Keys to the digital battlefield: automated requirements analysis for Force XXI

The Army is developing architectures to introduce new digital command, control, and communications to the 21st century warfighter. A key element in the systems architecture development is characterizing the information exchange requirements for these digitization products. The Combined Arms Command and Control (CAC2) Advanced Technology Demonstration (ATD) has developed automated tools to allow subject matter experts (SMEs) within different domains to identify mission thread and information requirements based on a given warfighting scenario. The automated tools are based on commercially available software products. This paper describes the automation elements that comprise the CAC2 ATD operational requirements analysis (ORA) process. Key elements include an automated graphical user interface (GUI) that facilitates creation and annotation of mission threads which identify operational facilities, connectivity, and communications network affiliation. The IDEF, or Integrated Computer Aided Manufacturing Definition, is used to baseline and evaluate process and data architectures. The IDEF modeling methodology provides a means to study and document C2 processes and data flow among users in the overall Force XXI C3I architecture. The CECOM System Performance Model (SPM) is used to evaluate candidate communications architectures based on the mission exchange needs collected in the ORA exercises. The modeling tools consist of integrated C2 process, radio/network protocol, and radio propagation modules which together identify network bottlenecks, availability delays, message blocking, and other parameters.