Software Voyage

Written by Peter Buxbaum

GIF 2009 Volume: 7 Issue: 6 (November/December)

The U.S. military is moving toward a model that exploits the benefits of digital navigation systems. Many platforms, including soldier systems, are benefiting from electronic systems that combine digital charts, global positioning and environmental sensors, while getting rid of reams of paper.

In May 2005, for example, the USS Cape St. George became the first Navy vessel authorized to transition to a fully digital navigation system.

In 2007, the USS Oklahoma City became the first submarine to go completely digital for navigation. The following year, the Army’s UH-60M Black Hawk was inaugurated as the newest version of that helicopter, featuring a fully digital navigation system. As is the case with many systems that benefit from automation, there has been an explosion in recent years of available geospatial and navigation data, requiring a paradigm shift. “The most important thing is how to present navigation information that is growing exponentially in an effective, actionable way, in a way that enhances safety and decision-making,” said Kris Jones, a senior manager of marketing operations at Jeppesen, a subsidiary of Boeing Commercial Aviation Services.

The Navy’s digital navigation efforts are being standardized around the Voyage Management System (VMS), which was developed by Sperry Marine, a Northrop Grumman unit.

“The Voyage Management System is a software application that, when coupled with digital hardware and nautical charts provided by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, provides a digital navigation capability for the Navy,” said Ray LaFreniere, navigation systems product director at the Navy Program Executive Office, Integrated Warfare Systems (PEO IWS). “The Voyage Management System software is the only software application certified by the Navy to meet its requirements.”

The requirements are defined by International Maritime Organization and Navy specifications for electronic chart display and information systems.

VMS software replaces navigation functions previously performed on paper charts. “These are now done electronically by the VMS software and the network computer,” said LaFreniere. “The display allows the electronic chart to be shared by the entire watch team. When coupled with an integrated bridge system, VMS can also provide steerage and propulsion controls to the autopilot.”

“VMS technology represents an extraordinary leap forward for the Navy,” added Jeffrey Holloway, director of U.S. defense business development and marketing/sales for Northrop Grumman Sperry Marine. “For centuries, the state of the art in marine navigation was defined by manual plotting of a ship’s estimated position on a paper chart by projecting its course and speed from the last known location.”

VMS, by contrast, allows naval personnel to see a ship’s realtime position and movement superimposed on an electronic chart display.

The result, said Holloway, is improved safety at sea and enhanced situational awareness for the ship’s bridge watch standers. “The primary purpose of VMS is to contribute to safe navigation,” he said. “The system is designed to use the power, accuracy and speed of computers to increase the situational awareness of bridge and combat information center watch standers, and to reduce the decision cycle by automating many time-consuming tasks in voyage planning and navigation.”

AUTOMATIC PLOTTING

VMS consists of one or more computer workstations connected by a LAN, with additional workstations or remote monitors providing a VMS display at other required locations. “The VMS provides flexible and unfettered access to the electronic chart, and to other navigational data, for watch standers on the bridge and in other key areas aboard ship such as the combat information center,” said Holloway. “Using the data supplied by the VMS, watch standers can spend less time in gathering information, and more time in important decision-making functions.”

On the bridge, multiple VMS stations allow shipboard personnel to accomplish more than one navigation task at a time. For example, one VMS station can function as a navigation station while another is used as a planning station without interfering with each other.

“The system allows for automatic plotting of ships’ positions based on input from on-board position sensors,” noted LaFreniere. “It also allows users to set up electronic voyage route planning in advance and receive a commanding officer’s approval. It also contains an electronic data log-in and playback capability that can be used for training purposes or for incident investigation.”

VMS also short-circuits the notice-to-mariner process by updating charts electronically. A “notice to mariner” is an update message sent out to ships notifying them of changes to data that appears on charts.

