The Program Executive Office for Strike Weapons and Unmanned Aviation (PEO (W)) in coordination with the Seventh Fleet aircraft carrier, USS Kitty Hawk, based out of Yokosuka, Japan, participated in a combined U.S./Australian/Canadian military exercise off the eastern coast at Shoalwater Bay near Rockhampton, Australia, in May 2001. The exercise, designated Tandem Thrust 2001, included over 28,000 participants.

A central element to the exercise was the Joint Service Image Processing System-Navy (JSIPS-N) Tactical Input Segment (TIS). TIS is part of an overall upgrade to an all-digital softcopy exploitation environment within the Navy JSIPS system. It will provide the carrier battlegroup the capability to ingest, process and exploit joint theater and tactical imagery sensor data, giving the Navy access to multi-sensor platforms. When fully deployed, TIS will give Navy operators a fast and flexible tool for reviewing imagery to improve the Navy's response time for identifying and attacking targets. Lockheed Martin is under contract to develop the TIS system for the Navy.

In direct support of the Navy's attention to sensors and networks, PEO (W) and the USS Kitty Hawk team viewed Tandem Thrust 2001 as the catalyst to demonstrate a new capability for the Navy warfighter. Primary objectives of the TIS demonstration were to show real time tactical imagery from a tactical sensor (i.e., Global Hawk), using shipboard networks to analyze the tactical imagery and to provide the best possible information to the warfighter.

Throughout Tandem Thrust 2001, the communications downlink from the Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicle to the TIS on the USS Kitty Hawk was via the line-of-sight (LOS) Common Data Link - Navy (CDL-N). The CDL-N is a multi-function shipboard data link terminal installed aboard aircraft carriers and other amphibious craft to support reconnaissance/surveillance missions. It is an automated communications node that acquires data linked signals from airborne reconnaissance vehicles (manned or unmanned). In Tandem Thrust 2001, the Global Hawk/CDL-N line-of-sight link provided real time dissemination of collected Synthetic Aperture Radar, Electro Optical and Infrared imagery data. After the downlink was established, the CDL-N aboard the Kitty Hawk automatically tracked Global Hawk and its signals by using dish antennas located fore and aft of the ship.

TIS processed collected data through a joint-service component called the Common Imagery Processor (CIP). Northrop Grumman developed the CIP as a multi-sensor processor that accepts raw imagery and auxiliary support data, then processing it into a standard format. One single flight resulted in 20 hours of imagery collection with a collection of 39 images.

Cmdr. Nick Buck of PEO (W) Command and Control Systems Program Office summed up the effort by saying, "the end results of Tandem Thrust 2001 exercise proved that TIS provides the U.S. Navy with an exceptional processing capacity and the capability to meet its present and future intelligence requirements."

Other contractors providing support to the Program Executive Office include Science Applications International Corporation, Lockheed Martin Company, Northrop Grumman, L3Comm, Electronic Systems Command (ESC), as well as the many government organizations that assisted them in Tandem Thrust 2001 in support of their commitment to transform the shipboard intelligent operations for the 21st century.

To learn more about PEO (W), log on to the website at www.strikenet.js.mil