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	Director, Operational Test & Evaluation
	FY99 Annual Report

SYSTEM DESCRIPTIONS & CONTRIBUTIONS TO JOINT VISION 2010

The Fixed Distributed System (FDS) is an ocean surveillance system that employs seabed acoustic sensors distributed over large ocean areas to detect, classify, localize, and track submarine contacts in selected areas of the world. The Advanced Deployable System (ADS) is a littoral water deployable undersea surveillance system designed to provide the Joint Force Commander with a timely and reliable picture of undersea activity. Both of these systems contribute to full-dimensional protection through information superiority. FDS consists of two subsystems: an Underwater Segment (UWS) and a Shore Signal Information Processing Segment. FDS was designed to augment the existing Sound Ocean Surveillance System and be compatible with the Integrated Undersea Surveillance System, including Surveillance Towed Array Sensor System ships. Similarly, ADS consists of an UWS, a Processing and Analysis Segment (PAS), and a Mission Support Segment.

Engineering development of FDS commenced in 1989. An initial seabed subsystem for the first FDS was installed and became the test article for OT. Initial operation of this system occurred in 1995. Plans had called for procurement of 11 operational systems through 2006. However, the Navy truncated the program and limited procurement to the engineering development model for the first full field, an additional FDS system, and training equipment. The additional system supported the demonstration of a rapidly deployable variant, FDS-D (deployable) in 1994. The FDS-D experiment proved the deployment and retrieval concepts and successfully demonstrated the FDS acoustic detection and tracking concepts with submarine targets using Navy operators. The FDS-D experiment led to the signing of the ADS Operational Requirements Document (ORD) in 1994. The TEMP was drafted and development proceeded.

After the entire system FDS-1 was installed and operating and the initial Surveillance Direction System (SDS) software was installed, an OA of FDS (OT-IID / SDS OT-I) was conducted at the FDS-1 site in September 1996. SDS is the command and control component that interfaces the FDS with the Integrated Undersea Surveillance System. This OA was conducted in lieu of an OPEVAL due to the cancellation of FDS Milestone III in 1994.

OPTEVFOR found FDS potentially operationally effective and potentially operationally suitable but noted some problems in the areas of tactical support and survivability. FDS achieved Full Operational Capability in September 1996. Due to the cancellation of OPEVAL and Milestone III, testing in accordance with the FDS TEMP 1009 Rev. 2.3 has been essentially completed.

Initial system level testing of ADS was conducted in March 1998 in an Integrated Article Test (IAT) designated OT-IA. The test configuration consisted of two complete nodes of the system deployed in shallow water. The objectives included exercising the emplacement procedures and calibrating the in water segment as to location, orientation, and straightness. The arrays were deployed by a craft of opportunity (COOP). The PAS was installed in shore-based vans. The full system was exercised using the current software build and included classification and target tracking of real targets and a towed projector.

Using the IAT results, modeling and simulation reviews, and other development tests dating back to 1996, COMOPTEVFOR completed an Early Operational Assessment of ADS in June 1998. The COOP variant of ADS was potentially operationally effective. Potential operational suitability could not be determined due to system immaturity. Four significant areas of risk were identified by this EOA: Deployment Time, Joint Interoperability, Interoperability, and Tactics.