GDR 99 - Communications Systems

Battle Innovation for the 21st Century


Section Articles
• Nato & European Digitisation • The Tactical Infosphere • Satellite Revolution • C21 Battle Innovation • Systems Expert
Top: Litton's six lb programmable integrated terminal enables connection to any shipboard surveillance monitor camera while continuing to receive intercom/phone calls and monitor the internal radio nets

Litton Data Systems: building on four decades of experience.

Litton Data Systems has been designing, producing and delivering battle-management command-and-control software and hardware to the US military services and to the militaries of friendly nations for almost four decades. The company has developed high-quality reliable systems for missile defence, tactical air operations, artillery fire control, digital communications and naval warfare. This diverse domain expertise has given Litton a field-proven performance record for providing battlespace awareness through the application of intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance technologies.

Today Litton has over 3,000 operational systems deployed and in actual field use throughout the world, and these turn-key systems contain software programmes approaching 1.5bn lines of code. Currently the company has nearly two million lines of code under contract and in development and the goal is to provide information dominance capability to the battlefield warrior Ð present and future.

A range of C2 accomplishments
Among its accomplishments, Litton is proud to list the 144 AN/TYQ-23 tactical air-control systems fielded with the US Air Force and the US Marine Corps in 1986 and now being upgraded to incorporate new and emerging technologies. The company is also proud of its complex and highly effective battle-management command, control, and communications software that integrates the theatre high-altitude area defence (THAAD) system radars and missiles. Two decades ago Litton designed and built TACFIRE, the first automated US Army artillery fire-control hardware and software. TACFIRE was fielded in the late 1970s, and the software for its lightweight version, known as the initial fire-support automated system (IFSAS), is presently fielded in the US Army's light divisions and is being tested and evaluated by several foreign military services. Beginning in 1968, Litton designed, developed, integrated and tested multiple types of electronic combat system for over 155 US Navy surface combatants, and still continues to provide smaller, faster and less expensive solutions to such essential navy requirements as integrated shipboard communications and fleet-wide simulation and training.

The company's programmable integrated communications terminal (PICT) is an innovative answer to the problem of integrating shipboard communications and is an integral part of Litton's scaled integrated voice communication system (SIVCS) installed on the USS Enterprise and on the LHD 5 and 6 amphibious assault ships.

Innovation today


Originally deployed in standard ISO shelters, proved TACFIRE functionality is delivered today by Litton's IFSAS software via handheld terminal units weighing less than five lbs, and man-portable lightweight computer units that weigh less than 35 lbs

Building on this long-term expertise, Litton is the prime contractor for the US Air Force's region/sector air operations centre (R/SAOC) modernisation programme that is bringing real-time, air-defence command-and-control capabilities for the first time in an open-architecture software environment to the joint north American community. Litton's R/SAOC team is building a robust and expandable defence information infrastructure common operating environment (DII COE) compliant architecture while making maximum use of commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS), government -off-the-shelf (GOTS), and non-developmental item (NDI) software and hardware.

The R/SAOC programme features battle-tested technology in an open-architecture COTS workstation; exceptional and proven automatic radar-tracking performance; Ada software developed with certified object-orientated-design (OOD) methodology; standard operator interfaces for surveillance and weapons control; distributed processor architecture with extremely high-performance reserves; and high system redundancy for backup and growth. The R/SAOC's object-orientated distributed software architecture facilitates portability, emphasises re-usability, and promotes system growth. This software's processing requirements are allocated to self-contained, independent, functional modules that support the distribution of specified functionality over multiple processors. The Litton team is providing communications capability as well as capacity growth through an integrated and modular COTS system. Multiple local-area networks interconnect redundant processors to provide a high-availability, robust system architecture, and these networks extend to all system workstations for full redundancy and function interchangeability.

Innovation tomorrow
Litton has now designed a broader command- and-control application based on the R/SAOC architecture. Envisioned as an advanced command, control, communications, computers, and intelligence (C4I) system, this prototype is a horizontally designed C4I system that is compliant with the NATO open-system environment (OSE) reference model. Litton's design provides a shared, common, real-time picture of the battlespace that enables tri-service (army, navy, and air force) situational awareness and control of battlespace dynamics and operational tempo. The database design uses common operational data at all system positions, thus enabling battle decisions to be made quickly and effectively. The screens can be tailored at the individual workstations according to the specialty of the operator, and on-screen, user-friendly process assistants provide step-by-step guides for the operator.


Link: www.littondsd.com/hitec

This new C4I system design is intended to expand in size and capability to meet the challenges of the 21st century. The design readily accepts new hardware and software without changes to the basic design. Extra system nodes, subscribers, and operator positions can be integrated as needed, and the entire operating system can be upgraded with changes to applications. Further, new technologies can be infused and modifications can be made without interrupting operations. Such advanced and innovative design exemplifies Litton's continued dedication to anticipating and meeting customer requirements for the fast-moving, emerging, 21st-century battlefield.

Our business concern
According to armed-forces planners, future military-based security will depend on two inter-related achievements. One is to field combat systems with the ability to multiply substantially the present tempo of fighting a war. The other is to at least double the speed with which new versions of such systems are fielded. At Litton Data Systems that is exactly is happening. The success of present and future warriors is the company's concern. Battle management command and control is the company's business.