JOINT

U.S. Defense Science Board 

UK Defence Scientific Advisory Council

TASK FORCE 

on 

DEFENSE CRITICAL 

TECHNOLOGIES 

March 2006 

Office of the Under Secretary of Defense 

For Acquisition, Technology, 

and Logistics 

Washington, D.C. 

20301-3140 

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Standard Form 298 (Rev. 8-98)

Prescribed by ANSI Std Z39-18 
 

This report is a product of the Defense Science Board (DSB) and the Defence 

Scientific Advisory Council (DSAC). 

The DSB is a Federal Advisory Committee established to provide independent 

advice to the Secretary of Defense. Statements, opinions, conclusions and 

recommendations in this report do not necessarily represent the official position of 

the Department of Defense. 

DSAC is an advisory Non-Departmental Public Body established to provide 

independent advice to the Secretary of State for Defence in the fields of science, 

engineering and technology. The report does not necessarily represent the views of 

the Ministry of Defence or its agencies. 

This report is unclassified.
MEMORANDUM TO UNDER SECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR 

ACQUISITION, TECHNOLOGY AND LOGISTICS 

 SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY DIRECTOR, 

MINISTRY OF DEFENCE 

SUBJECT: Report of the Defense Science Board and Defence Scientific Advisory 

Council Joint working party on Critical Technologies. 

We are pleased to forward the final report of the Defense Science Board (DSB) 

and Defence Scientific Advisory Council (DSAC) joint working party on Critical 

Technologies. This is the first collaborative science board effort between the U.S. 

Department of Defense and the United Kingdom’s Ministry of Defence. In this report, the 

joint working party examines five major transformational technology areas that are 

critical to meeting the defence needs of the United States and the United Kingdom. These 

technology areas are: 

 Advanced Command Environments 

 Persistent Surveillance 

 Power Sources/Management For Small, Distributed Networked 

Sensors 

 High Performance Computing 

 Defence Critical Electronic Components 

The working party concluded that the U.S. and UK lead in critical technologies is 

under threat and that commercial off-the-shelf technology is insufficient to meet U.S. and 

UK defence needs in these areas. The working party finds that government investment is 

essential to ensure that technological development translates into military capabilities and 

that it is in the interests of the United States and the United Kingdom to collaborate on 

selected critical technologies in order to help the DoD and MoD retain or increase their 

competitive advantage over potential adversaries. 
In addition, the report presents the observations and lessons learned from the 

collaborative joint working party process. The working party co-chairs recommend that, 

based on the positive experience of the members, the DSAC and the DSB collaborate 

further on joint studies exploring in-depth, focused areas where U.S. and UK perspectives 

differ. 

We endorse all the recommendations of the working party and encourage you to 

read their report. 

 

William Schneider, Jr. Julia E. King 

Chair, Defense Science Board Chair, Defence Scientific Advisory 

Council 


 

___________________________________________________________ TABLE OF CONTENTS

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iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY .............................................................................................. V

CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTORY OVERVIEW..................................................................1

Origins....................................................................................................1

Objectives and Criteria.........................................................................1

Process....................................................................................................4

Maintaining Lists of Critical, Disruptive and Emerging 

Technologies..........................................................................................5

Structure.................................................................................................6

CHAPTER 2. POWER SOURCES/MANAGEMENT FOR SMALL, DISTRIBUTED 

NETWORKED SENSORS...............................................................................................8

Introduction...........................................................................................8

Low-Power Sensing............................................................................10

Low-Power Electronics ......................................................................12

Communications.................................................................................14

Power Sources .....................................................................................18

System Architecture ...........................................................................23

System Synergies and Trade-offs .....................................................26

Recommendations ..............................................................................28

Summary..............................................................................................29

CHAPTER 3. HIGH PERFORMANCE COMPUTING....................................................31

Introduction.........................................................................................31

Driving Applications..........................................................................32

Architectures .......................................................................................37

Recent U.S. HPC Activities and Studies ..........................................40

Supporting Technologies...................................................................43

Recommendations ..............................................................................46

CHAPTER 4. DEFENCE CRITICAL ELECTRONIC COMPONENTS..............................49

Introduction.........................................................................................49

Electronic Component Methodology and Supplier 

Assessment ..........................................................................................50

Electronic Component Critical Technology Assessment ..............51

Assessment of Electronic Component Critical Technology 

Development and Transition Paths..................................................67

Recommendations ..............................................................................67

Summary..............................................................................................80
 

TABLE OF CONTENTS____________________________________________________________ 

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iv 

CHAPTER 5. ADVANCED COMMAND ENVIRONMENTS.........................................81

Introduction ........................................................................................ 81

Discussion ........................................................................................... 81

Technologies Associated With ACE................................................ 85

The Human At The Centre Of The Environment.......................... 87

The Scope Of “Human Disciplines”................................................ 90

Specific Areas To Be Addressed ...................................................... 91

JFCOM and NITEworks.................................................................... 92

Exploring Command Environment Support For 

Organizational Agility ...................................................................... 93

Recommendations ............................................................................. 95

Summary............................................................................................. 97

CHAPTER 6. PERSISTENT SURVEILLANCE................................................................99

Introduction ........................................................................................ 99

Discussion ......................................................................................... 102

Identified Technologies................................................................... 105

Recommendations ........................................................................... 108

Summary........................................................................................... 109

CHAPTER 7. CONCLUSIONS ..................................................................................111

The Value of Working Jointly ........................................................ 111

Process ............................................................................................... 111

Recommendations ........................................................................... 114

APPENDIX A. TERMS OF REFERENCE.....................................................................117

APPENDIX B. WORKING PARTY U.S. MEMBERSHIP..............................................119

APPENDIX C. BRIEFINGS RECEIVED BY THE PANELS ...........................................121

APPENDIX D. RECENT U.S. HPC STUDIES............................................................125

Findings............................................................................................. 127

APPENDIX E. ADVANCED COMMAND ENVIRONMENT EXPERIMENTATION AND 

FACILITIES...............................................................................................................129

U.S. Advanced Command Environment Experimentation 

and Facilities ..................................................................................... 129

Multinational Advanced Command Environment 

Experimentation and Facilities....................................................... 131

APPENDIX F. ACRONYMS.......................................................................................133
 

__________________________________________________________ EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

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v

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

This joint study by scientific advisory boards that advise the 

Department of Defense (DoD) and the Ministry of Defence (MoD) is 

an effort to deepen the cooperation of the two organisations as they 

both pursue a strategy of investing in and developing technology to 

achieve military advantage. The Defense Science Board (DSB) and the 

Defence Science Advisory Council (DSAC) undertook this 

collaborative study to explore transformational technologies that are 

critical to meeting national defence needs. The joint working party 

was led by three co-chairs: Dr. Anita Jones and Admiral William O. 

Studeman, USN (Ret) to lead the U.S. team, and Dr. Julia King to lead 

the UK team. 

The joint tasking statement, the terms of reference, appears in 

Appendix A. Members of the U.S. team are listed in Appendix B. It is 

the policy of the MoD not to publish the names of their advisors. The 

MoD re-considered its policy in the light of this joint study and 

concluded that the policy should be sustained. Consequently, the 

names of UK members do not appear in Appendix B. They are 

accomplished scientists and technologists, with academic and 

industrial experience in areas related to defence. 

Because convening a joint working party is a new mode of 

cooperation for the two organisations, the chairs decided to focus on 

both broad and narrowly defined technology areas. They selected 

two broad mission areas (Advanced Command Environments and 

Persistent Surveillance) and three focused technology areas (Power 

Sources/Management for Small Distributed Networked Sensors, 

Defence Critical Electronic Components and High Performance 

Computing). The working party was organized into five topic panels 

with four to five members in each country drawing on a wider circle 

of outside experts as needed. The U.S. and UK members of each topic 

panel conducted separate but collaborative studies. 

Recommendations from the joint panels appear at the end of the topic 

chapters. 
 

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ___________________________________________________________ 

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vi 

A key working party objective was to identify lessons learned 

from the collaborative process that can be applied to any future joint 

studies. Our conclusions on cooperation are: 

 We recommend future collaboration between the 

Defense Science Board and the Defence Science 

Advisory Council. It is fruitful. 

− Topics should be narrowly defined and 

limited in scope. 

− Collaboration requires face to face meetings. 

While technology facilitated exchange is 

helpful, achieving collective understanding, 

and collaborating on complex topics 

necessitates personal interchange. In 

particular, face to face kick off meetings 

between the U.S. and UK teams would be very 

valuable. 

− Differences in style and approach need to be 

worked out early in the collaboration. Face to 

face meetings will aid in reaching consensus 

on how to manage the joint working 

processes. 

 We recommend that the MoD and DoD consider ways 

to mitigate the shortage of U.S. and UK nationals opting 

to take undergraduate and higher degrees in science, 

engineering and technology and recruit more young 

scientists and engineers into defence research. In 

addition to national programs, 

− Establish collaborative programmes involving 

opportunities to train at universities in both 

the United States and the United Kingdom. 

− Create opportunities to work in U.S. and UK 

laboratories to show the importance of, the 

excitement and challenges offered by, working 

in defence research areas. 
 

__________________________________________________________ EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

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vii

Overall the experience for the members of both boards was 

positive. Our militaries have unique missions that are not sufficiently 

served by commercially available technology. Cooperative and 

complementary technology development serves both nations. As the 

United Kingdom and the United States increasingly join in coalition 

operations with each other, as well as, with other nations, coalition 

considerations need to be considered early in the exploitation of 

technology. Joint DSB and DSAC studies could aid in this 

consideration. 

The key recommendations of each of the sub-groups working in 

the five areas are summarised in the following table. Detailed 

recommendations can be found at the end of each chapter. 
 

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ___________________________________________________________ 

________________________________________________________________________

 

viii 

Chapter topic Recommendations and key points concerning 

Power Sources (Chapter 2)  Develop system and power source metrics to meet 

military and intelligence requirements. 

 Leverage advances from commercial and industry sectors 

in areas where rapid change will happen without 

investment from the defence and intelligence 

communities. 

 Focus on areas where there is little commercial 

investment, but where concepts, material and design 

tools will be critical to the successful deployment of 

distributed sensor networks. 

 Develop remotely read, unpowered nodes as a potential 

solution to the power problem. 

High Performance 

Computing (Chapter 3) 

 Fund the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s 

High Productivity Computing System programme 

robustly. 

 Initiate a UK HPC programme to perform research on the 

most demanding military applications to improve 

performance using commodity clusters. 

 Invest in research critical applications and technologies. 

Defence Critical Electronic 

Components (Chapter 4) 

 Maintain U.S. leadership in semi-conductor technologies 

critical to national defence: 

o Develop computer aided design tools, 

o Maintain U.S. lead in dual-use technologies, 

o Expand and continue trusted foundry initiative, and 

o Develop joint DoD-MoD technology in areas that may 

provide new capabilities for defence systems but 

have limited commercial use. 

 Re-evaluate the U.S. Export Administration Regulations. 

 Initiate studies to understand strengths, weaknesses, and 

vulnerabilities of COTS based systems to counter COTSequipped adversaries. 

 Forge coalitions with other sectors to find a common set 

of requirements to meet reliability, openness, and quality 

needs for COTS parts. 

 DoD and MoD conduct longitudinal analysis of the 

emergence of novel electronics to determine whether or 

not the “discovery engine” has slowed down. 

