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Every Little Thing It Does Is MAJIIC: A Technology for the Net-centric Age December 2004
Members of a Special Forces Unit head toward a spot in Iraq, not knowing exactly what conditions they will find or where the moving target is. As they get closer, they call up digital maps and visuals in the transport vehicle—visuals taken in real time from surveillance sensors in the area. Even a year ago, much of this wasn't possible. Is it magic? No, it's MAJIIC, an innovative concept that's moved from prototype to nearly deployed technology with multiple sponsors in a few short years. The MAJIIC (Multi-sensor Aerospace-ground Joint ISR Interoperability Coalition) Advanced Concept Technology Demonstration, a concept MITRE helped to develop, pulls streaming data from airborne surveillance platforms, using Web-services technology to pass the information to the people who need it most. The "ISR" in MAJIIC stands for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance—just the type of information a pilot or tank commander needs before or during battle. That makes MAJIIC a potentially powerful part of the growing collection of net-centric tools the military requires in the 21st century. The ideas behind network-centric operations are still relatively new, and the existence of operational net-centric technology even newer. For decades, the Department of Defense (DOD) has followed the "process-before-post" approach to handling data and images. Analysts sort and evaluate images and other types of data before sending the results back into the field—a painstaking, sometime hours- or even days-long process. By using the power of the network to send information directly to field personnel and command centers, warfighters receive what they need to know quickly and efficiently, in many cases within minutes of its collection. The military calls this method of handling information "post before process." According to MITRE's John Kane, a systems engineer and technical manager for the program, "MAJIIC works in a 'pull' environment, not a broadcast or data-push environment. Users will be able to discover these data services dynamically, even if they have never heard of MAJIIC. Users can query for ISR data within certain coordinates or topics and view the data over low bandwidth communications." All information posts and inquiries occur within a secure, secret-level environment, using enterprise-wide, Web-based tools. One Leap for a Program Although still in its development phase, MAJIIC was demonstrated this past August at Quantum Leap 2—a high-level showcase of net-centric technology sponsored by the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Networks and Information Integration. The demonstration performed successfully and generated a lot of enthusiasm from the services, so much so that MAJIIC is scheduled to be operational in 2005. Kane works with the United States Joint Forces Command (JFCOM), which is sponsoring MAJIIC's development during this crucial demonstration phase and helping it reach its full potential. During Quantum Leap 2, the technology really showed its stuff. "MAJIIC posted near real-time ISR data from a live-fly Joint STARS surveillance jet and simulated data from the U2, Global Hawk, and Predator unmanned aerial vehicles [UAVs], and from coalition platforms," Kane says. "Users were able to discover and pull MAJIIC data into their browsers or visualization applications via the DOD's Secret Internet Protocol Router Network. With a post-before-process system, users can quickly discover, access, and use the information to make an informed decision. Imagery intelligence, signal intelligence, video, moving target indicator data, and mission information can all be handled within MAJIIC." Developing a Concept
MAJIIC began its life, with somewhat more modest goals, as a program called ISRIS (Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance Information Service). Fittingly, for what would ultimately become part of an international effort, the program got its start overseas. In 2000, the Air Force's then-new Global Hawk UAV was making its first transatlantic flight, a roundtrip between Florida and Portugal. As it flew, the Hawk transmitted hours of data (including radar and imagery) to ground stations for collection and interpretation. But how could so much data be put to best use in a timely manner? To help solve the problem, NATO, a partner in the exercise, requested help from the Joint Analysis Center (JAC) at the Royal Air Force Base in Molesworth, England. (The JAC processes and analyzes military information from a variety of sources for U.S. forces in Europe, as well as NATO.) The JAC in turn asked for MITRE's help. Kane, then working at our site at Molesworth, took up the challenge. It was complicated: not only did the Hawk produce an abundance of data, but it was difficult even to match the data with the time and location of its collection. "It was very manually intensive, slow work," he remembers. "Most important, the situation awareness just wasn't there. We couldn't even easily tell where the images were coming from." Kane, like the rest of the defense world, was dealing with the process-before-post model. New technology—such as the Hawk—provided large volumes of ISR information, creating an ever-larger logjam of unprocessed information. (This division between collection and dissemination technology is a driving force behind the growth of network-centric operations.) With the knowledge that MITRE was already working on other Web-based technology, Kane developed the ISRIS concept. "We realized we had all this Internet technology at our disposal—we just needed to push that technology to the ground stations and connect it to the network for near-real-time access," he says. He built a prototype server that put Web-based tools to work for the analysts, making ISRIS an early example of net-centric capability for military use. The idea caught on quickly; ISRIS gained sponsorship as a research project sponsored by Air Force and Army contracts for the next two years. Thinking Bigger Even before the funding came through, Kane received some advice from Richard Games, chief engineer for MITRE's Center for Integrated Intelligence Center. "Richard said to me, 'Don't just think about a single