Lockheed Martin [LMT] will pursue Increment 2 of the Army’s version of the Distributed Common Ground System, (DCGS-A), according to a company executive.
DCGS-A is the Army’s current system for intelligence information sharing, processing, operational use and storage. DCGS-A Increment 2 is the Army’s next phase of DCGS-A development (Defense Daily, Aug. 20
).
Photo: U.S. Army
The Army is testing software developed by Lockheed Martin that the company says will help it sort through terabytes of intelligence data gleamed from manned and unmanned sources. This is part of an ongoing test and evaluation process that includes multiple estates of technology reviews, practical application evaluations and operational user tests, the company said.
Lockheed Martin Director of Army Strategic and Tactical Solutions Gerald Mamrol said Monday the company has delivered two types of software to a system integration lab at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md., and is serving in a support role as the Army puts the software through independent verification. The software is called Automated Entity Merge Service (AEMS) and DataMover
AEMS merges similar real-world intelligence data for analysts who are faced with thousands of entities that would otherwise need to be manually reviewed. DataMover converts data and allows intelligence to be transferred across the DCGS-A enterprise.
Lockheed Martin believes DataMover will save time because it is often necessary to convert intelligence data from one format to another so it can be shared, due to DCGS-A being deployed worldwide, sometimes with different versions of software.
As integration or software problems pop up, Mamrol said, the Army will send it back to Lockheed Martin and other companies supporting this release for bug fixes and prepare the software for Network Integration Event (NIE) 15.1, a major milestone slated for May, according to the Army. The Army is working with Lockheed Martin to update DCGS-A as the service prepares for fielding in 2015, according to a company statement.
Mamrol said NIE is a live, full-scale operational simulation out at Fort Bliss, Texas, where the Army tests and validates that systems it has procured are fit for use.
“They put them in the hands of real soldiers…trying to use these situations in an environment that is not unlike some of the areas they’ve operated in overseas,” Mamrol told Defense Daily at the Association of the United States Army (AUSA) convention in Washington.
DCGS is a family of systems that enables military analysts from all services to access shared intelligence, according to Lockheed Martin. DCGS-A takes sensor data from all sources (signals, imagery and human intelligence) and integrates it into a common data format in a fused environment, making multi-source intelligence analysis possible.
DCGS-A, the Army’s intelligence component, enables decision makers to gather, analyze, and share intelligence information. It has seven main capabilities: planning and direction, collection, processing and exploitation, analysis, prediction, battlespace awareness, data dissemination, and relay, according to the Army.
A few examples of tools used under these seven categories are: analyzing imagery or map products, processing collected cell phone data, reporting human intelligence and matching biometrics.
The Army issued a request for information (RFI) in August, seeking written feedback from all potential commercial vendors. The responses will inform the Army’s competitive strategy for DCGS-A Increment 2.