Advanced Command 

Environments (Chapter 5) 

 Develop a cooperative U.S./UK programme to collaborate 

on physical design aspects, internal functionality and 

tools, and other human factors related to optimizing 

future command/decision environments: 

o Develop a trial link between U.S. and UK facilities to 

host an initial set of experiments and 
 

__________________________________________________________ EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

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ix

o Sponsor a conference with a call for papers to address 

a broad range of topics related to Advance Command 

Environments. 

Persistent Surveillance 

(Chapter 6) 

 Advance integrated sensing. 

 Further horizontal knowledge integration. 

 Establish U.S. Persistent Surveillance effort/office or 

DABINETT counterpart. 

 U.S. should review the UK DABINETT model/approach as 

potential way to go forward. 

 Devise a coordinated UK/U.S. approach, where combined 

approach has advantage 
 

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ___________________________________________________________ 

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______________________________________________________ INTRODUCTORY OVERVIEW

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1

CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTORY OVERVIEW

ORIGINS

Both the Department of Defense (DoD) and the Ministry of 

Defence (MoD) pursue a strategy of investing in and developing 

technology, and then applying both commercial and military-unique 

technology to achieve military advantage. The armed forces of the 

United States and the United Kingdom have a long history of 

operating closely with one another in the field, as well as in the 

development and application of technology. Supporting this strategy 

of exploiting technology rapidly, both the DoD and the MoD enlist 

the advice of their respective technical advisory boards: the Defense 

Science Board (DSB) and the Defence Science Advisory Council 

(DSAC). This report is the product of the two organisations working 

together. 

In an effort to deepen cooperation in areas of overlapping mutual 

interest, the DoD and MoD requested the DSB and the DSAC to 

undertake a collaborative study exploring transformational 

technologies that are critical to meeting national defence needs. The 

joint working party appointed three co-chairs to lead the study: Dr. 

Anita Jones and Admiral William O. Studeman, USN (Ret) to lead the 

U.S. team, and Dr. Julia King to lead the UK team. 

OBJECTIVES AND CRITERIA 

The objective of the working party was to identify technologies 

that would meet DoD and MoD requirements in several key areas. 

The working party considered the technologies identified in the 

terms of reference as a starting point from which to select topics for 

study. The working party used a broad definition of the term 

“technology” to encompass specific technologies, components, and 

processes. 

For each of the areas, U.S. and UK chairs applied specific criteria 

in determining whether or not a technology should be included in the 
 

CHAPTER 1 __________________________________________________________________ 

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2 

study. First, the working party considered whether the technology 

area requires defence funding to meet military requirements, and 

whether it will produce a national security advantage. Second, the 

working party selected technology areas that are of specific interest to 

the United States and the United Kingdom. Third, the technology 

area had to inherently improve inter-operability and information 

sharing capabilities. Fourth, in order to maximize opportunity for UK 

and U.S. working party collaboration, the technology area had to 

avoid complex security and industry proprietary issues. Finally, the 

technology area had to be generally applicable at the nexus of the 

threats posed by weapons of mass destruction and terrorism. 

This resulted in the inclusion of narrowly focused topics, such as 

Power, and broad ones such as Advanced Command Environments. 

Through collaborative discussion, the U.S. and UK chairs narrowed 

these areas to three specific technologies and two broader areas in 

which technology enables military advantage, but must be embedded 

into a system to extract value. Different missions and specific 

opportunities led to the selection of each topic. The two broad areas 

are: 

 Advanced Command Environments, and 

 Persistent Surveillance. 

Specific technology areas are: 

 Power Sources and Management for Small 

Distributed Networked Sensors, 

 High Performance Computing, and 

 Defence Critical Electronic Components. 

The chairs assembled a panel of experts for each area. The panels 

explored the current state of each technology area, including its 

commercial and defence industry status and applications. U.S. 

members are listed in Appendix B. It is the policy of the MoD not to 

publish the names of their advisors. The MoD reconsidered its policy 

in the light of this joint study and concluded that the policy should be 
 

______________________________________________________ INTRODUCTORY OVERVIEW

________________________________________________________________________ 

 

3

sustained. Consequently, the names of the UK members are not listed 

in Appendix B. 

The working party identified the key opportunities each 

technology area represents, and assessed what courses of action the 

U.S. and UK science and technology communities can take both 

separately and together in order to realize these opportunities. 

Finally, the working party examined where differences in U.S. and 

UK approaches to a technology either inhibit collaboration or provide 

an opportunity for complementary research. 

The working party also reviewed various lists of disruptive, 

emerging technologies, and possible applications to exploit them. The 

working party drew on recent work conducted by the UK members 

on identifying emerging, disruptive technologies that may rapidly 

alter our current status quo. Several chapters of this report contain 

excerpts of specific technology lists related to the chapter topic. 

The working party members were chosen for expertise in specific 

topic areas. Consequently, we did not feel that we had expertise to 

build a comprehensive list of disruptive, emerging technologies for 

all of national security. Instead, we focused on the specific topics 

chosen for study. The chapter on Electronic Components provides an 

interesting comparison. Table 1 provides a list of top 15 electronic 

technologies excerpted from the UK Defence Critical Technologies 

List. Three levels of priority are ascribed to the technologies. In 

contrast, Figure 2 gives a list of technologies (without priority) that 

were viewed as most critical for future space surveillance, as viewed 

by the National Reconnaissance Office Space Research and 

Development Industrial Base Study. The two lists indicate that 

experts will have different views. Also, the comparative lists show 

that if one views technology through the lens of a specific mission, 

and possibly specific system architecture in which the technology will 

be exploited, that the lists may differ. 

So, while the terms of reference requested that the working party 

develop a methodology to identify unique defence technologies and 

to apply the methodology to develop a list of defence critical 

technology, we instead focused on just a few technology areas, used 
 

CHAPTER 1 __________________________________________________________________ 

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4 

existing technology lists to bring in the expert judgement of others, 

and explored the specific areas that were selected for study. 

Lastly, because convening a joint working party was a new mode 

of cooperation, a key working party objective was to identify lessons 

learned from the collaborative process that can be applied to any 

future joint studies. 

PROCESS 

The working party was organized into five topic panels with fourfive members in each country drawing on a wider circle of outside 

experts as needed. The U.S. and UK members of each topic panel 

conducted separate but collaborative studies. The panels met 

independently but cooperated throughout the study, sharing research 

and insights during video (which were poor quality, unclassified and 

frustrating) and tele-conferences to produce an integrated working 

party report. The Advanced Command Environments and Persistent 

Surveillance panels conducted visit exchanges for face to face 

collaboration and joint briefings. 

The working party also held three plenary sessions during which 

the U.S. and UK working party members were connected via videoteleconference and exchanged updates on their progress to date. 

The joint working party was directed to produce an unclassified 

report. While the working party agreed to try to overcome security 

classification restrictions on collaboration wherever possible, the U.S. 

and UK working parties agreed to independently examine in greater 

depth any area involving security issues. The U.S. and UK members 

also agreed to identify areas of opportunity for collaboration where 

classification issues presented an obstacle. 

The working party obtained an International Traffic in Arms 

Regulations (ITAR) exception for the study, which granted DoD 

advisors and working party members the authority to share ITARcontrolled information with the United Kingdom for the purposes of 

the study. The U.S. working party executive secretary and the DoD 
 

______________________________________________________ INTRODUCTORY OVERVIEW

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5

liaisons assigned to each panel were designated as exchange points of 

contact for all documents provided. 

MAINTAINING LISTS OF CRITICAL, DISRUPTIVE AND 

EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES 

The terms of reference for this study asked that we define a 

methodology for coming up with a list of critical/disruptive/ 

emerging technologies, and to define such a list. Along the way, we 

reinterpreted this task after discovering that both MoD UK and the 

DoD maintain respective lists of future technologies of high interest. 

We did review the DSAC prepared list applicable to the UK Research 

Acquisition Organisation, who are developing the MoD UK Research 

Programme. Likewise, we reviewed a similar Office of the Secretary 

of Defense list which is more limited to programs targeted for 

funding consideration. The Defense Advanced Research Projects 

Agency (DARPA) also has active programs defined and agreed in 

DARPA. The recent U.S. Intelligence Quadrennial Review known as 

the QICR Challenge has also recommended that the Assistant of the 

Director National Intelligence for Science and Technology, via the 

National Intelligence Science and Technology Counsel (which has 

extensive DoD participation), maintain such a list updated annually, 

working in cooperation with the National Intelligence Office for 

Science and Technology. It would be good if the Office, Director 

National Intelligence list, when developed, be cross-walked with the 

DoD list. In any case, methodologically, it is recommended that both 

the DoD and the MoD maintain such lists to be reviewed and 

updated annually, and that as much as possible, the United States 

and the United Kingdom compare and share their respective lists. 

The respective intelligence organisations can be involved where 

appropriate. 

For the purposes of this report, we have elected to compile lists of 

critical technologies that applied only to the technology topics 

addressed by this report. They are contained in each of the technical 

chapters. Relatedly, we have deliberately not included the various 

DoD and MoD lists in this report. 
 

CHAPTER 1 __________________________________________________________________ 

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6 

STRUCTURE

In some cases, the U.S. and UK teams adopted different 

approaches to the study, shaped by differing perspectives. The DSAC 

members on the whole concentrated on individual technologies while 

the DSB, in addition, focused on mission, organisation, and system 

integration of technology. The DSB was also more concerned with 

U.S. technology bases, i.e. the laboratories and industries that 

develop military-unique technology and build systems that 

incorporate that technology. As a result, some chapters in the report 

represent a harmonization of different approaches. 

The chapters contain the integrated findings and 

recommendations of the U.S. and UK panels. Chapter 2 discusses 

Power Sources and Management and argues that optimizing system 

performance, rather than that of individual components, is essential 

to the successful development of power efficient distributed 

networks. The chapter also highlights how power sources will 

continue to dominate the size and weight of systems and limit their 

lifetime, and points to the need for exploring less sophisticated but 

lower cost, smaller size, and higher reliability nodes that may solve 

the power problem. 

In chapter 3, the U.S. and UK panels address different aspects of 

High Performance Computing. The U.S. group focused on defence 

priorities in very high scale or integrated High Performance 

Computing, while the UK panel explored technologies such as grid 

and cluster computing and applications. The panel findings call for 

MoD and DoD collaboration to initiate a UK High Performance 

Computing programme to complement existing DARPA activities. 

In chapter 4, Defence Critical Electronic Components, the U.S. 

panel focused on industrial and political issues while the UK group 

adopted a bottom-up approach to analyze known military capability 

requirements. In addition to calling for increased UK and U.S. 

collaboration, the panel recommends an overhaul of export control 

regulations, which the panel finds is currently ineffective in denying 
 

______________________________________________________ INTRODUCTORY OVERVIEW

________________________________________________________________________ 

 

7

semiconductor technology to potential adversaries and in some cases 

encourages the development of foreign sources of critical technology. 

Chapter 5 is the joint report of the Advanced Command 

Environments panel, which emphasizes the need to integrate the 

human factor into the development of complex technology and 

information systems. The U.S. and UK Advanced Command 

Environments panels initially differed in their approach; the U.S. 

team was interested in enabling technologies such as visualization, 

displays, and ergonomics, while the UK team sought to develop a 

framework to help determine whether a technology was worthwhile. 

The chapter illustrates how collaboration between the U.S. and UK 

panels led to a convergence in perspectives and a common 

understanding of the problem. 

