A Network-Centric Approach to Enhanced National Airspace Security

Abstract

Enhanced inter-agency situational awareness, combined with improved collaboration between various law enforcement, military, and civilian automation systems is required to improve the homeland security of the US national airspace system. This paper reviews approaches to reducing response times and uncertainty during the detection and investigation of airspace security threats. To implement these new capabilities, law enforcement data, security alert messages, target, track and flight plan data is provided to decision support systems used by differing homeland security, defense and air traffic control systems. Using a network-centric enterprise of standardized messages, application software, and a shared database repository of airspace security data, the interoperability of several key systems may be improved. By providing a shared situational awareness between all agencies, a more rapid analysis of threats and counter measures can be achieved. To exhibit these new capabilities, joint planning and development office network enabled operations (NEO) joint security demonstrations were held during 2005 that focused on the Washington, DC Capital Region. These NEO demos included the Federal Aviation Administration, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Department of Homeland Security, Department of Defense, and the US Secret Service along with industry participants including Boeing Corporation, Computer Sciences Corporation, Lockheed Martin Corporation, and Raytheon Corporation. During these events, the concepts underlying inter-operable airspace security system information sharing and network-centric operations were evaluated. Prototype systems developed during these activities are expected to contribute to future terminal and enroute airspace security procedures. The major systems Raytheon contributed to the NEO Demo will be focused on in this paper. They are the distributed common ground system (DCGS) integration backbone (DIB) and the standard terminal automation replacement system (STARS). The DIB is the information backbone for DCGS, the US Air Force's information, surveillance, and reconnaissance global network weapon system. It builds upon a Java platform-2 enterprise edition (J2EE) application server and a database to provide: a federated meta-data catalog, data repository, web services, collaboration tools, and a web portal. The DIB enables STARS to exchange data with legacy applications at other nodes in the architecture via Java messaging services (JMS) and web services. Additionally, a customized web-enabled air security collaboration application enabled users of different systems to communicate information immediately to agencies responsible for monitoring our nation's air traffic. The STARS terminal area air traffic control system is being deployed at both Federal Aviation Administration and Department of Defense installations nationwide. For NEO, STARS was enhanced to share track and flight plan data with NEO participant agencies. Aircraft track data is saved in a database for reference by collaborative applications and provided to subscriber agencies using the Extensible Markup Language. Aircraft deemed a security risk can be identified and shared with any agency requiring it. This paper describes Raytheon's participation in a partnership with government and industry stakeholders that are carrying out research and development to define the requirements for future improvements to advance air traffic security.