C4ISR architectural design tenets for future tactical army systems

The last decade has seen the USA armed forces engaged in an intensive effort to digitize the battlespace, by leveraging the information technology explosion of the 1990s. However, this approach did not address the warfighter's ability to be more mobile and responsive. The goal for the next decade is to exploit network centric technologies to support a lighter, more responsive, and more lethal force. Consistent with this trend, future tactical army systems are expected to integrate command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (C4ISR) capabilities to an unprecedented degree. The concept of trading "information for armor" poses a significant challenge for the new generation of command and control (C2), intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) and communications (Comm) systems. In this paper we synopsize a more comprehensive study in which we considered the battlefield of the future, attempting to extract basic architectural design principles which must be incorporated by C4ISR intensive systems. We look at three domains, C2, ISR (including target acquisition) and Comm, which must complement each other in order to enable network-centric warfare, and identify specific tenets for each domain, as well as overarching tenets applicable to all three. These guiding design principles, or architectural tenets, are expected to contribute to the design of systems supporting lighter, more lethal, survivable forces which are capable of meeting the challenges of projected future threats anywhere on the globe.