Mapping Tool Kit Offers Common View
Written by Peter Buxbaum
GIF 2009 Volume: 7 Issue: 5 (October)
Personnel To The Joint Chiefs Access To The
Same Set Of Geospatial Analytical Tools.
CJMTK provides mapping, charting, geodesy, and imagery (MCG&I) functionality for command, control, and intelligence (C2I) applications that run in the Defense Information Systems Agency’s Common Operating Environment (COE). It replaced the Joint Mapping Toolkit, a collection of governmentdeveloped and -owned application program interfaces (APIs) that enabled mission applications to interface with the COE MCG&I functionality.
In a nutshell, CJMTK provides mission programs with a set of geospatial intelligence tools. “These include virtualization tools that enable displays of maps or imagery on screens, analytical tools, and the management of all the geospatial data behind them,” explained Brett Cameron, the program manager for CJMTK at Northrop Grumman Information Systems, the program’s prime contractor.
The tools are sets of components with APIs, or they are Web services for Web-based applications, which allow the C2I systems that incorporate them to perform certain functions depending on their requirements.
CJMTK technologies are based on a single scalable open architecture, with open development environments that incorporate industry standards. CJMTK is language and platform agnostic, supporting Java, C++, and .NET—thus allowing C2I programs to incorporate components into their larger systems as they see fit, while ensuring system interoperability.
“The programs are the integrators,” Cameron said. “They incorporate the components into their applications. Some started from scratch while others are replacing legacy mapping applications.”
Thanks to cooperative arrangements with units such as the Army Geospatial Center (AGC), CJMTK also provides functionality for applications, such as battle command systems, that can be used across the armed services.
“Ten years ago, each battle command program was building its own geospatial tools,” said Vineet Gupta, AGC’s program manager for the Battlespace Terrain Reasoning Awareness (BTRA) program, which develops geospatial information and analytical tools. “What happened was that integrators realized that CJMTK is a great way to collaborate and provide common software that integrators can incorporate into their capabilities.”
Since CJMTK replaced the previous system, more than 200 C2I programs have become CJMTK-approved, according to Susan Marchant, the CJMTK program manager at NGA. Of those, 55 programs have already fielded CJMTK programs, and some 120 are currently migrating to the tool kit.
The CJMTK contract value is $115 million over the lifetime of the contract. However, after just half the period of performance, there have already been significant savings, according to Simon Warwick, defense C4ISR account manager at ESRI, the primary CJMTK technology provider.
“If we take just one of the services, the Air Force, and look at the cost of buying the commercial technology that it has secured by using the CJMTK contract, it has saved over $225 million to date,” he said. “The once-estimated 100,000 runtime seats over the life of the contract have tripled to an estimate of more than 335,000 runtime seats, and we are only halfway through this contract.”
LICENSING AGREEMENT
From NGA’s perspective, CJMTK is first and foremost a three-part, 10-year licensing agreement, said Marchant. The first part of the license is for the benefit of the C2I community, the second is for an extended CJMTK community, and the third covers foreign military sales. C2I programs that apply and are approved by NGA have access to CJMTK technologies and their upgrades at no charge for the length of the licensing agreement. The others must pick up some or all of the costs.
NGA has contracted with Northrop Grumman for integration and management services, while the key technology provider is ESRI. CJMTK’s core technology is ESRI’s ArcGIS software. This COTS product met 95 percent of DoD requirements for CJMTK and over 99 percent of required functionality right out of the box.
To meet the additional 5 percent of requirements, Northrop Grumman developed several small components, including one for coordinate conversion. It also contracted with Analytic Graphics Inc. (AGI) to provide sensor modeling and analysis tools, and with ERDAS to provide high-end image processing and analysis tools. “These particular capabilities provided by ERDAS and AGI are not typical command and control functions,” said Marchant, but are used by the intelligence community and are considered to be “supplemental capabilities outside the core functions.”
Additional requirements are periodically added to CJMTK through user committees and working groups with representatives from the services and DISA, which are convened by NGA. “New requirements must be sponsored by at least two military services or agencies,” said Marchant. “Once the requirements are accepted, they are prioritized, and if funding is available, they are implemented.”
Since its inception, CJMTK has added support for the Linux and Windows Vista operating systems, for ArcGIS Server, and for ArcGIS Network and Geostatistical Analyst Extensions for Server. CJMTK BTRA engines were added in 2008 and Projection Engine Certification was just recently added in the fall of 2009.
“New requirements are met by enhancements to current technologies and with new technologies,” said Marchant. “NGA pays for both.”
Support for Vista came free of charge to CJMTK, Marchant noted, while support for Linux was a different story. “Linux added a whole new user community to the enterprise license agreement,” she said. “There was a cost associated with that, which NGA paid.”
COMMERCIAL UPGRADES
CJMTK also benefits from periodic upgrades that ESRI makes to its commercially available product.
“DoD benefits from new technology enhancements driven and funded by the COTS paradigm,” said Warwick. “For example, the latest version of CJMTK, based on ESRI ArcGIS version 9.3.1, provided 44 new capabilities addressing previously unsatisfied and unfunded requirements. Under the CJMTK contract, for at least the next five years, as the underlying COTS technologies are updated by the vendors, the tool kit is updated at no extra cost. The CJMTK program capitalizes on the technical benefits and the economies of scale of the commercial software industry while providing the standardization, distribution mechanisms, and life cycle oversight of NGA.”
Technology enhancements flow in the opposite direction as well, as some features added to CJMTK have now also been incorporated into ESRI’s product, noted Cameron. Two examples are applications that enhance the display of geo-referenced features such as ellipses or lines of bearing, and another relating to the tracking of moving objects on the screen.