UAV, think about the entire ISR spectrum in a big way,'" Kane says. "He expanded the thinking and the scope of the project to all ISR." Games explains further. "When John popped up on my radar in the spring of 2000, a group in MITRE's Bedford [Massachusetts] office had been pushing Web-based information management ideas for some time," he says. "But, as is often the case with new technologies that are ahead of the curve, there was not much engagement with the operational platforms and systems that would populate this Web. John's ISRIS concept was a perfect way to address this. I told him 'push ISRIS right onto all the platforms,' but I settled for the ground stations until the networks catch up." "We started building a prototype, concentrating on [the UAVs] Global Hawk and Predator," Kane says. "Unlike the Hawk, the Predator gives us video data, so we began dealing with two distinctly different types of ISR data. We created a server that linked to the UAV ground stations via the network. This let us take the data streams—including information on where the UAV is at any given moment and what its doing—receive the data, parse it into a database, and then make it available both in a textual environment and a Web browser map-type environment. All in near-real time." (The research project didn't track actual UAV flights in progress; Kane developed the ISRIS prototype using data procured from flights after the fact.) With laptop at the ready, Kane began giving briefings about ISRIS to the DOD community, using an interactive demonstration. "You could drill down in your browser and follow the progress of a Global Hawk or Predator UAV mission and see the imagery and video as it was collected," he explains. "It was very exciting and—at that time—a new concept. Then John Stenbit entered the picture." Stenbit, described by some as the man whose name is synonymous with net-centricity, served from 2001 to 2004 as the Department of Defense's Chief Information Officer. "Stenbit started talking about a new paradigm—task, post, process, and use—to reflect new technology. It would use Web-based tools to make sensor and other data immediately available to the field," says Kane. "I made the connection immediately that this was what we were doing with ISRIS." In September 2002, Kane—along with Games and the then-head of MITRE's DOD center, John Quilty—met with Stenbit, "We described to him the ISRIS concept and lessons learned from our research," Kane says. "He liked the idea and recommended it be transitioned into a formal DOD program, such as an ACTD [Advanced Concept Technology Demonstration]. We also asked him for a quote to use in a 'lessons-learned' paper that was published in the ISR Journal." That paper proved to be just the boost ISRIS needed. Stenbit's quote says, "MITRE's ISRIS prototype really fits my vision of the future, where ISR information will be made available—shortly after it is collected—to the warfighters who need it the most. It's a great demonstration of what I call 'post before process' for populating the network with new, dynamic sources of information needed to defeat the enemy." Another Sponsor—and a New Name "Despite the growing awareness of ISRIS, I knew that for this research to truly be successful, we had to transition it into some kind of official DOD program," Kane says. Since JFCOM, ISRIS's main sponsor, is based in Norfolk, Virginia, he simultaneously secured a transfer to our Norfolk site and started working with JFCOM to get funding for an ISRIS ACTD. MITRE introduced JFCOM to the idea of collaborating with another group working on a complementary project—the NATO-affiliated CAESAR team. At the time, the CAESAR (Coalition Aerial Surveillance and Reconnaissance) program focused strictly on ground moving target data, so adding ISRIS's capabilities broadened the project considerably. The combined project, newly dubbed MAJIIC, received high praise from the DOD community, landing in the number five spot out of 150 in the 2004 ACTD competition. Kane was named technical manager for the entire project. Working with a team of MITRE staff, contractors, and military officials, Kane directs the building of a set of servers based on the ISRIS prototype for use by the MAJIIC team. A Full Circle
Meanwhile, the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Networks and Information Integration (OASD-NII), John Stenbit's organization, was simultaneously looking for ways to demonstrate and incorporate net-centric capabilities for the warfighter. OASD created the Horizontal Fusion Portfolio initiative and chose MAJIIC as one of the portfolio's elements, ultimately leading to MAJIIC's "public" debut in the Quantum Leap-2 demonstration in August 2004. Despite all these achievements, however, the technology still needed to become part of an ongoing DOD program. That is on track too, since the Air Force, representing the joint forces, has agreed to review the MAJIIC capabilities for possible transition into the Distributed Common Ground System (DCGS). DCGS collects intelligence information from UAVs and other sensors for use in assessing potential targets and measuring the success of airstrikes. "We'll be starting to transition what we've done this year into the DCGS program," says Kane. "Then we'll continue making improvements based on what we've learned and bring them into future upgrades of DCGS." Games believes MAJIIC's achievements can be linked to its developer's responsiveness to our sponsors' needs. "John was successful because he lived the problem at the Molesworth site with the user," Games says. "He was able to formulate a practical solution that was years ahead of the current services-oriented architectures the DOD is adopting today. He used our Air Force- and Army-sponsored research program to prove his point and then transitioned his concept to an ACTD—a DOD-wide version of our earlier program. With the recent interest in network-centric warfare, it's now a small step from MAJIIC to operations. This will really open up these ISR data sources at a time when we need to exploit them all together to address current challenges." —by Alison Stern-Dunyak Related Information Articles and News
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| Page last updated: December 16, 2004 | Top of page |
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