Next Generation Data Fusion Architecture

Combining data from multiple sources into a single coherent "picture" is a fundamental challenge to battlespace management. Today's combat systems are a result of the Department of Defense's historical federated acquisition process. These individual development programs produced individual stovepiped systems, now part of the legacy baseline. Comprising various interfaces, information structure, and data elements, these incompatible systems are difficult to integrate within a Service, and nearly impossible to integrate across Services. This has hindered interoperability within battlespace operations because of the inability to take advantage of intelligence and open sources of information. Next generation architecture should provide real-time fusion performance monitoring capability and algorithm assessment that permits development of an exploration platform to capture algorithm performance information and development of an optimal solution based on actual performance with the system's data.The overall goal of this effort is to produce an efficient and portable data fusion solution for the E-2C. This solution will break down the technical barriers associated with interoperability and will allow legacy and new systems to seamlessly interoperate, while minimizing processing and bandwidth resources to fit within existing system capabilities.