The VMS is a scalable system that operates in a peer-to-peer networking environment, Holloway explained, allowing for the sharing of data across all VMS nodes. The nodes, which consist of separate computer workstations where different operators can access the system, can number from a single node to over 15 nodes located throughout a ship.

The VMS gathers data from a wide variety of sources and renders that information in a common, comprehensive view. “By supporting both standards-based and proprietary interfaces, the VMS can capture relevant geospatial data from most shipboard systems,” said Holloway. “Chart data is provided by NGA or by other official national hydrographic offices. Location and other geospatial data can be ingested from many shipboard systems, including local radars, sonar, AIS and other sensors.”

The VMS was developed on the Microsoft Windows platform using the C# computer language and the Microsoft .NET development framework. The VMS uses standard network architecture protocols to share data. The VMS accepts sensor data through a variety of standards-based interfaces, either through a standard serial interface connection or through the network, and is able to display nautical charts from a variety of formats.

The VMS is designed to integrate multiple shipboard devices including radars, AIS units and ship sensor aggregator systems. It also supports a COTS sonar, rendering the sonar return in a threedimensional view.

VMS is being deployed through multiple Navy programs in a number of different ways, according to LaFreniere. It is being installed on CG cruisers and DDG destroyers as part of integrated bridge systems. It is also being deployed as part of “scalable integrated bridge systems,” which allows for electronic chart displays but does not tie into propulsion and steering systems, on CBN carriers and LHA and LHD amphibious ships. In addition, it is part of AB/ BPS-15/16 radar systems on submarines, and is part of navigation command and control systems on MCM minehunter vessels.

“Current plans call for approximately 236 vessels to be outfitted with VMS by the end of fiscal 2014,” said LaFreniere. As these systems are installed throughout the fleet, Holloway noted, many will receive Visionmater FT, a multi-function workstation that can display radar, digital charts, and other shipboard systems such as machinery monitoring information, alarms and closed-circuit television.

“It is the newest advancement in navigation system technology from Sperry Marine,” he said.

DATA EXPLOSION

At Jeppesen, the most critical current challenge is how to present to an air crew and manage an ever-growing volume of information that may be involved in executing an aviation mission. New data that flight crews must ingest before embarking on a mission derives from several sources, according to Jones.

“The source most important to the growth of new data is the new navigation technologies that are being implemented, which require the development of more procedures every day,” he said. “Thousands of pages of new approach procedures are published each year by civil and military agencies, and all of this is on top of legacy navigation concepts that have always been in place.”

A second aspect of the data explosion is more tactical in nature, involving applications such as the blue force tracking of friendly forces. “Our users have told us that availability of this more accurate information would be more useful if only it could be presented in an effective way and integrated with other information needed to execute missions,” said Jones.

Jeppesen’s approaches to managing and presenting all of this information have several aspects. It is a leading aggregator of global navigation information of interest to all aspects of the aviation community. This includes any information necessary for aeronautical navigation, such as airport approach and departure procedures, airport diagrams and communications data, as well as, for the in-route environment, the coordinate, altitude, wavepoint and other information that makes up the complex international global airspace system.

The company also is a provider of software that allows electronic access to this information from the cockpit, and has developed a data management and distribution system that assures that specific flight crews have access to the information they need.

“The idea behind the software interface is to get any information you need with just a few mouse clicks,” said Jones. “The data distribution and management system allows crews to distribute specific information down to specific tails. This provides assurance from a command and control perspective that every aircraft, when it launches, has the right and most up-to-date information securely on the aircraft no matter what. Our customers tell us this represents 80 percent of the problem to be solved.”

Solution packages of data and applications, sometimes referred to as electronic flight bags, are at the early stages of adoption among U.S. and other militaries. “We are working with a couple of squadrons that have adopted our technology,” said Jones.

While Jeppesen provides data and applications, it is not a provider of cockpit hardware. “We have carefully made our solutions hardware agnostic so that pilots operating on airlift aircraft or combat don’t have to retrain multiple times no matter what hardware device they are using to interface with the information,” said Jones.

