Mission Planning Engineering & Integration
Gnostech's continued leadership role in mission planning engineering is demonstrated by the development of the Collaborative Advanced Planning Environment (CAPE), a revolutionary approach to enhance warfighter collaboration.
:: The Current Challenge
The challenge today in Naval flight mission planning is two-fold. First, providing the US/Homeland Security and Coalition forces engaged in flight mission planning a cost-effective, simplified method to share sensitive and classified information quickly and reliably with each other. Second, providing US/Homeland Security and Coalition forces an easy way to verbally and visually collaborate over mission planning activities. Currently, this is done awkwardly through walking from one work space to another, carrying relevant data on floppy disks or USB thumb drives. This kind of work-flow, without reliable security safeguards, is inefficient, cumbersome, and much less secure.
:: The Proposed Solution
The Collaborative Advanced Planning Environment (CAPE) serves as multi-network, multi-level encrypted data repository supported by a cross-domain (a device which prevents data from a higher security classification network domain from passing to a lower one) portal environment to enhance collaboration between Coalition and US End-users involved with mission planning. End-users are defined as mission planners, intelligence analysts, imagery analysts, or command and control operational analysts. CAPE will support the Joint Mission Planning System (JMPS) with a Portal machine and several CAPE-enabled JMPS workstations. In addition to supporting cross-domain data transfers,
CAPE includes tools to enhance data collaboration. These tools include the CAPE Dashboard to facilitate data transfer and access from CAPE clients to the CAPE Portal, 3D flight visualization and optimization tools, secure chat and video, real-time Powerpoint briefing, and a data “Mash-Up” routine to facilitate data collaboration between disparate CAPE-enabled workstations. CAPE has the ability to retrieve threat and target data from other DoD systems, such as GCCS-I3.
:: How CAPE Works and Realized Benefits
CAPE utilizes a low-cost, small footprint implementation that hosts up to 6 domain-separated servers and/or clients on the same machine. CAPE utilizes a lost-cost, customizable, modular, and certified GOTS CDS solution providing secure domain separation between networks. The modularity of the implementation isolates security functionality of the end-user OS and applications. Security functions such as encryption are placed in a separate protected environment that cannot be affected by user software. Similarly, an isolated filtering router function provides protection from rudimentary network attacks.
- Private Chat, Conference and File Sending Tools (important for mission collaboration)
- Whiteboard to share Powerpoint briefs, etc. (important for mission collaboration)
- Auto Data encryption between machines (data security)
- “Mash-Up” capability (data mining between CAPE clients, allows CAPE system to identify useful information on a CAPE workstation that has not been manually shared with others)
- Flight Visualization, Simulation & Modeling Tools
- Route Visualization (view planned route in 3D)
- Route De-confliction (detect flight routes which pass too closely or conflict with another route)
- Sensor Visualization (view what fighter sensors can detect)
- Threat Visualization (view what known threats, such as surface-to-air missles, can “see”)
- Auto Reroute Capability (use simulation and modeling tool to plan route for you, taking into account known threats and radar avoidance schemes)
- AGI STK 4D/3D Map View (a 3D modeling and simulation mapping tool capable of supporting “plug-in” analysis tools)
For more information, read the case study "4D for the Joint Mission Planning System" which describes how Gnostech enhances JMPS with STK and CAPE.