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Naval Postgraduate School Team Tests Multimission Tracking System

Navy NewsStand

Story Number: NNS090721-17
Release Date: 7/21/2009 4:56:00 PM

By Barbara Honegger, Naval Postgraduate School Public Affairs

MONTEREY, Calif. (NNS) -- The U.S. Navy recently selected the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) to be the operational test agent (OTA) for a new, tunable, multimission-capable, multi-sensor intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) system that could cut costs while improving the way the military identifies and tracks targets on land and at sea.

A faculty-student team, led by Prof. Shelley Gallup, the director of the NPS's Distributed Information Systems Experimentation Research Group, and Brian Wood, research associate and program manager of OTA, developed and will coordinate portions of the joint capability technology demonstrations (JCTD) for the Joint Multi-Mission Electro-Optic System (JMMES).

JMMES enables ground or airborne operators to switch between real-time image processing algorithms to detect, classify, identify and track camouflaged and concealed targets day or night in eight mission areas: anti-submarine and surface warfare; maritime interdiction operations (MIOs); mine countermeasures; search and rescue; counter improvised explosive devices (IEDs); counter camouflage, concealment and detection; and illicit crop detection. The common-turreted sensor suite includes electro-optic and infrared sensors, a laser designator/range finder and, in the future, a magnetic anomaly detector. The sensor suite can be mounted on piloted fixed- or rotary-wing aircraft and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).

"JMMES has the potential to be revolutionary for airborne surveillance and reconnaissance, which is absolutely critical to protect troops and allow commanders real-time information from the battlefield," said Gallup, who also serves as the principal investigator for the JMMES OTA project. "It could be a game changer for high-cost-savings technical capabilities innovation because it greatly enlarges the mission area by changing the software instead of creating expensive new technical platforms to address each threat area. Costs could be greatly reduced by optimizing, reducing and standardizing hardware, training, concepts of operations, maintenance and logistics requirements across multiple priority mission areas."

"Currently, if an operational commander has a UAV or manned aircraft out on a counter IED mission and needs it for an at sea maritime interdiction operation, he has to task a second asset or call it back and have a new MIO-mission-specific sensor installed, increasing reconfiguration downtime," Wood explained.

"We still have testing of all eight mission area algorithms and the analysis ahead, but JMMES may be a major time and money saver for joint and allied operational commanders," Wood said, "as the system significantly reduces the number of platforms and people -- and time -- needed to perform an increased number of missions."

Two NPS officer students are researching aspects of JMMES for their joint master's thesis. Information warfare systems engineering students Marine Corps Maj. Bronchae Brown and Lt. Brian Schulz will analyze how JMMES impacts the ISR process and compare and contrast JMMES and traditional ISR systems methodologies.

"As an information warfare officer in an EP-3 squadron, I noticed increasing flight delays on ISR missions because we didn't always have the right carry-on equipment installed," Schulz noted. "A multi-mission sensor system like this would be a huge cost and time saver for our operations."

In February 2009, the NPS team employed a Navy King Air aircraft fitted with one of two JMMES prototypes to check its concept of operations and data collection and analysis procedures during an anti-submarine warfare exercise near San Clemente Island, Calif.

After collecting and analyzing data from full operational test demonstrations to occur from June to August 2009, the NPS team will produce an analysis of JMMES so that a military utility assessment can be made, after which the system may be selected for transitioning to manned and unmanned Naval aircraft programs of record. The Naval Postgraduate School team's reports are due in December 2009.

The sponsoring combatant command for the JMMES JCTD is U.S. Pacific Command with Commander, U.S. 3rd Fleet as the operational manager, supported by U.S. Southern Command. Naval Air Command is the program manager and technical operator for all test events. The prime contractor for JMMES software and sensor integration is BAE Systems, and the turret hardware is produced by Wescam. In addition to the U.S. Navy, other system users will include the Canadian Defense Force and may include the Department of Homeland Security, the National Guard and the Coast Guard.

For more news from the Naval Postgraduate School, visit www.navy.mil/local/nps/.