Navy looks to Imagine One to embed data mining and decision support in CANES shipboard networking
SAN DIEGO, 10 Feb. 2015. U.S. Navy shipboard networking experts are trying to embed intelligent data mining and smart decision support capability in a next-generation shipboard tactical communications system called Consolidated Afloat Networks and Enterprise Services (CANES).
Officials of the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command (SPAWAR) in San Diego are looking to Imagine One Technology & Management Ltd. in Colonial Beach, Va., to provide this kind of capability in future installations of the CANES shipboard tactical network.
SPAWAR announced a $19.3 million contract Friday to Imagine One Technology & Management to provide an intelligent data mining agent and smart decision support process for the Navy CANES program. The deal is a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) phase III contract.
Imagine One will provide the Navy with intelligent technology and support to supply the CANES program with dynamic planning, re-planning and automation of test procedures as part of the contract. Imagine One specializes in systems engineering, cyber engineering, and information technology for the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard.
Company experts also will help enhance CANES prioritization and optimization based on component dependencies and on potential influences of configuration changes to CANES as the new capability is installed on Navy surface warships.
Imagine One experts also will provide machine-assisted analysis and learning of how technical changes made to CANES systems and subsystems will play out over time, and place this information in all related CANES technical documentation.
CANES serves as the bridge to the future of Navy afloat networks, consolidating existing legacy and stand-alone networks, providing infrastructure for Tactical applications, systems, and services, Navy officials say. CANES will consolidate and modernize shipboard network systems to improve operational effectiveness and affordability across the fleet.
CANES delivers its capabilities within one system, bringing infrastructure that will enable timely and interoperable information exchange among tactical, support, and administrative users, applications, and computer systems.
The Northrop Grumman Corp. Information Systems segment in San Diego was chosen in early 2012 to be the overall CANES shipboard electronics systems architect, will install CANES equipment aboard surface warships.
Seven separate communications and computing contractors are building advanced command, control, communications, computers, and intelligence (C4I) shipboard networking equipment for the Navy's surface warship fleet.
The seven CANES equipment contractors are CGI Federal Inc. in Fairfax, Va.; DRS Laurel Technologies in Johnstown, Pa.; BAE Systems Technology Solutions & Services Inc. in Rockville, Md.; General Dynamics C4 Systems in Taunton Mass.; Global Technical Systems in Virginia Beach, Va.; Northrop Grumman Corp. in Herndon, Va.; and Serco Inc. in Reston, Va.
Competition will be continuous among the seven CANES equipment manufacturing contractors for the procurement of production and training units. Lessons learned from the first CANES hardware and software installations will help Navy experts upgrade later CANES equipment.
CANES represents a critical component of the Navy's modernization planning by upgrading cyber security, command and control, communications, and intelligence systems afloat. The increased standardization will reduce the number of network variants by ship class across the fleet, SPAWAR officials say.
CANES operational testing began last August aboard the guided missile destroyer USS Higgins (DDG 76). Full CANES deployment and operational capability is expected as early as this summer. CANES ultimately will be deployed on 180 ships, submarines, and land sites by 2022.
On this contract Imagine One will do the work in San Diego, and should be finished by February 2020. For more information contact Imagine One Technology & Management online at http://imagine-one.com, or SPAWAR at www.spawar.navy.mi.
John Keller | Editor
John Keller is editor-in-chief of Military & Aerospace Electronics magazine, which provides extensive coverage and analysis of enabling electronic and optoelectronic technologies in military, space, and commercial aviation applications. A member of the Military & Aerospace Electronics staff since the magazine's founding in 1989, Mr. Keller took over as chief editor in 1995.
