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C2 (Command and Control) is the system used by the military to manage assets in the air, on land, and at sea. It provides commanders at various levels with the ability to visualise where their assets are, what they are doing, and what is going on around them. C2 information is a mixture of media: voice received via radios, images from satellites, aircraft, or drones, and data from various platforms including surface or airborne radars. The challenges:
Command and Control Centres are the centralised command and control nodes for the military services. Personnel consist of field commanders and specialists in surveillance, electronic warfare, air traffic control, weapons systems, etc. In an effort to improve the communications system within the centre, users need a system that is failsafe (re-establishes communications in l0 seconds or less in the event of a failure). This system allows military personnel to communicate within the facility via intercom/nets, communicate over radios (secure and non-secure) to ground and air resources, and to use telephone lines to make both secure and non-secure phone calls. The solution:
The Communications Switching System (CSS) provided by Cornet Switching Systems is based on the company’s existing conference switch used by the U.S. Navy on multiple platforms.
The CSS consists of communication switches, a Tactical Communication Terminal (TCT), and CTI’s IntelView operator interface GUI. Sitting between the operator’s TCT and the encryption devices/radios/STE/phone gateway, the CSS manages both secure and non-secure internal and external communications. Using Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and TDM technology the CSS switches support both classified and non-classified communications to an operator’s single headset.
The TCT converts analogue to digital voice and digital to analogue voice similar to a telephone and allows all audio sources – secure and non-secure – to be presented to the operator’s headset. CSS meets failsafe requirements by automatically establishing two links from the TCT; one to the primary and one to the secondary communications switch when a call is initiated. This feature ensures that a communications link is never dropped.
The Cornet Communications Interface Protocol (CCIP) is easy to learn and operate allowing the operator to interact with the TCT and communication switch. This interactive software application is Java-based allowing it to reside on most platforms and to coexist with most other applications. It resides at the operator’s workstation on a touch-screen PC (or a PC with a mouse) and lets the operator with a headset simultaneously select, control, monitor, and communicate in classified or unclassified mode over radios and telephones, or intercom/nets. The benefits:
The CSS family of Cornet Switching Systems scalable communication switches can be configured as a plain, a plain/secure, or a secure system to fit any communications environment. The CSS dual-homing feature ensures that no link is ever lost due to a failure. The systems’ intuitive JAVA-based operator interface can be easily tailored as needed, it requires little training time, and lets operators see system status at a glance. Since CSS brings together all audio sources, operators need only one headset to simultaneously listen to and interact with secure and non secure communications over intercom, radios, telephones. CSS’s use of VoIP and TDM technology reduces the need for point-to-point cabling, thus lowering weight and decreasing setup time.
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