Anyone who does information technology will tell you that integrating different software packages is notoriously tough–there are lots of unintended consequences when you try to run different applications together–and even commodity hardware like PCs can break.
If you're in an ordinary workplace, you call the "help desk." But what if you're a combat Sailor or a Marine in the front lines? How can Navy warships and Marine riflemen use the American information advantage in the wet, mucky, and dangerous arena that is their workplace?
Ultimately, the men and women who defend us will need: a long-haul network for command, control, communications, and intelligence, knowledge management tools that helps them understand and act in concert on information they get, and wireless technologies that give them the bandwidth they need in the field.
These are essential components of the Navy's new concept called "FORCEnet." The Office of Naval Research has taken the lead on creating the science and technology foundation for the information architecture that will serve the Navy's new operational vision, Seapower 21. ONR has teamed with the Navy's system commands to provide real warfighting benefit now, while drafting a roadmap to the future.
The long-haul network is emerging from several initiatives. The Joint Task Force Wide Area Relay Network (WARNET) is a hardware and software architecture that ties command, control and communications systems from all the Services together in a robust combat network. The forces of US Pacific Command were involved in developing JTF WARNET from the beginning, and they have already begun to deploy it.
A variety of intelligent agents–specialized computer programs that pick out and present important data–and the software architectures these agents need to work well together make up the knowledge management part of FORCEnet. They can help Sailors and Marines sort out the important information from the trivia–if you don't manage information well in combat, you'll find that you've just replaced the fog of war with the glare of war.
New antenna technologies being developed through ONR's advanced multi-function radio frequency concept (see