In chapter 6 on Persistent Surveillance, the U.S. and UK groups 

followed two distinct but complementary threads. The United States 

sought to understand how to better exploit outputs from persistent 

surveillance technologies, while the United Kingdom instead focused 

on identifying technologies that require specific defence investment 

or that could benefit from UK/U.S. collaboration. Chapter 6 argues 

for increased UK and U.S. collaboration to establish common 

standards and interoperability, link high-level Network Enabled 

Capability and Network Centric Warfare activity, and explore the 

benefits, opportunities, and challenges of aligning capabilities to 

drive improvements in persistent surveillance. 

By definition, the use of small teams for each of these topical 

assignments means that the technology addressal of these topics was 

“thin” when compared to normal DSB and DSAC output. We 

adjudged that it was more important to explore the processes of 

working jointly together on topics, and we picked diverse topics to 

challenge those processes. Observations about these processes are 

contained in the “Conclusion” chapter of this report. 
CHAPTER 2 __________________________________________________________________ 

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8 

CHAPTER 2. POWER SOURCES/MANAGEMENT FOR SMALL,

DISTRIBUTED NETWORKED SENSORS

INTRODUCTION

Distributed sensor systems on the ground, under water, and in 

the air have been used by the military for many years. The key 

applications are in intelligence gathering and to better understand 

and measure the battlefield – this includes the detection and 

monitoring of personnel, military vehicles, weapons, and 

communications. Emerging technologies will allow small, low-cost 

networked sensors to autonomously coordinate amongst 

themselves to achieve a larger sensing task. While initial 

applications for these new sensor systems are in the commercial 

market (for example, power and equipment monitoring; climate 

control; structural, seismic, and environmental monitoring; and 

inventory management and tracking), these technologies will 

revolutionize information gathering and processing by the military 

and intelligence communities across a range of terrains including 

urban, farm/rural, jungle, mountain, and desert. As a measure of 

their impact, the market for small, autonomous distributed sensor 

networks (also called “motes” or “smart dust”) is estimated to be 

$50 billion in ten years, dominated by civilian uses. 

Distributed in irregular patterns across remote and often hostile 

environments, sensor networks create daunting engineering 

challenges for sensor system designers, builders, and military users. 

Each node, which consists of a sensor, processing electronics, 

communications, and a power source in an environmental package, 

must be small, lightweight, inexpensive, low-power, and, because 

of the projected size of the network, low-cost. The system 

architecture provides the overarching control strategy. In order for 

these systems to be most effective for the military, sensor networks 

must self-organize, be robust and provide high information 

assurance despite individual node failures, intermittent 

connectivity, and tampering. In addition, support for lengthy 
___________________________________________POWER SOURCES/MANAGEMENT FOR SMALL,

DISTRIBUTED NETWORKED SENSORS

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9

mission lifetimes constrains power consumption to miserly rates 

when not in an energy conserving dormancy. 

Figure 1 shows a schematic drawing of the components in a 

typical node (left) and photographs of currently available (centre) 

and emerging (right) sensor nodes. What is obvious from these 

pictures is that despite the tremendous advances in sensors, 

control/processing electronics, and communications systems that 

have occurred over the last few decades (and continue to occur), the 

power source completely dominates the size and weight of the 

individual node. In addition, packaged electronics are far more 

robust than the power source to the environmental extremes 

experienced by the military (high/low temperature, 

water/humidity, shock and vibration, dust/dirt, etc.). Thus, there is 

a growing consensus that advances in power source technology and 

low-power circuit design cannot, by themselves, meet the energy 

needs of future sensor systems and that entirely new architectures 

and protocols must be developed. “Node-centric” power issues 

(which are constrained by the laws of physics, chemistry, and 

thermodynamics) include low-power sensing, low-power 

electronics for data processing and storage, communications (both 

transmit and receive), and the power source itself. Addressing these 

issues will increase the lifetime of an individual sensor node and 

therefore enhance network longevity. Once these hardware 

constraints are better understood, one can then explore higher level 

systems and software issues (such as the development of advanced 

architectures, protocols, and algorithms); as well as, the key 

technical system synergies and trade-offs between hardware and 

software to ensure that the network maintains its high level of 

functionality while still conserving energy. 
CHAPTER 2 __________________________________________________________________ 

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10 

 

Figure 1. The power source bottleneck. 1

LOW-POWER SENSING

The commercial market and numerous defence programmes are 

developing a vast array of compact, light-weight, low-power sensor 

systems for incorporation into distributed networks that are 

relevant to the needs of the defence and intelligence communities. 

These include sensors for explosives; chemical, biological and 

nuclear weapons; thermal, motion, pressure and magnetic/metal 

sensors for tracking military vehicles and weapons; audio and 

imaging technologies (including infrared, visible and ultraviolet) 

for detecting and monitoring both personnel and vehicles; and 

radio frequency (RF) and audio sensors for monitoring 

communications. Today’s sensors represent only a small fraction of 

the power requirements of a distributed network system. 

Depending on the type of sensor employed and its use profile, 

power consumption can be either extremely low-level, continuous 

(nanoWatt – milliWatt) or require bursts of power (>Watt). 

Representative examples of the energy use and lifetime for a 

number of sensors applicable to the military and intelligence 

communities are shown in Table 1. 

 

1. A typical sensor node (left) consists of a sensor (or group of sensors), control 

electronics/signal processor/data storage, clock and an RF transceiver with an 

antenna. Such systems are available for purchase today (centre) and operate on two 

“AA” batteries. Nodes emerging from research laboratories are far smaller and operate 

at far lower power, in this case a “coin cell” (right). Despite substantial advances in 

technology, the node size and weight is still dominated by the power source. 
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Table 1. Energy use and lifetime of several currently available sensors.

Note that by switching from a AA alkaline battery to a comparably sized, commercially 

available Li-CFx cell will increase the sample size by a factor of approximately five. 

Figure 2 displays representative examples of packaged sensor 

systems available on the commercial market today. Maturation of 

these technologies in terms of size, weight, power draw, reliability, 

and especially cost is already occurring rapidly, driven primarily by 

the needs of the commercial market place (e.g., high resolution 

cameras in cell phones, accelerometers and gyroscopes in wireless 

joysticks and mice, microspectrophotometers and 

microelectrochemical cells for glucose monitoring by diabetics, etc.). 

Many of these sensors are extremely robust and driven by the needs 

of the implantable medical device and automotive industries 

(currently the single largest consumer of Micro Electro-Mechanical 

Systems (MEMS) accelerometers for airbags and an emerging 

player in the passive infrared market). These latter sensors must 

meet environmental standards which in many cases are more 

stringent than those of the military. While some of the technologies 

noted above require additional maturation and environmental 

hardening before fielding, this is already occurring in the 

commercial/industrial, biomedical and defence sectors. Therefore, 

we believe that no supplementary (incremental) investments in 

low-power sensors are needed at this time. In addition, the 

academic, small business, and research laboratory communities are 

developing a vast array of even lower power sensors with higher 

sensitivities based on polymer electronics, nanotechnology (e.g., 

Sensor Energy/sample (3V) Samples per AA alkaline battery

Microphone 1.5 nanoJoule (nJ) 20 trillion 

Temperature 30 nJ 1 trillion 

Accelerometer 1.5 microJoule (μJ) 20 billion 

Passive infrared (IR) 75 μJ 5 billion 

Magnetometer 300 μJ 100 million 

Pressure 300 μJ 100 million 

CMOS Imager 1 milliJoule (mJ) 30 million 

Gas (electrochemical) Unlimited (generates power) 
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12 

carbon and silicon nanotubes) and biomimetics (e.g., electronic 

noses). 

Figure 2. Commercially available packaged sensors including complete visible camera, gas 

sensor, infrared imager and accelerometer. 

The military and intelligence communities face two critical 

issues with respect to the development and exploitation of 

emerging low-power sensors in distributed sensor networks, 

however. The first issue involves the speed with which these 

sensors will continue to improve in functionality and decrease in 

size, weight, cost, and power and the limited ability of the military 

procurement system and traditional defence contractors to rapidly 

incorporate them into state-of-the art systems. The second issue is 

perhaps more ominous: the availability of state-of-the art sensors to 

our potential adversaries given that most of these are produced in 

large quantities for the commercial market in overseas factories. 

LOW-POWER ELECTRONICS

Today’s sensor nodes all require some form of electronics for 

data collection, manipulation, storage, etc. Power consumption of 

the key electronic components for sensor nodes (e.g., clock, 
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13

microprocessors, memory, etc.) will continue to fall at a pace driven 

by Moore’s Law. As feature sizes shrink, operating voltages drop 

and new device architectures are developed. Today feature sizes of 

commercial devices are routinely below 100 nanometre 

(demonstrations at ~20 nanometre) and supply voltages less than 

200 millivolt are possible. Like sensors, much of the need for lowpower, reliable electronics is driven by the commercial, portable 

communications, and entertainment markets (e.g., cell phones, MP3 

players, laptop computers, etc.). Biomedical applications are having 

an increasing impact in this area (e.g., cochlear and retinal 

implants). Consumers are demanding increased performance, 

functionality, and run time and suppliers are delivering. Depending 

on the use profile, power needs for low-level, continuous 

(quiescent) operation can be in the microWatt (μW) to milliWatt 

(mW) range requiring bursts of mW’s to W’s during processing 

intensive periods. Note that many microprocessors already shut 

down part of their system when not in use to conserve power. 

Nothing comes for free, however, and there are trade-offs, for 

example, between smaller feature size (smaller chip size, lower die 

cost) and increased leakage current (more power draw) or faster 

clock speed (more operations per second) and increased power 

usage. If one is willing to drop the clock speed substantially, one 

can build a 16 MHz general purpose processor that uses less than 1 

mW during operation and only a few μW in standby. The key to the 

efficiency of these low-power systems is to only turn on the portion 

of the circuit that is being used at any given time (this is driven by 

system architecture, see below). For low duty cycle operations, it is 

the standby power that determines the lifetime of the system and 

thus low leakage current is absolutely critical. Decreased system 

flexibility can also yield a substantial improvement in power 

efficiency. For example, there is a two-order of magnitude trade-off 

between the power efficiency of a dedicated verses a general 

purpose microcontroller. More energy efficient data storage 

hardware (e.g., static random access memory [SRAM] verses 

dynamic random access memory [DRAM]) can also minimize 

power requirements. All of these issues are being addressed in 

commercial and emerging commercial systems. In addition, much 
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14 

of the environmental tolerance (e.g., extreme temperatures, 

humidity, dust, mud, etc. operation) and extremely high reliability, 

of critical importance to defence, is now driven by automotive, 

biomedical, and computer/communications intensive “road 

warrior” needs. 

The military and intelligence communities face the same two 

critical issues noted above: the speed with which power efficient 

electronics will continue to improve (and the limited ability of the 

military procurement system and traditional defence contractors to 

rapidly incorporate them into state-of-the art systems), and the 

availability of these systems to our potential adversaries given that 

most of these are produced overseas. 

