1. INTRODUCTION

The Information Systems Technology (IST) area is developing the technologies and architectures needed to provide warfighters with the right information, in the right place, at the right time. To accomplish this, there must be flexible architectures that allow:

• Common software for a variety of decisionmaking tool kits.

• Modeling and simulation (M&S) technologies that facilitate early assessment of new technologies and warfighting analyses, enhance our ability to "view" systems and immerse humans in the virtual world, and facilitate more effective utilization of M&S technology for training and mission rehearsal.

• Transparent management and distribution of information among heterogeneous systems.

• Seamless communication systems using commercial and common protocols (allowing transport of information anywhere in the world).

• Computing and software technology that supports the evolution of products inserted into our common systems.

1.1 Definition/Scope

The Defense Technology Area Plan (DTAP) for IST covers the five subareas shown in Figure III-1. Because of the high degree of interrelationship among these five areas, the

technology development efforts for them are being integrated. By integrating them, we achieve greater focus and efficiency from our technologies and provide a common framework for integrating new technologies as they emerge. The overarching concept for integrating service programs in these areas is to implement a "virtual laboratory" connecting service laboratories and users over high-capacity lines that allow interactive and focused experiments to take place. Figure III-2 displays this concept. This approach will maximize the expertise in each service, leverage service technologies, share common products, and achieve interoperability by embracing a common architecture. Figure III-3 shows the focus of these efforts starting on the left with the warfighters' needs, then using the virtual laboratory to integrate programs, and finally including the services' focused efforts in each of the five critical subareas.

Figure III-4 illustrates the efforts of these five subareas that, when integrated, become effective command, control, communications, computing, and modeling/simulation building blocks that are pivotal elements of modern warfighting. They will provide the means for collaborative training, planning, mission rehearsal, decisionmaking, information distribution, and successful employment of accurate weapon systems. The efforts in the DTAP are the "glue" that integrates the sensors and provides the critical information to the weapon systems. Achieving this capability requires significant investment, either to leverage the commercial sector or to develop the unique military components.

A brief summary of the five subareas shown in Figure III-1 follows. Decisionmaking is the heart of the command process. It encompasses the development of common, modular elements that connect joint mission planning, rehearsal, execution monitoring, and common pictures of the battlespace. This will provide battlefield picture and situational assessment products that support real-time operations. M&S is a fundamental component of the other four subareas as well as supporting all other DTAP areas and the Joint Warfighting Capability Objectives (JWCOs). M&S technologies will provide both an assessment capability for supporting the development of these other technologies and a capability for facilitating interoperability between simulations and to live command, control, communications, computers, and intelligence (C⁴I) systems. Cost-effective development of an M&S application is achieved through the use of a common technical framework for M&S (HLA, CMMS, and data standardization) along with authoritative representations of environments, systems, and human behavior. Information Management and Distribution (IM&D) provides the information infrastructure and products needed by the other four areas (and other DTAP areas) for information security, distributed computing, distributed multimedia databases, and visualization. This movement of information is critical to satisfying the warfighters' needs for the future. Seamless communications spans the globe, interconnecting command echelons, services, and allies worldwide by implementing common transport protocols and dynamic network management. By focusing on wide bandwidth capabilities linked to our currently narrowband tactical systems, including mitigated modems to recover messages during nuclear and natural disturbed environments, we can provide the correct critical information to the warrior anywhere in the world. Computing and software technology will provide an integrated approach for private sector and government efforts. Focus will be on compatible software architectures, improved software tools to reduce development costs, high-performance computing, intelligent agents, and user interfaces.

1.2 Strategic Goals

The top-level goals of the IST research and development programs are to deliver technology solutions that provide:

• Transparent communications between and across command levels/echelons — seamless communications — under any weapon and natural disturbed environments.

• Common architectures as a framework to achieve transparent distribution of information.

• Commonality where common elements are appropriate (e.g., joint decision-making tool kits).

• Readily available, operationally valid models and simulations built to a common technical framework.

• Affordable, advanced, robust, information-processing systems through effectively integrated software, hardware, and connectivity infrastructures.