The CJMTK program provides some support to new DoD C2I mission applications migrating to CJMTK in the form of architecture guidance and prototyping support as needed at program startup. “The tool kit has an impressive depth to its functional capabilities that enable very sophisticated analysis and visualization techniques,” said Warwick, “and the CJMTK program has assisted many programs adopt best practices and lessons learned to jump-start and accelerate system development.”
CJMTK use cases run the gamut of C2I applications, ranging from very sophisticated analysis workflows such as the Defense Intelligence Agency’s Generic Area Limitation Environment program, an analysis and exploitation system for intelligence data, to Web-based systems such as the Defense Threat Reduction Agency’s Integrated Weapons of Mass Destruction Toolkit, a simulation system that models the effects of WDM.
“We have systems deployed on strategic platforms such as Joint STARS,” said Warwick, “as well as the anticipated 100,000 in-vehicle C2 systems that will make up the next generation of the Army’s Force XXI Battle Command Brigade and Below [FBCB2] program.”
CJMTK has designated the AGC as a center of excellence for the terrain portion of the C2I, noted Marchant. This has allowed the weather and terrain geospatial tools developed by AGC to be incorporated in CJMTK and shared with other armed services battle command programs.
“CJMTK has been cooperating under a technology transition agreement with the AGC Battlespace Terrain Reasoning Awareness program involving their development of advanced geospatial analysis and processing capabilities,” she said. “CJMTK is using AGC’s expertise in geospatial terrain functions to provide a set of common tools across the enterprise.”
“BTRA’s focus is the development of software analytics designed to create information and knowledge products that capture integrated terrain and weather effects and develop predictive decision tools to exploit those products,” said Gupta. “The ultimate objective is to empower commanders, soldiers and systems with information that allows them to understand and incorporate the impacts of terrain and weather on their functional responsibilities and processes.”
The Battlespace Terrain and Reasoning Awareness-Battle Command (BTRABC) system is focused on the development of several information generation components and decision tools addressing terrain and weather effects, Gupta explained. “Each of these components utilizes terrain feature data, digital elevation models, current and forecasted weather, and information regarding tactics, techniques and system performance,” he said.
“CJMTK is a way to field tools,” said Gupta. “When we developed, for example, a line-of-sight tool, it was transitioned to the guys in the field through CJMTK. We submitted the tool to Northrop Grumman Information Systems, and they integrated it into the tool kit. Once that happened the tool became available to the entire battle command community.”
SOFTWARE COMPONENTS
The software components built by BTRA are now distributed freely to all CJMTK-approved programs for their own use, and work continues to add additional BTRA extensions.
Currently available components and tools support a number of capabilities that can be used by analysts, commanders and warfighters. Among other things, they provide data and displays of the elevation and slope of roadways and terrain, identify areas of interest where enemies could hide, analyze potential routes for conducting missions and identify obstacles on them, and project the impact of weather on different locations and for different missions.
Within the next year Gupta projects that additional tools—identifying terrain choke points, analyzing dismounted networks, supporting the identification of UAV operational sites, and evaluating sensor performance— will become available.
“The infrared sensor performance tool will take weather and terrain into account in IR sensors’ identification of hot spots,” said Gupta. “The acoustic sensor tool will attempt to predict how far a helicopter can be heard as it is flying around. The unmanned aerial system sensor will provide weather and terrain information in support of decision-making for UAV takeoff and landing spots.”
Further in the future, BTRA plans on making available tools that will identify engagement areas and analyze ambush positions and avenues of approaches. BTRABC will continue research and development through 2010. Maturing BTRA-BC components will be transitioned to CJMTK.
By its very nature, and through its interactions with military services, agencies and programs, CJMTK capabilities are likely to grow in the next five years. “CJMTK is going to act as the transition manager for the Common Ground Joint Capability Demonstration, which is being led by the U.S. Joint Forces command and NATO through the Army Geospatial Center,” said Marchant.
“Common Ground aims to provide a common, shared, operational capability that creates actionable geospatial information and GEOINT that can be integrated within battle command C4I processes in support of ground combat operations,” she explained. “All this will be provided to the services, joint, NATO and coalition forces in a framework that optimizes adoption accessibility and interoperability.”
CJMTK will also be supporting the Joint C3 Information Exchange Data Model, which will be key to making the U.S. and coalition command and control system interoperable, according to Cameron. CJMTK is also in the process of wrapping up final DoD certification for an ESRI coordinates transformation engine.
Another area of future growth for CJMTK is likely to come from foreign military sales, as more programs get fielded and are increasingly exposed to coalition forces.
“We are seeing growing interest in the foreign military sales aspect of the CJMTK license agreement,” said Marchant, “and we are in discussion with several program offices and foreign governments regarding how we can assist in this process.”
The common denominator for CJMTK’s growth, past and future, is its proven contribution to providing warfighters a common view of the battlespace. “Users from warfighters to the joint chiefs have access to a common set of analytical tools,” said Marchant. “That way no one has to try to reinvent the wheel.”
Battlespace Command
The information generation components of the Battlespace Terrain and Reasoning Awareness-Battle Command (BTRA-BC) include:
- Observation, cover and concealment, obstacles and mobility, key terrain and avenues of approach (OCOKA).
- Integrated products defining operational positions of advantage.
- High-fidelity weather/terrain effects of mobility and signature physics.
- Advanced mobility analysis.
- Digital ground and air maneuver potential.
- Tactical structures relating information produced by the other components.
- Predictive multi-criteria, multiobjective maneuver and logistical route analysis for ground and air platforms and forces.
- Predictive sensor performance, for infrared, millimeter wave, seismic and acoustic sensors.
- Terrain-based course of action evaluation and war gaming.
- Predictive threat assessment.
