The US Army hosted a coalition interoperability experiment to identify performance shortfalls and to evaluate future network architectures that will better enable interoperability for coalition ground forces brigade and below, prevent fratricide and extend continuity of operations, recently.

The US Army Research, Development and Engineering Command’s communications-electronics RD&E Center, or CERDEC, provided experimentation and interoperability support to Project Manager Mission Command to validate the interoperability of the National Command & Control Information System and to produce a roadmap with capacities, performance assessments and recommendations for future systems.

The experiment was conducted under the 5-Powers Net-Centric Agreement among England, France, Germany, Italy and the United States, which concludes this year.

“Soldiers need to accurately pass friendly force information to coalition partners for mission execution, but there are challenges to receiving the same pieces of data through different methodologies in a net-centric environment,” said Kenneth Grippo, Cognition Branch chief for CERDEC’s Command, Power & Integration directorate.

The experiment will aid in identifying interoperability gaps and whether those gaps are due to specifications, national implementation or the technology itself. The results will be used to maximise situational awareness, to understand and utilise coalition resources, to avoid duplication of coalition efforts and to increase flexibility of functionality, Grippo noted.