1.3 Acquisition/Warfighting Needs

The IST technology efforts are critical to the stated joint warfighting needs of Information Superiority, Precision Force, Combat Identification, Joint Theater Missile Defense, Military Operations in Urban Terrain, Joint Logistics and Readiness, Joint Countermine, and Electronic Combat. Table III-2 shows the powerful technology transition opportunities to enhance warfighter capabilities.

Note: See page III-52 for abbreviation/acronym list.

Access to and exploitation of timely information is a key element of America's future warfighting and crisis management capabilities, as well as its national competitiveness. The projected force-level-multiplier advantage of information technology stands far above that of all other technical areas. Such capability, while greatly enhancing the autonomy and survivability of individual units, will quickly provide an advantage in any conflict, supporting early, decisive victory with minimal cost in assets and human life.

The information environment requirements for the industrial, commercial, and financial communities are similar in many ways to the DoD information environment. There are leveragable development activities in the commercial sector addressing many of the same technical issues as DoD. Global industrial and financial institutions must have reliable, global, data access. Their multinational status requires support for heterogeneity. Movement of global markets requires very rapid response to change and guaranteed availability. This creates the need for similar distributed information systems that provide location-transparent access to globally distributed data from both advanced and Third World sites.

Advanced software and computing technologies are essential to supporting both the commercial information environment requirements and the DoD's Joint Staff future joint warfighting capabilities. As much as 90% of the cost of C⁴I systems and 80% of the functionality of products such as avionics systems are directly and solely attributable to software. High-performance computing and image understanding coupled with high-performance networking, distributed systems, and mobile computing form the foundations for instantaneous recognition of targets and rapid communication of the information. IST also enables a wide range of defense-critical applications, such as new methods for design enabled by computational models in many science and engineering disciplines. Advanced M&S tools and technologies will provide simulation-based training systems and embedded training that offer more cost-effective means of enhancing individual and unit performance warfighting tools that support C² decisionmaking systems and provide a means for conducting mission analyses and rehearsals. For modernization, M&S technology will reduce the time, resources, and risks associated with the acquisition process while enhancing the performance of the acquired systems. Virtual prototypes will be evaluated in realistic synthetic acquisition and operational environments, supporting the many phases of the acquisition process from requirements definition and initial concept exploration to the manufacturing and testing of new systems.

Many of these advances in IST are being driven by commercial developments and products. The results can be brought to bear on DoD problems through cooperative efforts and participation in efforts to set standards and establish policy. Costly DoD-specific development can be avoided with the amortization of costs across government and commercial communities. However, there are aspects of command, control, communications, and computers (C⁴) and M&S that must be strongly influenced or directly supported by DoD. In particular, developing the capability to reliably communicate to and among numerous, widely dispersed mobile sites operating in actively hostile environments, identifying friend and foe, achieving information security, and meeting the requirements for military-unique processing and decision support systems will not be achieved without significant DoD support. The IST acquisition strategy is necessarily a pragmatic one — identify the pivotal issues, capitalize on commercial development whenever feasible, leverage development in areas with special military aspects, and sponsor programs in technologies with unique DoD interest that would otherwise not be available to meet DoD needs.

This technology area embodies enormous dual-use potential in numerous areas vital to economic competitiveness and other national concerns. Beside the direct application of this technology to defense sciences and engineering, it has great potential for significant contributions to more effective health care procedures, enhanced education and lifelong learning, more timely and less costly procurement through electronic commerce, more efficiently managed and integrated transportation networks, effective delivery of innovative information services to average citizens, and sound methods of environment monitoring, weather prediction, and pollution control. For example, approximately 80 to 90 percent of DoD's investment in computing and software technology can be credibly regarded as having substantial dual-use potential by even the most conservative of individuals.

A glossary of abbreviations and acronyms used in this chapter begins on page III-52.

1.4 Support for Combating Terrorism

Many of the technologies and developments in the Information Systems Technology area could easily be adapted to provide a capability to combat terrorism. A summary of these capabilities and associated DTOs is provided in Table III-3.