Jeppesen’s electronic flight bag solution provides a bundle of applications and data that can be integrated with any piece of hardware operating Windows. That bundle includes electronic access to an organization’s own publications and charts; Jeppesen’s terminal charts; moving maps showing an aircraft’s position within an airport and offering guidance and situational awareness while navigating on the surface; in-route moving maps; an application to view text publications such as operations manuals; and a data distribution and management system to create packages of information to be sent to individual aircraft.

The package also comes with a software development kit that allows users to take their own third party or legacy applications and integrate them into the electronic flight bag.

Jones sees a number of advantages to the electronic flight bag. “First and foremost is the ability to manage the complex distribution of information,” he said. “It is different than a pilot updating a laptop on a case-by-case base. With this solution, flight crews are assured the right data is on the flight deck every time.” The solution is also user friendly, according to Jones. “The Jeppesen interface was developed based on feedback from users and customers,” he said. “These applications are all based on how professional pilots execute their jobs in the cockpit.”

The solution also provides access to more data than that provided by the Department of Defense alone. “It provides access to anything published no matter what the source,” said Jones. Finally, the solution provides greater capabilities to users without having to add more hardware in the cockpit. “Users can’t add more hardware on the flight deck every time they want a new capability,” said Jones. “This solution was developed so that a single device could provide access to all necessary information.”

HANDHELD AWARENESS

The trend within the U.S. military toward deploying digital navigation systems extends as well to providing individual warfighters with handheld devices, such as the Defense Advanced GPS Receiver (DAGR), a handheld device supplied by Rockwell Collins. The company has delivered more than 300,000 DAGR units and more than 1.5 million accessories since it was selected by the Air Force for full-rate production in 2003.

The DAGR is a handheld GPS receiver that provides position, navigation and situational awareness. The DAGR’s dual frequency radio frequency front end allows continuous track of both the L1/ L2 GPS satellite frequencies.

The DAGR Map System allows an operator to load and display map sets consisting of vector maps, which depict road networks; raster maps, which display terrain images; satellite imagery; and non-geospatial bitmap images on the device. These maps and images, along with waypoints, routes and alerts, can then be viewed on the DAGR’s moving map displays, providing enhanced situational awareness to the operator. Operators have the ability to transfer map sets contained in one DAGR to another.

The DAGR Map System utilizes the NGA’s Commercial Joint Mapping Toolkit (C/JMTK) software and Rockwell Collins’ GPS Map Toolkit.

Rockwell Collins earlier this year received a $20.2 million contract modification to provide 81,622 DAGR handheld GPS receivers and accessories to the Air Force GPS Wing in El Segundo, Calif.

This fall, the company introduced a new MicroDAGR handheld GPS receiver for war-fighters, a smaller version of the DAGR. The MicroDAGR provides dismounted soldiers with realtime position, navigation, moving maps and timing information on a full-color touch screen display, and is small enough to be worn on the wrist, attached to a lanyard, or placed in a pocket. The receiver initially features L1 frequency capability, utilizing military-only secure GPS signals with anti-jamming and antispoofing capabilities.

“The MicroDAGR represents a major step forward in delivering a small, lightweight, easy-to-use GPS receiver to the military,” said Bruce King, vice president and general manager of surface solutions for Rockwell Collins. “We can’t wait to get this innovative new system into the hands of our soldiers so they can be equipped with the latest technology for enhanced situational awareness, safety and security.”

Designed in response to feedback from soldiers in the field, the MicroDAGR also incorporates several new features, including vibration alert, an MP3 player and a digital camera. These features will allow soldiers to record images of the battlefield for after action review and analysis, listen to foreign language translations of important commands and phrases, and get silent alerts from their MicroDAGR when they reach preprogrammed waypoints and/or danger areas.

The first deliveries of the MicroDAGR will go to the Army Rapid Equipping Force in January. ♦

Back to Top