COMMUNICATIONS

Transceivers are the single largest consumer of power in a 

distributed network system. The total power consumption of both 

the transmitter and the receiver is critically dependent on the 

system specifics including the stand-by, wake-up and 

transmit/receive power; operating frequency; clock 

synchronization (the more accurate the system clock, the higher the 

use fidelity between the transmitter and the receiver – see 

discussion of system architecture below); the use profile (duty cycle, 

typically ≤1% and approximately linear in power usage); the system 

architecture/control algorithms; the node spacing, placement and 

location (e.g., on soil/ground cover, in buildings or trees, etc.), and 

the extent of on-board signal processing verses the quantity of data 

transmitted for remote processing. A qualitative view of these latter 

two trade-offs is shown in Figure 3 and is a key driver in the design 

of distributed sensor systems. 
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15

Figure 3. Schematic view of the trade-offs between the power requirements for transmit power 

(solid) and on-node processing (dashed) and as a function of the distance between nodes. 

Zigbee and Global System for Mobile communications (GSM) are standard 

communications protocols used by sensor nodes and cell phones, respectively. 

The commercial market is making great strides toward 

minimizing power consumption in transceivers. This is driven 

largely by the use of BlueTooth, 802.11, 802.15.4 (Zigbee), etc. 

protocols in portable consumer electronics and commercial sensor 

systems. Today’s commercially available low-power transmitters 

require only ~20 milliAmp (mA) of current to transmit 250 kbps 

(thousands of bits per second) and next generation commercial 

systems will require only 4 mA. Today’s laboratory-based systems 

are pushing the envelope even further and use less than 0.4 mA to 

transmit 50 kbps. Because of privacy issues, encryption and 

crosstalk/interference are also being addressed by commercial 

industry. Like sensors and low-power electronics, the automotive 

industry is driving these devices to have broad environmental 

tolerance (required for remote entry, wireless headsets, etc.). 

Finally, while many of these systems are designed to operate in 

electronically noisy environments (e.g., industrial settings), they are 
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16 

not built to detect or tolerate active jamming – a key problem for the 

military given the need to operate at extremely low transmit power 

to prolong power source life. 

While improvements in sensors, electronics, and radios are 

being driven rapidly by the needs of the commercial market, 

antenna enhancement has lagged far behind. This is especially true 

for antennas of specific interest to the defence and intelligence 

communities. Most commercial transceiver systems, whether for 

consumer, commercial or industrial use, operate at least one metre 

from the ground. While antenna size is important for compactness, 

it does not have to be covert. This is not the case for distributed 

sensor systems for the military – where most distributed sensor 

systems will be on the ground, inside buildings or even underwater 

and should not be readily detected. Antenna performance and 

therefore transmission distance, drops dramatically as one 

approaches the ground due to anomalous reflections, turbulence in 

the atmosphere, diffraction effects from objects, and the proximity 

of a lossy (dielectric) medium. In free space, the power required to 

transmit a signal with an omni-directional antenna, increases as 

distance squared (r2) while near the ground or underwater it can be 

as high as r4. 

The curves in Figure 4 show that the performance of a vertical 

antenna drops dramatically as the height above a gravel surface is 

reduced from 120 inches to 7 inches and finally to 4 inches. It is 

expected that the performance will degrade even further as the 

distance decreases to near 0 inches and the antenna shrinks in size 

or changes in direction from vertical to near-horizontal (crucial for 

covert operation). In addition, the condition of the ground is 

critically important to how well electromagnetic waves will 

propagate (e.g., conductivity – asphalt verses soil, the presence of 

obstacles such as rocks and vegetation – surface roughness, etc.). 

Systematic tests of these variables have not been performed to date 

and are critical to the design of sensor networks. Finally, because of 

size constraints, one cannot use high-gain antennas on individual 

sensor nodes. This further limits the performance of both the node 

and the system. 
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17

Figure 4. Performance (signal intensity loss verses distance between transmitter and receiver) of a 

vertical antenna degrades rapidly as it is brought closer to a gravel surface (120 inches: 

pink squares, 7 inches: purple triangles, 4 inches: brown diamonds). The smooth curves 

show signal intensity falling off as r2

 (orange) and r3 (blue). 

Given the importance of antennas to the performance of 

distributed sensor systems, it is critical for the military to develop a 

fundamental understanding of electromagnetic propagation on and 

near the ground (<10 centimetre [cm]) as a function of operating 

frequency, bandwidth, ground cover environment (e.g., soil, sand, 

asphalt, cement, grass, bushes, trees, etc.), weather, etc. Once a 

sound experimental and theoretical basis is established, one then 

needs to create design tools and build and test high performance, 

compact (stealthy) antennas and antenna systems (e.g., with, for 

example, micro load coils to raise the “effective” height of the 

antenna) specific for near-ground operation in a range of 

environments critical to many defence and intelligence community 

applications. 
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POWER SOURCES

Numerous small power sources (e.g., batteries) and energy 

harvesting systems (e.g., solar cells) exist and have been used in 

commercial distributed sensor networks for a variety of 

applications (e.g., automated irrigation and fire alert systems). 

Table 2 lists several current and emerging power sources which 

may be applicable to distributed sensor networks. Commercial 

systems do not require stealth, can be readily serviced, and under 

certain circumstances tap into the existing electrical grid for power. 

Commercial technology can and should be used for military 

applications having similar operational characteristics. However, 

the military has unique missions that will require more demanding 

attributes such as stealth, long-term operation without human 

intervention, and harsh operating environments. Stealth and longterm operation clearly require high energy density (energy/unit 

volume) power sources. In addition, the dimensions of the power 

source may be a critical design feature (e.g., a very thin power 

source may be desirable from both systems architecture and 

manufacturing standpoints). Whatever the power source, they must 

be able to operate over a broad range of environmental conditions 

(high and low temperature, high and low humidity, 

dust/dirt/mud, etc.) and should not emit detectable signatures. 
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Table 2. Comparison of various potential power sources for wireless 

sensor networks. Values shown are actual demonstrated numbers except in two cases 

which have been italicized. For systems where the source of power may be intermittent, 

secondary storage (e.g., a rechargeable battery or supercapacitor) may be required. 

Supercapacitors may also be used in systems where short pulses of high power are required. 

Power Source 

P/cm

3

(μW/cm3

) 

E/cm

3

(J/cm3

)

P/cm

3

/yr 

(μW/cm3

/Yr)

Secondary 

Storage 

Needed 

Voltage 

Regulation 

Commercially 

Available 

Primary 

Battery - 2880 90 No No Yes 

Secondary 

Battery - 1080 34 - No Yes 

Micro-Fuel 

Cell - 3500 110 Maybe Maybe No 

Supercapacitor - 50-100 1.6-3.2 Maybe Yes Yes 

Heat engine - 3346 106 Yes Yes No 

Radioactive 

(

63

Ni) 0.52 1640 0.52 Yes Maybe No 

Solar (outside) 15000 * - - Usually Maybe Yes 

Solar (inside) 10 * - - Usually Maybe Yes 

Temperature 40 * † - - Usually Maybe Soon 

Human Power 330 - - Yes Yes No 

Air flow 380 †† - - Yes Yes No 

Pressure 

Variation 17 ††† - - Yes Yes No 

Vibrations 200 - - Yes Yes No 

* Denotes sources whose fundamental metric is power per square centimetre rather than power per 

cubic centimetre. 

† Demonstrated from a 5 oC temperature differential. 

†† Assumes air velocity of 5 m/s and 5 % conversion efficiency. 

††† Based on a 1 cm3 

closed volume of helium undergoing a 10 oC temperature change once per 

day. 
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20 

While there is generally a trade-off between energy density and 

power density, the key driver for most systems is energy. Thus, 

batteries are the obvious choice for most applications as they are 

hermetically sealed, can operate over wide temperature ranges 

(depending on the electrolyte and the cell chemistry), are robust, 

will have little or no signature at the power rating envisioned for 

distributed sensor networks and are readily available at low cost. In 

contrast to batteries, supercapacitors (also known as 

electrochemical double layer capacitors) offer very high power 

density (>10 Watts/gram [W/g]) with limited energy storage. 

These may be useful in hybrid systems where high power 

communications are routinely required. Only after a thorough 

system analysis reveals that batteries will not meet the energy 

requirement of the mission should other alternatives be pursued. 

Energy harvesting or the conversion of high-energy content fuels to 

electricity are alternatives to batteries, but add system complexity, 

limit the conditions over which the system may operate, may 

decrease reliability, and certainly increase cost. In some instances 

one could envision a distribution of sensors, which would not 

require any power at all. For example, randomly distributed sensors 

that have the ability to change state when exposed to a triggering 

signal could be “read” periodically by passing vehicles (see below). 

This would not be as sophisticated as a network of nodes that 

communicate with each other but could nonetheless be a valuable 

asset in battlefield management (e.g., land mine detection). Such 

systems could be built using technologies and components from the 

rapidly growing radio frequency identification market. 

Energy harvesting approaches offer the advantage of very long 

duration missions without the need for changing batteries or 

refueling. Even for small power loads the integrated energy over 

time can well exceed the energy content of any known or 

anticipated battery chemistry. There are many sources of ambient 

energy and means to convert this energy to electrical power. Some 

of these are listed in Table 2 above. For distributed sensor networks 

the amount of energy harvested is likely to be small due to the 

source energy content and the small footprint of the “harvester.” It 

may be necessary to harvest and store energy over some period of 

time in order to enable power draws, e.g., periodic radio 
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21

transmissions, which exceed the capabilities of the energy 

harvester. This will necessitate a hybrid approach: the use of a 

rechargeable battery and/or supercapacitor to store the harvested 

energy for later use. The required power loads and duty cycles will 

determine the design of the hybrid components. Reliability will be 

determined by the integrity of the energy harvester (e.g., a solar cell 

could become obscured by debris and rendered useless) and the 

energy storage device (e.g., long term battery performance, which 

can be affected by cycling, depth of discharge, temperature 

extremes, or self-discharge). 

Energy conversion of fuels to electricity using purely thermal, 

mechanical or electrochemical means is a very attractive option due 

to the high energy content of many fuels (e.g., hydrogen: 33 Watt 

hours/gram [Wh/g], diesel/jet fuel: ~13 Wh/g, methanol: 5.6 

Wh/g). If air is used as the oxidant, it does not have to be carried 

and thus there is no volume or weight penalty associated with it, 

however if the system gets flooded with water or is contaminated 

(dust, mud, chemicals, etc.) the power source could be 

compromised or cease to function, perhaps permanently. The same 

is true for air (oxygen) “breathing” batteries (e.g., Zn-air, Al-air, Liair). 

For very short missions the fuel volume relative to that of the 

energy conversion device is insignificant, so fuel conversion 

efficiency is not important. It is unlikely, however, that for short 

mission scenarios envisioned, this approach would be better than 

batteries or supercapacitors, which are much simpler to implement 

and less susceptible to environmental contamination. Energy 

conversion efficiency is critical for long missions, as the amount of 

fuel required will determine the power source system weight and 

volume and the energy conversion device will be only a small 

fraction of the total. Thus, small fuel cells may play a role here. 

While the fuel energy content is a compelling incentive for 

developing these small systems, many subsystem components, e.g., 

insulation, shielding, air and fuel management systems, thermal 

management, will contribute to reducing the overall system energy 

density for a given mission. Variable load profiles will add 
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22 

complexity and likely reduce overall system efficiency, energy, 

density, and reliability. 

Radioactive sources provide a steady source of heat and/or 

nuclear particles (typically alphas and betas) which may be 

converted directly to electricity and exploited for compact, longterm energy conversion devices. Systems based on direct thermal 

conversion with lifetimes greater than 20 years have been 

developed for the space program; direct electrical conversion of 

high energy electrons (e.g., betavoltaics) in a compact package is 

emerging as a possible new high energy density power source. 

