New Capability Quests Boldly, "AIMS" High

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  • By David Canestrare
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ROME, New York --  Three years of focused collaboration between Air Force Research Laboratory researchers in Rome, New York, and Northrop Grumman personnel has yielded a lightweight, tactical storage resource broker for capturing, storing, and dispensing critical operational data for in-theater warfighter use. The system--developed by NG under contract to AFRL and aptly dubbed the Advanced Information Management System--underwent successful demonstration during Bold Quest 2009, a US Joint Forces Command-designed event for assessing air/ground exchange of tactical information and improving the capacity of coalition warfighters to identify friendly forces on the ground.

A client-server system, AIMS integrates with its server host--in this case, a single-board computer incorporated in the LITENING targeting pod of an F-16--to record, catalog (via metadata tagging), store, broker, and disseminate intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance data. The server-based AIMS leverages a publish/subscribe/query architecture to provide [client] users--in this case, Joint Tactical Air Controllers running air strike operations from Bold Quest headquarters--with near-real-time information entailing video and imagery, blue force identification, and sensor points of interest. In addition to aiding tactical direct access to situational awareness, command and control, and targeting capabilities (as well as bolstering overall exercise effectiveness), the system's performance facilitated a series of valuable postmission analyses conducted in Bold Quest's wake.

Specifically, AIMS' near-real-time management of information, coupled with the significant capabilities of the LITENING G4 pod, enabled effective coordination between shooters and coalition ground entities--a synchronization that achieved exercise objectives pertaining both to tactical data exchange and to fratricide minimization. This positive demonstration outcome establishes the utility of AIMS as a force multiplier capable of supporting multiple airborne platforms and headquarters activity alike. Among the various platforms that could potentially benefit from incorporating AIMS are the Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System, North Atlantic Treaty Organization Alliance Ground Surveillance system, Global Hawk, MQ-X, LITENING pod, Battlefield Air Targeting system, Long Endurance Multi-Intelligence Vehicle, Battlefield Airborne Communications Node, Fire Scout, C-130, and small surveillance aircraft.

Accordingly, the same architecture that precipitates the quick consumption, assimilation, and distribution of information products as they arise also accommodates scalability. This is an important feature, whether considered in terms of Global Hawk Block 40 rates or the resident single-board computers supporting pods and unmanned air vehicles of all sizes. Ultimately, it is this performance and flexibility that makes AIMS a primary choice for multiservice, multiplatform, heterogeneous information management services across the battlespace.