By Bryan Bender, JDW Bureau Chief
Washington DC
As technology companies Motorola and Sun Microsystems have developed a
prototype computer architecture that company and military officials believe could
significantly improve the ability of military forces to link together disparate
information systems to achieve a higher level of interoperability.
Motorola and Sun have developed the Openwings architecture with
"guidance" from the US Army, but using their own research dollars. They are
marketing Openwings to the US Department of Defense (DoD) as a promising way to clear many
of the obstacles to systems interoperability that are inherent when relying on many
disparate command, control, communications, computer, intelligence, surveillance and
reconnaissance (C4ISR) products to seamlessly feed information into tactical operation
centers and other command and control nodes.
"As we look to the future, it is evident that our current systems
will not meet projected battle dynamics in the 21st century," said a study prepared
earlier this year by Motorola and Sun. "Today's information infrastructure was
designed and built to satisfy requirements that, at the time [the early 1980s], were
primarily for voice and low speed data. The future battlefield information infrastructure
must provide an environment that supports connectivity and interoperability across the
battlefield using high bandwidth terrestrial, wireless and space-based communications to
provide a single network for passing voice, video and data."
Openwings is a set of open systems specifications, or standards, designed
specifically to promote the "robust, self-forming, self-healing 'systems of systems'
integration" of different C4ISR systems. "We believe that a systems framework
based on the Openwings specifications may solve many ... interoperability issues."
according to a statement from the project. "The integration of Openwings into ...
command and control and sensor systems will also enable field commanders to spontaneously
add new hardware and software without reconfiguring the entire network."
The new specification includes standards governing security, data access,
communications and how self-forming systems can federate their services. The prototype
architecture focuses on providing service in four primary areas of C4ISR:
Security, including a distributed model for authentication and
authorization, secure access to data repositories, encryption and user/key management;
Software, including a framework to define how "entities"
provide and use services available on the network;
Communication, including mechanisms for automatically locating,
configuring and accessing communication resources within the system; and
Management, including ensuring manageability, survivability and, perhaps
most importantly, reconfigurability.
On the tactical level, the Openwings architecture could "greatly
reduce the complexity and size of future army [tactical operations centers], while
enhancing operational performance and battlefield survivability", according to
Motorola. "It provides the battlefield commanders with distinct operational
advantages, including increased force dispersion and the ability to quickly mass and
synchronise forces at the right place and time."
Company officials recently briefed US military commands in the USA and
abroad, and so far have received a positive response, according to Menel Solomon of
Motorola's Integrated Systems Division. Project officials have demonstrated the
architecture to officials at US Army Europe and 5th Corps headquarters as well as the US
Air Force Electronic Systems Center, Hanscom Air Force Base, Massachusetts. "The
military's reaction has been very encouraging," Solomon said.
On a more strategic level, Motorola and Sun see Openwings as an
"enabler" of a Global Battlefield Information Network (GBIN), tying together
sensor system grids with engagement, or "shooter", and control grids to meet the
changing nature of warfare. Creation of a GBIN is a top priority of the US Joint Chiefs of
Staff's Joint Vision 2020.
Motorola and Sun are marketing Openwings as a "completely open
standard" that will not be proprietary. Solomon said its developers want Openwings
"to be used by the rest of the industry community that does this kind of work"
and plan to license it.