Proliferation is not an issue here as the amount of material is small 

(for example, most of today’s home smoke alarms contain a small 

amount of radioactive material). While the energy density of a 

nuclear source is orders of magnitude higher than that of a chemical 

fuel, the conversion efficiency is still quite low leading to high 

energy density, but low power density systems. Proper shielding 

will also be required for safe handling and stealth. In addition, the 

source must not degrade any of the components of the power 

source or any other system components (e.g., electronics). Note that 

nuclear sources produce a constant output and cannot be throttled 

or shut off. Thus, they must be used as part of a hybrid system 

incorporating a rechargeable battery or supercapacitor if large 

excursions in power demand (such as transmitting or receiving 

data) are required by the application. 

For all of these power sources proper metrics need to be 

developed for the power source (power, energy, cycle life, 

efficiency, etc.) in the context of the load profile for the anticipated 

mission under the expected environmental conditions. This will 

ensure good trade studies that will lead to the optimum solution for 

a given application and mission. Small nuclear sources, very high 

energy density batteries, and energy conversion devices should be 

evaluated for potential research and development funding to 

improve performance in distributed sensor networks. In addition, 

the state-of-the-art for existing energy harvesting technologies or 

concepts should be assessed in the context of distributed sensor 

networks in order to determine what, if any, energy shortfalls exist. 

Finally, the military should exploit the use of very low-cost, 
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23

unpowered sensor systems (built around architectures developed 

for radio frequency identification tags, see Figure 5) for military and 

intelligence applications. It may be much simpler and more cost 

effective, and reliable to deploy a suite of unsophisticated sensors, 

each reporting on different agents or signals, than one highly 

sophisticated sensor that attempts to do everything. 

Figure 5. Potential for compact, unpowered (or extremely low power) distributed sensors based 

on passive radio frequency identification (left) and optical corner-cube retroreflectors 

(right). The node receives its power to respond from an interrogating pulse (e.g., RF or 

light) from, for example, an overhead asset or passing vehicle. 

SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE

Optimized network architecture and the operating protocols 

and algorithms used to drive the system are critical to minimizing 

power usage while maximizing performance and robustness. This is 

a rapidly evolving field driven by significant investments from both 

the military and civilian parts of the government (work performed 

by both small companies and university performers), venture 

capitalists (through small companies), and large 

commercial/military suppliers. Typical sensor architectures include 

star, cluster tree, mesh, and hybrid. Examples are shown in Figure 

6. A star architecture (Figure 6[a]) uses a central node to mediate all 

communication. It is a very simple system (exemplified by 802.11) 

and derives its power savings via time, division, and demand 

multiple access (TDMA). Unfortunately, it has a single point of 

failure and no redundancy. A cluster tree network (Figure 6[b]) 

uses a branching tree structure where each cluster head controls 

sub-nodes. This extends the range of the system and provides 
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24 

power savings through scheduling sub-networks. Unfortunately, 

the individual routes are longer and there is still no redundancy. A 

mesh network (Figure 6[c]) uses every node as a relay or routing 

point which provides short routes, redundancy, and easy 

deployment. The increased listening times makes power 

conservation difficult, however. A hybrid network (Figure 6[d]) 

uses elements from star and mesh architectures to provide short 

routes, ultra-low power leaf nodes and easy deployment at the 

expense of increased complexity. While certain types of networks 

may be ideal for specific situations, the keys for the military are to 

ensure the reliability of the information and to make the system 

adaptable to the addition or loss of new nodes and robust to 

changing conditions. 

Figure 6. Representative distributed sensor network architectures each with its own advantages 

and disadvantages (see text). 

The choice of system architecture is dependent on many 

variables. Most optimized network architectures use a hybrid 

system involving a mixture of very low-power sensor nodes (of 

order mW with 1 kilobyte compute power) combined with star, 

(a) Star 

(b) Cluster Tree 

(c) Mesh 

(d) Hybrid 
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25

cluster and/or mesh nodes which function as higher level network 

controllers (mW – W, 1 megabyte – 1 gigabyte compute power). 

Due to the rapid drop in microprocessor/memory power 

requirements relative to that of transceivers, more signal processing 

is occurring on the local and star nodes verses transmitting data to a 

central location for processing. System trades involving, for 

example, shorter distances, but multi-hop verses longer distance 

single hop, optimized duty cycle, two-way handshaking, etc. are 

already being performed, but more work clearly must be done 

given the specific needs of the military. In contrast to the 

commercial sensor network market, it is critical for the military to 

operate with randomly placed sensors, some of which may be 

compromised. Such control structures have been developed and 

tested. 

While the system architecture determines the distance over 

which an individual signal must travel and the inherent 

redundancy of the network, the operating protocols determine how 

“alert” the network is. The average system power requirements can 

be determined by summing up the fraction of time the system is 

asleep (typically >95%) times the sleep power plus the fraction of 

time the system spends in wake-up mode times its power 

requirements (very short, but may be power intense) plus the 

fraction of time and the amount of power required to do “real” 

work – sense, compute, transmit/receive, etc. (Pave = fsleep*Psleep + 

fwakeup*Pwakeup+ fwork*Pwork). Numerous methods are used to control 

the relative amount of time in each state depending on the 

requirements of the system. These include synchronous wake-up 

where the entire system turns on simultaneously for a short amount 

of time to determine if it has detected anything and then shuts 

down again. This requires a high quality system clock and is not 

particularly energy efficient since the system will turn on when 

there is nothing to report. Alternatively, “sentries” in the system 

can provide alerts as soon as something is detected and turn on the 

entire network. While this may minimize transmit power 

requirements, this requires receivers to listen more often and thus 

increases their power usage. 
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26 

Once the overarching system network architecture is decided 

on, node addressing protocols to control transceiver function must 

be established. Most use standard communications protocols (many 

of which have been developed for the cell phone industry, e.g., 

GSM, Code Division Multiple Access and TDMA). There are 

significant development efforts in both universities and companies 

to write efficient, yet flexible, operating systems to control both the 

system and each individual node. These include the development of 

both open source (e.g., TinyOS) and proprietary operating systems. 

High-speed algorithms optimized for specific applications are then 

written. Since the military operates in harsh environments with the 

need for high reliability, it is critical that the network contain some 

redundancy, fault tolerance and a low probability of detection and 

interception. While the requirements are not as strict for most 

civilian applications, encryption and error correction are already 

part of many of these systems. The defence and intelligence 

communities can certainly leverage the vast array of work going on 

in this field and can steer research into appropriate directions.

SYSTEM SYNERGIES AND TRADE-OFFS

While developers of distributed, networked sensor systems 

understand that one must optimize the entire network, not a single 

node or single function, many of the key hardware components are 

being created in isolation (e.g., sensors for numerous stand-alone 

and networked applications, electronics for a broad range of 

consumer needs, standardized communications driven primarily by 

networked consumer devices, general purpose power sources, etc.). 

Today, poor system design results in a sensor node dominated by 

the size and weight of the power source (Figure 1) rendering 

advances in component miniaturization essentially irrelevant. Thus, 

it is imperative that a total system design approach include power 

generation, power conditioning, energy storage and management, 

etc. and be carried out from the earliest stages of development. 

Most distributed sensor network developers are focusing on the use 

of low-cost, general purpose components for a broad market and 

thus coordination and optimization mainly occurs through software 

(system architecture). More specialized integrated electronic and 
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27

communications systems (systems on a chip or systems in a 

package) are emerging from university and government research 

laboratories and can operate at much less power than conventional 

designs, as well as, provide for smaller size and higher reliability. 

An example of such a system is shown in Figure 7. One can go 

much further, however and use multifunctional approaches to 

packaging where the power source components are fully integrated 

with the sensor, package, antenna, etc. (for example, using printed 

batteries, fuel cells or solar cells). This can further reduce the 

weight, volume, and footprint of a node and potentially increase its 

reliability. 

 

Figure 7. Sensor node with integrated power source (solar cell), electronics, radio and antenna 

emerging from today’s university research laboratories. 

This systems approach is critical to the successful development 

and deployment of low-cost, power efficient distributed networks. 

Nevertheless, hardware is only one small piece of the solution (a 

two- to five-fold improvement) – software holds far more promise 

to affect the longevity of a distributed network system (possibly 

one-two orders of magnitude). Thus, the general conclusion that we 

reach is that research on application specific integrated systems 

(power generation, power conditioning, energy storage and 

management in conjunction with sensors, control electronics, signal 

processing, transceivers, etc.) with highly efficient software to 

control system load demands that minimize energy use while 
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28 

optimizing performance, reliability, lifetime, etc. for the military 

should be emphasized. This is critical to developing robust systems 

that cannot be detected or compromised by our adversaries. 

RECOMMENDATIONS

Despite huge investments in distributed sensor systems from the 

commercial market, the military and intelligence communities have 

an important role to play to ensure that the resulting systems meet 

their critical needs. Key recommendations are to: 

1. Develop critical system and power source metrics so that 

proper trade studies can be made in the context of military 

and intelligence community requirements. Optimizing the 

performance of the system (rather than that of the individual 

components) is critical to the successful development and 

deployment of power efficient distributed networks. 

2. Enhance and leverage the rapid advances emerging from the 

commercial and industrial sector including application 

specific integrated systems (power generation (e.g., very 

high energy density batteries and small nuclear sources), 

power conditioning, energy storage and management in 

conjunction with sensors, control electronics, signal 

processing, transceivers, etc.), and highly efficient software 

to control system load demands that minimize energy use 

while optimizing performance, reliability, and lifetime. Most 

of these systems will continue to improve rapidly in 

functionality and decrease in size, weight, cost, power, etc. 

without additional investment by the defence and 

intelligence communities. The resulting products, however, 

must be tailored to meet specific defence needs (extremely 

harsh environments, robustness/redundancy, and low 

probability of detection/low probability of intercept, 

jamming). 

3. Focus on areas where there is minimum commercial 

investment, in particular, antennas that must be covert and 

operate very close to the ground in a variety of terrains and 
___________________________________________POWER SOURCES/MANAGEMENT FOR SMALL,

DISTRIBUTED NETWORKED SENSORS

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29

in harsh operating conditions. A more thorough 

understanding of electromagnetic propagation in these 

specific environments and the development of new 

modelling and design tools and advanced materials, and 

concepts are critical to the successful deployment of 

distributed sensor networks. 

4. Given the rapid, continuous advances in sensors and 

electronics, for long-term missions, the power source will 

dominate the size and weight of the system and limit its 

lifetime. The development of remotely read, unpowered (or 

minimally powered) nodes which may be less sophisticated 

(but have lower-cost, smaller size, higher reliability, etc.) 

could solve the power problem and should be explored. Such 

systems may also limit detection and jamming by our 

adversaries. 

SUMMARY

Based on these recommendations, there are a number of critical 

defence-specific technologies that must be developed to ensure our 

ability to field effective distributed sensor networks. 

 Reliable, very high energy density power sources that 

can operate in the extremely harsh environmental 

conditions critical to the defense and intelligence 

communities. The optimum solution may involve 

hybrid systems (e.g., energy scavenging or continuous 

low-power systems for quiescent operation coupled 

with high pulse power delivery for communications). 

 Highly efficient software, architectures, and system 

design tools to optimize and control system loads for 

minimum energy use and optimum performance, 

reliability, and lifetime. 

