Lockheed Martin demonstrates Coalition intelligence interoperability

Using advanced, multi-level security intelligence sharing technologies, Lockheed Martin enabled members of the "Five Eyes" international consortium (United States, Canada, Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand) to securely share intelligence of dissimilar classifications during the recent Empire Challenge Joint Forces exercise. The end to end processing, dissemination, and exploitation of non-traditional intelligence data was also demonstrated using fully operational products built on the new Defense Intelligence Information Enterprise framework.

"What we demonstrated at Empire Challenge was the art of the possible," said Jim Quinn, vice president for C4ISR Systems with Lockheed Martin's IS&GS-Defense. "The demand for better, quicker intelligence sharing between our allies has never been more important than it is today. By leveraging our expertise in secure intelligence processing we provided 'Five Eyes' nations access to real-time intelligence from classified and unclassified networks." Quinn went on to say that building enterprise grade services and applications "that are affordable and reusable provide benefit to more than any single cadre of users."

Currently, coalition access to intelligence from the global Distributed Common Ground System (DCGS) sites (which process, correlate and disseminate intelligence feeds from air, ground and sea-based assets) is limited solely to US force collaborators, or requires utilization of high level cross-domain guard solutions, both of which inhibit seamless intelligence sharing between multi-national forces.

Operating at multiple locations including Langley Air Force Base, Va., and Fort Huachuca, Ariz., in an environment replicating that of Afghanistan, the team demonstrated capabilities that managed vast amounts of high definition video and intelligence data spanning multiple security domains using Lockheed Martin's Trusted Manager (TMAN) data guard. Then, employing soon-to-be-fielded next generation intelligence sharing technology developed for the DCGS Integration Backbone (DIB), the team enabled US and "Five Eyes" coalition partners to readily access intelligence data and video from classified and unclassified networks among multi-national partners.

Current access to operational DIB data is limited to only US forces, requiring a cross-domain secure guard to enable US and coalition collaboration. Lockheed Martin's development and employment of the latest generation of DIB technology within the DCGS Enterprise verifies data classification tags against user security credentials before allowing them access to data. This trusted computing layer enacts authentication and authorization access controls to enable coalition partners to discover and access intelligence via the DIB as it became available using interoperability standards. The benefit is twofold: US and coalition partners share the same intelligence as it becomes available and, more significantly in today's fight, trusted credentials and open architecture increases the availability of intelligence while reducing delivery time.

Lt. Col. Thomas Tschuor, the US Air Force DCGS Multi-Service Execution Team Office Director, noted that the upcoming release of the DIB Message Translation Service, deployed at Empire Challenge 2011, demonstrates the sharing and interoperability of new and existing applications and services within the enterprise. Lt. Col. Tschuor added, "the next release of the DIB version 3.0 will contain the Message Translation Service and will enable faster and more affordable exposure of intelligence data to the DIB federation at the enterprise level."

Empire Challenge is an annual joint and coalition interoperability demonstration that showcases emerging US and multi-national intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance solutions that can be fielded rapidly. The 2011 demonstration was held at Fort Huachuca with distributed locations throughout the United States and coalition sites in the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia.

Source: Lockheed Martin

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