Date:
  • First Purchase Date:
  • Deployment Date: November, 2005
  • Current Status: Deployed in evaluation mode.
    • "The USAF successfully completed its Military Utility Assessment of the NCCT last year at Joint Expeditionary Force Experiment 2004 (JEFX-04) and transitioned the ACTD to a funded program of record. This year's evaluation will complete the desired joint and coalition assessment prior to the system's initial fielding on USAF C(2)ISR platforms, leading to a 2009 initial operational capability (IOC)."
  • Can we talk about this customer and the product/project? Yes
  • Referenceable?: Yes, via the Sales Representative.

[edit] Environment

  • Hardware:
  • Operating System:
  • Precision:
  • Development language:
  • Compiler:
  • Third Party vendor tools:
  • Open Source tools:

[edit] The Project/Product

[edit] Project Background

The U.S. Air Force’s Network-centric Warfare System (NCCT) is an open network-centric architecture and software design that horizontally integrates airborne and ground assets to detect, locate, track and target ground targets. Through machine-to- machine exchanges, NCCT supports time-sensitive and prioritized targeting operations more efficiently, accurately and quickly. CEC is the U.S. Navy’s premier network-centric warfare system, which shares radar data between participants to precisely track airborne targets, providing combat identification on airborne tracks and engagement-quality information to all participants. CEC is fielded on several E-2 aircraft, cruisers, destroyers, amphibious ships and aircraft carriers

[edit] Project/Product Description

Objectivity/DB is at the heart of the NCCT Fusion Engine (NFE) supporting the NCCT application. Objectivity/DB is storing and managing vast amounts of disparate information produced by complex applications performing data fusion from geospatial and sensor data from the NCCT network. Objectivity/DB provides a reliable, scalable repository for the wide range of complex data types found in this type of mission-critical application. The Objectivity platform is highly optimized for performance and throughput in systems that handle highly interconnected data. Objectivity/DB’s distributed processing system architecture, with no single point of failure, provides the robustness necessary for this application. Objectivity/DB handles all aspects of interoperability, including language, operating system, file system, networking and hardware dependencies.


As part of the NCCT concept, all participating platforms and ground stations cannot only exchange data, they can also collaborate to coherently collect and create new information that would otherwise go unreported by traditional “stove piped” platforms that do not easily share and disseminate information. “By efficiently netting and synchronizing sensors in real- time and combining detections, it is possible to increase the probability of detecting and identifying a target, while also reducing the time it takes to accurately locate targets by more than 90%,” according to Gary Davis, director of the NCCT program for L-3 ComCept. “This refined information updates a common, shared network Objectivity database so that the problem of multiple reports on a single target is dramatically reduced.


Image:NCCT.jpg


  • NCCT - Network Centric Collaborative Targeting
  • Data fusion in a distributed environment
  • Objectivity value add is real-time sensor fusion to create a single logical view
  • Objectivity handles the performance with complex, highly inter-related data, and reliability
  • The system enables a network of sensors to collaborate in determining the location of a target with minimal human intervention

FIRST, FIND IT WITH NCCT

  • All physical entities that are 'alive' and functioning radiate or reflect energy in one form or another whenever they are doing something
  • These energy emissions span a range of modalities (electromagnetic, thermal, auditory, etc.) and each is detectable by sensors attuned to that modality.
  • Humans use their senses instinctively, without conscious thought
  • NCCT mimics the way the human central nervous system instantaneously focuses the eyes on the potential source of a threatening sound. When an enemy asset communicates or moves, a sensor platform will get a line of bearing on it and alert the other sensors to focus on the enemy asset and provide corroborating evidence of the enemy's identity and location
  • Once two other sensors detect the asset, the NCCT system can then automatically calculate the location of the asset to within a few hundred feet – roughly the area of a football pitch
  • NCCT needs three vectors not only because assets could be elevated or airborne, and thus utilising all three dimensions, but also because bearings can be planar rather than linear, and three planes *are needed to create a one-dimensional intersection point.
  • With no human intervention, NCCT reduces the time needed to locate a target from hours or minutes down to seconds

System is highly sensitive in two respects:

  • the sensors themselves can pick up even relatively weak signals such as those from cell phones, and can detect other C2 components that produce electromagnetic signatures
  • NCCT can compare the signals to dynamic databases of previously collected signals to ascertain, in some cases, even the individual identity of the emitting enemy unit.
  • On 6 September, Israeli aircraft bombed a large building at Dayr az-Zawr, a town on the Euphrates about 60 miles west of the Syria-Iraq border and 250 miles north-east of Damascus. The raid effectively destroyed the complex, which was under construction at the time.
  • Israel was assisted by the US in a passive way - no physical systems or units in the area.
  • They shut down all of Syria’s ADS for a short period of time using Senior Suter and NCCT (both Big Safari ISR programs) so their non-stealth F-16’s could enter and leave without being detected.
  • NCCT (and perhaps Suter) has been at the very least tested operationally in Iraq and Afghanistan over the last couple years, probably against insurgent communication networks
  • Senior Suter is one section of the 'senior' family of projects, which in turn exists under the Big Safari umbrella.
  • The senior category deals with information and electronic warfare, broadly defined.
  • The Suter programme focuses on implementing electronic data warfare against air defence systems.
  • The prime contractor for Senior Suter is BAE Systems.
  • Air Force's "Big Safari Program," a secretive agency renowned for its ability to rapidly modify aircraft to meet specialized military needs.
  • "Big Safari is not one of the Pentagon's black programs," "But it is a dark shade of gray." Col Hoffmann

[edit] Buying Criteria

[edit] Business Priorities

[edit] Technical Priorities

  • Performace with complex, highly inter-related data.
  • Single Logical View
  • Reliability
  • Scalability

[edit] Competitors/Alternatives

[edit] Why They Chose Objectivity

“By efficiently netting and synchronizing sensors in realtime and combining detections, it is possible to increase the probability of detecting and identifying a target, while also reducing the time it takes to accurately locate targets by more than 90%,” according to Gary Davis, director of the NCCT program for L-3 ComCept. “This refined information updates a common, shared network Objectivity database so that the problem of multiple reports on a single target is dramatically reduced.”

[edit] Partners

[edit] Collateral

  1. Press Releases: http://www.objy.com/pages/press/htmlPress.asp?id=62
  2. Fliers: Yes. Ask S&M admin.
  3. White Papers:
  4. Case Study:
  5. Other:

[edit] Contact Information

  • Objectivity Rep:
  • Customer Contact:
  • Customer Phone:
  • Customer Email:
  • URL:

[edit] External Links

[edit] Related Pages


[edit] Categories

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