 High efficiency, covert antennas that are optimized for 

near-ground use. This will require an improved 

understanding of electromagnetic propagation within 
CHAPTER 2 __________________________________________________________________ 

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30 

centimetres of the ground, as well as new materials 

and antenna design concepts. 

 Remotely read, unpowered (or minimally powered) 

sensor systems (components, architectures, software, 

etc.). These could be built on technologies developed 

for radio frequency identification tags, but will require 

the development of systems architectures to transfer 

multiple bits of information from ultra-low power 

sensors with minimal signal processing ability and at 

large stand-off distances. 

 Technologies to allow low-power sensor nodes and 

distributed sensor systems to operate and 

communicate reliably in electrically noisy and 

jamming environments. 

Beyond technology, the military and intelligence communities 

face two critical issues with respect to the development and 

exploitation of emerging low-power distributed sensor networks. 

The first issue involves the speed with which these systems will 

continue to improve in functionality and decrease in size, weight, 

cost and power, and the limited ability of the military procurement 

system and traditional defence contractors to rapidly incorporate 

them into state-of-the art systems. The second issue is perhaps more 

ominous: the availability of these systems to our potential 

adversaries given that most of these are produced in large 

quantities for the commercial market in overseas factorie 
 

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31

CHAPTER 3. HIGH PERFORMANCE COMPUTING

INTRODUCTION

Military applications have been a leading reason to develop high 

performance computing (HPC) – both hardware and software –

throughout the evolution of modern computers. HPC continues to be 

critical to cryptanalysis and intelligence analysis, as well as to the 

design of military platforms. Computational fluid dynamics codes 

perform aerodynamic modelling and hydrodynamic modelling for 

air craft, ship, missiles, and nuclear weapon design. The national 

security communities of both the United Kingdom and the United 

States make extensive use of such HPC technology, and the United 

Kingdom benefits from the U.S.’ investment and leadership in both 

hardware and software. 

Since the onset of the earliest computers like ENIAC, there have 

been a stressing set of military problems that demanded ever more 

powerful computation. That remains the case today. Even the highest 

performance computers are inadequate to solve a variety of 

challenging military and intelligence problems. New problems 

routinely arise. This chapter will discuss two stressing problems that 

can not be solved at an acceptable level today, but which could be 

solved through the development of new high performance 

computers: knowledge discovery and image/video processing. 

Today’s high performance computers all utilize processing 

elements that execute in parallel. Architectures, and of course the 

speed of various components, determine the delivered performance 

of a computer. This report will discuss three architectures: very high 

performance computers, cluster computers, and grid computers. 

From the beginning of the study, the U.S. and UK working parties 

took complementary approaches. The UK working party emphasized 

cluster and grid computing. The U.S. working party instead focused 

on very high performance computing. There are several reasons for 

the difference. The first is that the United States has dominated high 
 

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32 

performance computing until the recent past when Asian nations 

began challenging U.S. leadership by building state-of-the-art high 

performance computers, such as Japan’s Earth Simulator. There is 

great concern that lack of investment is eroding U.S. leadership in 

this field; as well as, negatively impacting our ability to meet defence 

mission requirements. A second reason for the U.S. focus is that 

technology that is developed in the context of high performance 

computers “flows down” to help advance mass market computers. 

Thus, if the United States does not aggressively pursue very high 

performance computer technology, then innovation in mass market 

computers will slow. The U.S. and UK militaries gain advantage from 

the assured access that they have to the upper end of mass market 

computation, which includes cluster and grid computing, as well as, 

very high performance machines and software. In addition, the 

military benefits from the economies of scale that derive from U.S. 

leadership in the medium and low end of the computer market. 

As a result of these different perspectives, the U.S. and UK 

working parties undertook complementary studies. Although the 

two studies were conducted largely independently, there were 

frequent email exchanges and teleconferences enabling the two 

groups to develop the common understanding of the issues and to 

produce this integrated report. 

DRIVING APPLICATIONS

Both the United States and United Kingdom have applications 

that cannot be solved with sufficient speed or with sufficient 

precision, e.g. cryptanalysis and design. To underscore the need for 

advancing high performance computation, we describe two problems 

that in the last several years have become critical to both nations. 

They cannot be adequately solved with today’s computers and 

software. Knowledge discovery and integration can make a large 

contribution both to intelligence analyses, for example, in locating 

terrorists before they strike and in preparation of the battlefield. 

Effective, rapid image and video processing has become more important 

as sensors proliferate. For example, the majority of video collected in 
 

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33

London must be processed automatically if the data is to be 

processed at all. 

Knowledge Discovery and Knowledge Integration 

Knowledge discovery is the analytic or search problem of finding 

selected items of data with a huge reservoir of disparately formed 

data items and recognizing a relationship between them. In the 

vernacular, this is called “connecting the dots.” Given a relationship 

of potential interest, the analyst seeks to extend it or corroborate it by 

relating further selected data items. Somewhere in this process, data 

is converted to knowledge, and in some cases actionable knowledge. 

In practice analytic knowledge is encoded in a range of products 

within an analyst’s workflow: analytic reports, working notes, stored 

query results etc. It is often these higher level products that need to 

be queried to answer the “is there anything known about...?” 

question, rather than the raw data. Sometimes these activities are 

referred to as knowledge discovery; the term knowledge integration 

is also used. 

For this application the search queries are both manually inserted 

and automatically generated by the knowledge discovery system. 

The analysis of query results is a continuous function of the system. 

Knowledge discovery occurs not just when data that is “out of the 

norm” emerges, but where new patterns between data, or properties 

of the data, become apparent. Discovery of some new correlations 

may very often generate new “queries” that either search for other 

occurrences of the same pattern, or build on the pattern to formulate 

larger patterns. 

Knowledge discovery is representative of a large subset of 

applications that are particularly key to both national security and 

different in character from traditional uses of HPC in modelling the 

physical world, in at least the following ways: 

 Mathematics used, graph theory, combinatorics, pattern 

recognition, logic, 

 Algorithms used, discrete algorithms, fuzzy matching, 

clustering, inferencing, and 
 

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34 

 Data structures used, linked lists, semantic nets, 

dynamic data typing. 

As a consequence, there are extreme demands placed on 

computational resources, such as: large uniformly-addressable 

memory, random access, high bandwidth, low latency for small data 

updates, potential for very high amounts of random concurrency but 

balanced by increasing need to propagate the effects, and 

implications of changes through widely scattered data items. 

While knowledge discovery has synergies with a few commercial 

applications, including bioinformatics (protein and gene databases, 

drug discovery, etc.), information retrieval and web search, a recent 

report from the U.S. National Academies states, “The scale of this 

knowledge discovery problem is significantly larger than the largest 

commercial data mining operations.”2

Knowledge discovery also differs dramatically from modern 

“database” applications. Much of the knowledge discovery is internal 

and driven not by programmer inputs but by software that observes 

potential correlations that surface from convolving large amounts of 

data from different sources against each other. There is also a need 

for collaboration across organisational boundaries, bringing multidisciplinary skills to a problem or to allow the federation of 

geographically dispersed data sources; this is where the term 

“knowledge integration” is most obviously relevant. 

Neither massive grid nor cluster computing, both of which are 

cheaper per cycle than very HPC, will scale effectively for large 

instances of this application. In physical modelling using partial 

differential equations, spatial locality often makes it possible to 

decompose problems and make efficient use of machines whose 

bandwidth and latency scaling is inferior to their compute power 

scaling. This describes the common HPC systems, and is, for 

example, the reason that the TOP500 benchmark favours such 

 

2. Getting Up to Speed – The Future of Supercomputing, Susan L. Graham, Marc Snir, and 

Cynthia A. Patterson, Editors, Committee on the Future of Supercomputing, National 

Research Council (NRC), November 2004. 
 

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35

systems. In contrast, the knowledge discovery application lacks 

physical locality and emphasize random access, fine-grained global 

operations, and pointer-walking graph analysis. “The knowledge 

discovery problem requires the understanding of extremely large 

graph networks with a dynamic collection of vertices and edges.”3

Walking from pointer to pointer in large graphs generates large 

amounts of traffic between computer nodes. When many pointers 

need to be simultaneously de-referenced, the computation becomes 

bandwidth limited, and the low-bandwidth of cluster or grid 

computers makes them ineffective. If only a few pointers need to be 

de-referenced, the computation becomes latency limited and the high 

latency of these machines leads to the same end result: inadequately 

used hardware and slowly produced results. 

The knowledge discovery process is heavily dependent on 

metadata. Metadata is “data about data”: information that provides a 

summary description of the content of the data item. A familiar 

example is an index of television programme – a compact textual 

description of channels and their planned programme – just enough 

information to characterize the content. An organized approach to 

metadata, for example a common data directory, is a primary enabler 

for knowledge integration. Metadata from different sources and 

describing different types of data (e.g. text, video, map co-ordinates) 

can be combined to allow concepts or generic types in the data to be 

contrasted and compared. The initial production of metadata from 

raw signals (e.g. voice recognition and image processing) is often 

extremely compute-intensive. 

Image and Video Processing 

A wealth of raw intelligence data is collected in the form of still 

image sequences, such as reconnaissance photos and videos from 

surveillance cameras (e.g., at airports, borders, and secure locations). 

Today, much of this data is discarded without exploitation due to 

limited human resources. An emerging class of image and video 

 

3. [NRC p. 56, EAGLE (Ref: 

http://crewman.uta.edu/psi/download/Cook_Holder/Graph_Based_Anomaly_19May

_2004.pdf) 
 

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36 

analysis applications holds the potential to make use of this 

discarded data. Image analysis applications can provide direct 

intelligence by interpreting the raw images and video – identifying 

objects and people of interest and, in video, tracking their 

movements. Image analysis can also provide indirect intelligence by 

providing annotations that can be used as input to the knowledge 

discovery process – for example, producing descriptions of the 

people who were observed at particular locations to store in a 

database from which further inference can be drawn. 

The field of image analysis has advanced greatly from the early 

failures of automatic target recognition. However, in many ways this 

field is still in its infancy. It can potentially benefit enormously from 

recent advances in statistical machine learning, for example by 

training a programme on a corpus of images and annotations until 

the programme learns to make the same annotations as an expert 

image analyst. Statistical methods are also being applied to 

discriminate “natural” movement – e.g., waves breaking and tree 

branches blowing – from “artificial” movement – e.g., a boat moving 

or person walking. 

Image analysis is computationally demanding, but quite 

amenable to parallel solutions. Parallelism exists at the high level of 

separate video streams and images and at the lower level of separate 

pixels (millions), objects (tens to hundreds), and templates (hundreds 

to millions) that can be processed in parallel. It is critical that the 

computational needs of these emerging image and video analysis 

applications be quantified and that future high-performance 

computers, hardware and software, provide the capabilities needed 

to meet rising mission requirements.

A modern integrated defence knowledge system utilizes a 

federation of systems that each serves the needs of their local 

organisations, with an integration tier that allows the consolidation of 

this information when needed. Federated systems may use their own 

data formats, but provide an information service to the integration 

tier using standardized metadata. Security features are necessary to 

allow each authority to retain control over the release of its own data. 
 

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37

Because access to interim and final analytic products (“knowledge”) 

may prove more important than access to raw data, the security 

protocol needs to support sharing of knowledge products as well as 

raw data. 

Image and video analysis algorithms require: irregularlystructured, linked, and dynamically changing data, of varying types 

e.g. text, images and databases; increasing multi-channel, highbandwidth, continuous, real-time input/output; 24x7 availability; 

and controlled cooperation between disparate organisations, 

including managing and optimizing their operation. 

