The U.S. Navy has a new $l.3 billion plan to convert its archaic information system protocols and equipment into a modern open architecture so that it can fight as a fleet tightly woven by data networks. 

Navy leaders have adopted a two-pronged approach to begin moving the entire surface fleet by 2010 into compliance with a recently established set of computing standards and protocols, collectively called an open architecture. 

The open architecture will allow the service to use common software across many weapon and combat systems. Much of the Navy's current software is designed for a specific weapon or system. 

"We have to do open architecture to make our combat systems supportable and upgradeable in a major way.” Navy acquisition executive John Young said April 6 at the Navy League’s Sea-Air-Space exposition in Washington. 

The service first intends to rapidly bring computing environments on select aircraft carriers, big-deck amphibious ships, destroyers and cruisers into compliance with the new architecture by 2008. More than $800 million is being redirected from precious spending plans for information technology through 2009, including $111 million this year to support this first phase.

 Next, in a tandem effort, the Navy has established a new long term
strategy to bring the rest of the fleet into compliance with its open architecture. It will emulate U.S. submarines, who are converting the undersea fleet to open architectures, component by component. 

Called the “Rapid Capability Insertion Process/Advanced Processor Build,” this model calls for ships with the new architecture to receive software upgrades every two years, and computer hardware improvements every four years. 

“Once you get into the model of the future, you have a continuous way to organize your investment framework,” said Navy Capt. Richard Rushton, chief of the network systems and integration branch of the Surface Warfare Directorate on the Navy staff. “You need a modernization insertion process that allows you to rapidly insert those things you need … It is much more responsive to the needs of the future than we’ve had.”

 This effort would require $500 million in the six-year spending plan that begins in 2006, and hit the fleet beginning 2010, service officials said.

Catching Up with Technology 

   The U.S. Navy’s high-tech force is built, ironically, on antiquated computational technology, much of it designed in the 1970s and 1980s.

   Hamstrung by older operating systems, protocols, standards and interfaces, the Navy cannot take full advantage of the speed and power of today’s computers. Nor can it move fully to the network-centric warfare concept being sought by militaries worldwide.

   The fleet no longer can afford to create software for particular weapons, combat systems or ships, and it hopes that an open architecture will allow for greater sharing of applications across ships and aircraft.

   "The Navy faces a daunting task in transforming its high-fidelity sensor, command and decision, and weapon fire control software-based capabilities into open architecture,” according to a March 18 Navy handbook on the issue.

   The handbook, “Open Architecture: The Critical Network Centric Warfare Enabler,” is authored by Rushton and a trio of industry consultants.

   Intended as a guide, the 55-page document outlines the challenge in adopting an open architecture and details how the Navy plans to implement it.

   The near-term strategy for fielding a limited number of ships with an open architecture was approved in November by Navy leaders.

   This effort – captured in the slogan, “OA in `08,” used by some Navy officials – focuses on the Aegis combat and weapon systems. Retrofit work is beginning with that system, the linchpin of the surface fleet.

   The task is extraordinarily complex; each of the 14 Aegis versions has a unique set of hardware and software. The surface Navy will begin with Aegis’ SPY-1 radar this year, then move on to the Weapon Control System and the Advanced Display System. Not all existing systems may get the refits.

   The road map approved in November “focused at those things we felt were critical to get us into a modern computing stance, so we could take new capabilities on as soon as possible.” Rushton said.

   Lockheed Martin announced April 7 that it has migrated key elements of the Aegis Weapon System to an open architecture environment.

   “It should be clear to everyone that we are not only talking open architecture, but demonstrating it as well,” Rear Adm. Charles Bush, the program executive officer for integrated warfare systems, said in a statement on the Aegis project.

   In addition, Lockheed Martin said the Navy’s newest DDG-51 destroyer – set to be commissioned next month – is the first ship capable of begin compliant with the new open standards, said Orlando Carvalho, vice president of Lockheed Martin Maritime Systems & Sensors Surface Systems, Moorestown, N.J. 

 E-mail: jsherman@defensenews.com