Northrop Grumman will leverage its network-centric, platform and systems-integration expertise and work with other industry partners to provide the Air Force with solutions that will help improve airborne-network capabilities. The company's Integrated Systems sector in Melbourne, Fla., is leading this corporate-wide effort in conjunction with the Air Force Electronic Systems Center at Hanscom Air Force Base, Mass., and the Air Force Research Laboratory in Rome, N.Y.

Under the agreement, this collaboration will provide opportunities to enhance the value of airborne-networking system-of-systems experiments by broadening the concepts explored and in turn inserting the best technologies to address the challenges identified. The effort will include transferring and evaluating technologies and ideas developed by Northrop Grumman and the government.

The 18-month agreement will produce a demonstration of advanced airborne-networking capabilities that meet immediate and future warfighting and commercial needs. Results of the demonstration will be fed into a larger multiservice/multicontractor collaborative effort to define various approaches to resolving the complex challenges of airborne networking.

"Northrop Grumman will be taking advantage of more than $120 million in prior capital investments related to airborne networking to bear on this effort," said Paul Meyer, sector vice president for advanced capabilities development at Northrop Grumman Integrated Systems. "Our premier corporate-wide modeling and simulation tool, the cyber warfare integration network (CWIN) has been instrumental in developing and demonstrating the company's highly relevant advanced information architecture (AIATM). Tying in assets such as the E-10A battle management command-and-control crew area virtual environment will also allow us to examine the performance of hardware and software components that will help us address airborne-networking issues."

Northrop Grumman continues to invest in significant research that spans virtual and live assets which provide tools for system-of-systems integration and evaluation of airborne-networking challenges. The CWIN's distributed environment integrates live and simulated entities to assess system-of-systems architectural capabilities and individual technologies.

"Our partnership with the government on many of today's flagship airborne-networking systems such as Joint STARS, Global Hawk, Advanced Hawkeye and the E-10A multisensor command-and-control technology demonstrator provides the company with unique airborne-networking integration experience and opportunities," said Meyer. "Accelerating potential airborne-networking capabilities would provide critical support to the warfighter as well as to commercial applications."

Related Links
Northrop Grumman
USAF Electronic Systems Center