A key characteristic of these two critical and stressing applications 

is that they often demand flexible, on-demand programming, in stark 

contrast to the long software development cycles for the more longestablished, stable, HPC applications. This, in turn, introduces 

demands on the supporting technologies, especially software 

development methods. 

ARCHITECTURES

The following section discusses the three architectural categories 

of high to very high performance computing. The fundamental 

difference is the distance (in processor cycles) between the processing 

components and the memory from which data is accessed. 

Grid 

This architecture is well suited to situations in which different 

organisations each own part of the relevant data and want to protect 

their resources and data according to their own security standards. 

The knowledge discovery problem often involves multiple 

organisations that have these types of relationships. 

Some in the defence community downplay grids because of their 

“open” architecture; however, a grid computer can provide 

controlled collaboration, because the architecture is well matched to 

situations in which multiple organisations are working on the same 

or related problems and sharing data. Grid computers, each with 
 

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38 

their own memory, are geographically separated and often the 

transfer of data is achieved by exchanging messages across the 

networks that connect them. 

Two technical problems need to be solved to make grid 

computing more applicable. First, the security mechanisms of today 

inadequately support the multi-level security required across 

multiple, indeed national, administration domains. Second, for some 

applications it is necessary to co-schedule tasks to run concurrently 

on multiple nodes in the grid – across multiple computers that may 

be in different administrative domains. 

Most girds in use today are classified as less than high 

performance computer systems. However, a grid with high 

bandwidth communication, large memories, and many fast (though 

not necessarily high performance nodes) can be considered a high 

performance computer. 

Clusters 

A cluster computer consists of an interconnection of high-end 

commercial microprocessors, each acting as one node of the cluster. 

The node interconnection network can either be a commodity 

interconnect, like Ethernet, or a specialized low latency network. 

Cluster computer architectures are typically designed to provide 

cost effective computation, not necessarily optimized for single 

application performance. This is commonly referred to as “capacity 

computing.” However, there are cluster computers among the fastest 

500 computers today. The challenges faced by cluster designers are 

exactly the same as those that have to be addressed by more 

integrated HPC machines, including limits on scaling and the cost of 

electricity that can be the dominant lifetime cost. 

Limited enhancements to commercial processor elements can 

make a significant improvement to the effectiveness of these systems. 

For example, custom-made communications hardware that integrates 

optical input/output with protocols implemented in silicon has the 

potential to deliver much better bandwidth and latency than 
 

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39

standard commercial interfaces. The commercial market alone is 

unlikely to produce key components such as integrated low-latency 

interconnects due to cost. Because multiple processors can fetch from 

the same memory rapidly, it is possible to use multiple processors in 

concert on the same task. For example, in processing a video stream, 

multiple processors can perform portions of the analysis in parallel. 

Novel Architectures 

Novel hardware architectures involve either custom processor 

designs, or custom design that improves the architecture in the 

power/performance trade-off space. 

The use of simpler processors makes it possible to obtain over an 

order of magnitude improvement in power/performance, as well as 

significant savings in silicon area, if it is feasible to achieve slightly 

more parallelism, especially on chip. Today, a current embedded 

computer (Central Processing Unit [CPU]) (e.g. an ARM 11) exhibits a 

factor of 10 improvement in power/performance over a high-end 

microprocessor (e.g. a Pentium 4). 

The embedded processor saves die area by omitting certain 

functions required for general purpose computing (e.g., virtual 

memory management). Such functions may not be important for 

data-intensive or cryptographic applications, and useful savings (in 

complexity and power consumption) can be made if instruction sets 

can be simplified. 

Simpler instruction sets, again reducing die area, can be designed 

if the custom processor need only execute one algorithm or one class 

of algorithms. For example, pattern-matching algorithms 

implemented using Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) 

deliver around ten times the performance of a high-end 

microprocessor. Although the processor is limited to executing a 

single algorithm, it can support applications ranging from molecular 

matching to facial recognition. Thus, a key research problem is 

finding a programming model (like pattern matching) that can host 

other classes of useful applications. 
 

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40 

Research into novel architectures is relatively inexpensive 

compared to “classical” HPC and has the potential to deliver 

machines that provide improved power and performance for very 

important military applications. 

RECENT U.S. HPC ACTIVITIES AND STUDIES

In recent years, many studies of high performance computing 

have been conducted in the United States. Their conclusions are in 

substantial agreement, as is summarised below. This section 

highlights their key recommendations because the U.S. working 

party believes that these studies chart the correct course for the 

United States in high performance computation innovation. 

Current HPC work in the United States was strongly influenced 

by two studies conducted in 2000 and 2001. A previous Defense 

Science Board (2000) Task Force on Supercomputing Needs made the 

following recommendations: 

 For the short term, support the development of the Cray 

SV2, 

 For the medium term, develop an integrated system 

based on commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) 

microprocessors and a new high-bandwidth memory 

system, and 

 For the long term, invest in research on critical 

technologies. 

Funding was provided by the DoD and the National Security 

Agency for the Cray SV2, and the National Science Foundation 

funded the acquisition of high performance computers and the 

construction of the Teragrid. However, no long-term research 

programme was initiated on the critical technologies for the future. 

Four additional studies, listed below, were initiated to analyze the 

state of HPC and to make recommendations. Summaries of the 

studies are in Appendix D. 
 

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41

ISAT LCC: 9 August 24, 2001

Conventional Processors No Longer Scale 

Performance by 50% each year 

1e+0

1e+1

1e+2

1e+3

1e+4

1e+5

1e+6

1e+7

1980 1990 2000 2010 2020

Perf (ps/Inst) 52%/year

19%/year

ps/gate 19%

Gates/clock 9%

Clocks/inst 18%

ISAT LCC: 10 August 24, 2001

Future potential of novel architecture is 

large (1000 vs 30)

1e-4

1e-3

1e-2

1e-1

1e+0

1e+1

1e+2

1e+3

1e+4

1e+5

1e+6

1e+7

1980 1990 2000 2010 2020

Perf (ps/Inst)

Linear (ps/Inst)

52%/year

74%/year

30:1 19%/year

1,000:1

30,000:1

 Information Science and Technology (ISAT) (2001) – 

Technology Gaps and Bottlenecks, 

 Integrated high-end computing (IHEC) (2002) – High 

Performance Computing and National Security, 

 National Research Council (NRC) (2004) – Getting Up 

To Speed, The Future of Supercomputing, and 

 HECRTF (2004) – Federal High-End Computing 

Revitalization Task Force. 

We draw selectively and substantially from them in the remainder 

of this section. 

A consequence of the industry focus on the desktop and 

commercial markets is missed technology opportunities and the lack 

of development of novel computer architectures capable of delivering 

the computational power needed for defence applications. Two 

figures from the study of the Defense Advanced Research Projects 

Agency (DARPA) Information Science and Technology Study Group 

eloquently quantifies this situation. 

Figure 1 
 

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42 

Figure 1 shows that the increases in computer performance 

experienced in the last 20 years (52%/year) will decrease to 19% per 

year in the next 20 years, measured in picoseconds/instruction verses 

year. This is due to the fact that modern processor designs have 

nearly exhausted the benefits of pipelining. The study reports that 

“conventional architectures are struggling to sustain even one 

instruction per cycle. Without further innovations, performance 

improvements will at best only match the rate of improvement due to 

further process technology innovations, which is projected to 

continue at 19% per year.” 

Novel processor architectures are needed to bridge the gap 

between performance gains in process technology (19% per year) and 

the historical gains (process and architecture) of 52% per year. This 

differential of untapped performance potential, compounded to 2020, 

results in an untapped performance factor of 30,000. “This quantity 

represents a tremendous opportunity for novel architectures to help 

bridge the performance gap and to enable future computer systems 

to solve increasingly complex and important problems.”4 While 

maintaining the historical gains may not be technically possible, 

substantial potential exists and will surely not be realized unless the 

government makes an investment in long-term research. 

Multiple studies, such as the recently completed National 

Research Council study, conclude that “the supercomputing needs of 

the government will not be satisfied by systems developed to meet 

the demands of the broader commercial market.”5 The government 

must bear primary responsibility for ensuring that it has access to the 

custom systems that it requires. While leveraging developments in 

the commercial computing marketplace will satisfy many needs, the 

government must routinely plan for developing what the commercial 

marketplace will not, and it must budget the necessary funds. 

While instability in long-term funding continues, the government 

loses opportunities to gain important advances in applications using 

high performance computing and in its supporting technology. 

 

4. The Last Classical Computer ISAT STUDY, August 24, 2001 

5. Getting Up To Speed – The Future of Supercomputing, NRC, November, 2004 
 

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43

DARPA has established the High Productivity Computing 

Systems (HPCS) programme. This is the only significant U.S. 

government-sponsored advanced development HPC activity at this 

time. HPCS is not a research programme. HPCS was initiated in 2002 

in response to concerns that commercial systems were not adequate 

for meeting some very critical aspects of the defence mission. A goal 

of the HPCS programme is to create a new generation of systems that 

double in productivity (or value) every 18 months, rather than merely 

a doubling in unachieved, peak performance. 

While primarily a DARPA programme, HPCS has received 

significant support from other U.S. defence agencies such as National 

Security Agency and the National Reconnaissance Office, as well as 

the Department of Energy, the National Aeronautics and Space 

Administration and the National Science Foundation. 

In summary, all these studies have made substantially similar 

findings and recommendations. The high performance needs for 

national security will not be satisfied by systems designed for the 

broader commercial marketplace. A long-term programme funding 

the development of HPC systems is required to ensure that the DoD 

and MoD mission agencies can meet their requirements. This 

programme must fund both near-term acquisitions, alternative 

architectures, and long-term research; the existing DARPA activities 

need to be expanded accordingly. 

SUPPORTING TECHNOLOGIES

Due to the challenges of building large-scale HPC machines it 

would be easy to focus exclusively on hardware research; however it 

is important to address software development tools and other 

supporting technologies to enable the full benefit to be obtained from 

these machines. We highlight three of the most important 

technologies. 
 

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44 

Programming Technologies

It is quite difficult to write parallel application programmes. 

Coherent memory architectures provide perhaps the only existing 

programming model that effectively decouples the application from 

the machine-level parallelism. However, there may be no effective 

way of maintaining coherence over a large distributed system, 

because of the communication implications. As a result, attributes of 

the machine-level parallelism must be accounted for in 

programming, modelling, testing, and scheduling. The software 

challenges that are unique to HPC include: 

 HPC parallel programming systems (languages, 

compilers, and development environments) that enable 

effective development of programmes for integrated 

and distributed HPC, 

 Development aids, e.g. tools to partition and predict the 

performance of algorithms under different distribution 

strategies, and 

 Key applications and libraries (especially numerical 

methods, image and signal processing, graph 

processing, and knowledge discovery/management) 

targeted to all classes of HPC. 

These software tools, needed solely by HPC, are not likely to be 

supported by commercial development in the foreseeable future, if 

ever. Investments in this area must be a continuing effort of 

technology refresh, not a one-time development of a new technology. 

Co-Scheduling and Collaboration 

The vision of multi-disciplinary applications collaborating in a 

single business workflow implies that it is possible to coordinate the 

execution of these applications. This might involve two or more large 

jobs scheduled on two high performance computers controlled by 

different organisations. Efficient interchange between them must be 

carefully synchronized to implement the desired workflow. This 

approach is called co-scheduling. 
 

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The notion of a service-oriented architecture is growing in 

popularity as a way of avoiding some of these issues: organisations 

expose “services” to provide a lightweight, low-coupled means of 

interaction between collaborating institutions. The use of a serviceoriented architecture may reduce the need for co-scheduling, when 

services can be used asynchronously and on demand. For some 

needs, e.g. data mining, and visualization this may be a more 

satisfactory way of combining applications than co-scheduling. 

However, some components of some distributed applications 

require co-scheduling. Significant development is needed in the 

theory and practice of federated co-scheduling. 

Security 

The essence of security for the applications described above is to 

support collaboration between organisations, in such a way that each 

organisation can retain control of and protect its own resources. As 

with scheduling, there are two different interaction models for 

security: job oriented and service oriented. The job-oriented view is 

that collaboration involves launching a remote task, and therefore 

this approach relies on typical operating system mechanisms: user 

accounts, process sandboxing, group management, and file systems. 

For grid computers mechanisms such as the Grid Security 

Infrastructure6 provide user identity propagation, but support for 

other facilities is limited. 

The service-oriented view is that collaboration involves 

connection to a service offered by the remote system. At present the 

protocols of choice are web-services, but standardization has not 

occurred. Different commercial interest groups who do not see 

individual gain from standardization have stalled the development of 

serious collaborative applications using this technology. 

 

6. http://www.globus.org/security/overview.html 
 

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46 

RECOMMENDATIONS

 1. Fund DARPA’s HPCS programme robustly

DARPA should continue to fund its High Productivity Computer 

Systems programme fully, overlapping each phase to ensure 

continuity. 

Support the Third Phase of the Current HPCS Program 

DARPA should continue its HPCS programme through its third 

phase. This requires funding prototype development by at least two

HPCS vendors. 

Make HPCS a recurring programme 

Within a recurring HPCS programme there should be multiple 

“waves,” each lasting seven to eight years. The objectives of each 

wave will vary, and should be determined by analysis of the evolving 

mission requirements as well as the pace of commercial technology 

development. The ending of one wave should overlap with the 

beginning of its successor. This will ensure continuity of the science 

and technology. The funding level of each HPCS wave should be 

approximately $1 billion over its seven to eight-year lifetime. 

The performance objective, circa, 2025, is to develop an ExaFlop

scale HPC system. The work should be undertaken so as to 

encourage the “flow down” of relevant technologies to mid range 

HPC systems such as clusters. 

2. Initiate a UK HPC Programme 

The UK Ministry of Defence and the Engineering and Physical 

Sciences Research Council should create a programme to perform 

research for the most demanding military applications with the 

objective of improved performance using commodity clusters. 

Specifically, the United Kingdom should complement U.S. activities 

by: 
 

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 Promoting the development of special purpose 

communications hardware integrating optical 

input/output with protocols implemented in silicon 

that have the potential of much higher bandwidth and 

lower latency than commercial offerings, 

 Performing research into novel architectures for specialpurpose processors for associative pattern matching, 

which have the potential to offer at least an order of 

magnitude improvement in cost-benefit of conventional 

processors for specialized problems, e.g. image 

recognition (the work should include production of 

prototypes and evaluation of their potential on real 

applications; in some cases this can be achieved with an 

outlay of around £1M), 

 Developing specialized programming aids, tools, and 

techniques for all classes of HPC machines with special 

emphasis on tools to plan the partitioning of important 

algorithms, such as computational fluid dynamics, and 

 Defining a clear road map for security mechanisms 

including standards for web-services security to enable 

grid computing to be used widely on defence 

applications, and implementing key security 

mechanisms which are not being addressed by industry 

and academia, e.g. to progress work on web-services 

security. 

3. Invest in Research on Critical Applications and 

Technologies

Both DARPA and the MoD Engineering and Physical Sciences 

Research Council programmes should address key hardware and 

software technologies including programming aids and tools for 

knowledge discovery. The newly reconstituted HPCS programme 

should be expanded to encompass all aspects of DoD high 

performance computing; including hardware and software research, 

prototyping, deployment, and emerging applications. Research in the 

United States and United Kingdom should address: 
 

CHAPTER 3 __________________________________________________________________ 

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48 

 Exploration and prototyping of advanced high-end 

computing models that emphasize very large memory 

and its contents as connected “information,” not 

discrete arrays of simple data types, 

 Programming tools suitable for HPC systems, 

addressing parallel programming, both centralised and 

distributed, 

 System software for HPC computers, e.g. to support 

service oriented architectures and web services, 

 Improved knowledge discovery algorithms that can run 

largely unattended, 

 New inference engines capable of translating relatively 

open-ended high-level queries into efficient search 

procedures that understand the knowledge sets and 

their structure as currently available to the system, 

 Support tools for rapid, high-productivity, flexible 

programming and re-tasking of such systems, and 

 Appropriate metrics and one or more “open” test bed 

applications that permit the research community to 

explore and evaluate alternatives without revealing 

national security information. 

As far as is practicable the United States and United Kingdom 

should collaborate on such activities. 
 

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49

CHAPTER 4. DEFENCE CRITICAL ELECTRONIC 

COMPONENTS

INTRODUCTION

The defence industry’s leadership role in the electronic 

component industry has been diminishing for two reasons. First, the 

growth in commercial demand for electronics results in commercial 

markets that dwarf defence markets. Second, defence communities 

have chosen to develop high performance, reliable, complex systems 

that can only be afforded in small quantities (e.g., satellites and 

stealth aircraft). It is the ability to embed microelectronics in all parts 

of a platform, including weapons, that critically enables the design of 

such complex systems, and thus electronics impacts all aspects of 

system design. 

It is the combination of improvements in targeting, geolocation 

and navigation precision that enables our militaries to not only hit the 

target on the first attempt, but to hit in the right spot. Today, a B-2A 

bomber uses the Global Positioning System (GPS), intelligence 

imagery systems, Milstar communications systems, and the precision 

GPS guided joint direct attack munitions weapons to provide the 

destructive power of an entire air wing in World War II. And, it does 

so in all weather conditions. Electronics are a major contributor to the 

net increase of 50,000 in targets per sortie from World War II to 

Operation Iraqi Freedom. 

The Electronics Components Panel assessed the current and 

projected status of critical defence related electronic technologies. We 

focused on four principal areas: defence critical component 

technology, silicon-based component technologies and 

manufacturing resources, non-silicon based component technologies 

and manufacturing resources, and available design talent and design 

tools. 
 

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50 

ELECTRONIC COMPONENT METHODOLOGY AND SUPPLIER 

ASSESSMENT

While federal funding of defence enabling technologies (radio 

frequency (RF), electro-optical and infrared (IR) devices) continues, 

the explosion of commercial markets in the last decade, driven by a 

great consumer appetite for advanced electronic technologies, has 

fundamentally changed the availability, adaptability and access for 

leading edge complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) 

component technology for defence applications. While the worldwide 

semiconductor demand increased by a factor of three to four over the 

past 15 years, the DoD market share decreased as shown in Figure 1. 

Simultaneously, in the United States the DoD contractor base 

restructured and consolidated, as reported by the Defense Science 

Board (DSB).7 These remaining few large contractors are now defined 

by the large complex system-of-systems they design, integrate, and 

produce. They sell these highly effective systems in much fewer 

numbers and rely on small quantities of very specialized electronic 

components. This consolidation, driven by the reduced demand for 

defence equipment, also had an impact on the electronic component 

suppliers’ ability to support the unique and often stressing 

requirements of the defence systems. 

As a result, the DoD and the MoD are not only left in the position 

of being followers in some technologies that are critical to the 

military, they often have no choice but to rely upon overseas 

suppliers as well. This trend affects a number of electronic 

components and has motivated the recent studies by the Defense 

Science Board and the Advisory Group on Electron Devices.8 9 10

 

7. Defense Science Board Report “ Vertical Integration and Supplier Decisions”, May 1997 

8. Defense Science Board Report “DSB Task Force on High Performance Microchip Supply”, 

February 2005. 

9. Advisory Group on Electron Devices, “Special Technology Area Review on Commercial 

Off-the-Shelf (COTS) Electronic Components,” February 1999. 

10. Advisory Group on Electron Devices, “Special Technology Area Review on Field 

Programmable Gate Arrays for Military Applications”, September 2004. 
 

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51

$0

$50

$100

$150

$200

$250

1990 1995 2000 2005

World wide Semiconductor Demand, $Billions

0.0%

0.2%

0.4%

0.6%

0.8%

1.0%

1.2%

1.4%

1.6%

1.8%

2.0%

Military IC Demand, 

Percent Direct Military IC Demand

Percent of Worldwide Semiconductor Demand

Worldwide Semiconductor Demand

Figure 1. Reduced DoD Semiconductor Market Share in the last Decade. 

ELECTRONIC COMPONENT CRITICAL TECHNOLOGY 

ASSESSMENT

Defence critical component technology 

Electronic systems play a critical role in nearly all areas of defence 

applications. Sensors, communications, electronic warfare, command 

and information systems, intelligence systems, avionics, vehicle 

electronics, information assurance techniques, weapons, and virtually 

all logistical and weapons platforms rely heavily on integrated 

electronics and associated software. The commercial world is also 

experiencing an ever-growing dependency on electronics in areas 

such as entertainment, communications, transportation, power 

generation, lighting, medical systems, and security. As an example, 

approximately 30% of the value of a modern premium automobile is 

now the cost of its electronic systems. 

This huge investment in commercial electronics brings about both 

opportunity and threat for defence technology. Opportunity, because 

much of it can be re-used to meet defence needs (given sufficient 
 

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52 

environmental and reliability standards), but also threat due to the 

accessibility of this technology to military and terrorist adversaries. 

However, access to commercial electronic component technology 

does not automatically confer an advantage on an enemy; often 

systems knowledge, software technology, and operational concepts 

have a critical part to play. The Export Administration Regulations 

(EAR) managed by the Department of Commerce attempts to provide 

the United States with control on the export of commercial dual use 

electronic components identified on the Commerce Control List that 

could possibly bring a military benefit to other nations; but often the 

global market place limits the effectiveness of the regulations and 

promotes the off-shore migration of the electronic industry. U.S. 

industry representative indicated that these regulations often have a 

negative impact on their research and development investments and 

business strategy. This frequently results in industry moving 

research, development, and production off-shore. 

The relevance of the capability of electronics within military 

systems can be considered in three categories: 

1. Applications where the electronics does not play a vital role in 

giving the equipment or system a competitive advantage. For 

example, an intercom system within an armoured fighting 

vehicle, a laptop computer running logistics software, or an 

aircraft landing gear control module. In all of these examples 

the electronics are important, but having access to better 

components does not bring a greater military benefit. This 

category was not considered further. 

2. Applications where the electronics play a vital part in 

determining the performance of the military equipment, but 

where leading edge commercial components provide a 

sufficient capability. Examples include the use of commercial 

Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) in the latest military 

radios, digital signal processors (DSPs) in missile seekers and 

large screens used in tactical displays. In all of these 

applications, commercial technology provides a “good 

enough” capability and investing in defence specific variants 

would not be cost-effective. 
 

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53

3. Applications where commercial components do not meet 

military requirements, and where military-specific 

components are required to create the capability. Examples 

include thermal imaging arrays, analogue to digital converters 

for some specialized areas of electronic warfare, and radio 

frequency components for military-band radars. 

One determinant of the quality of an electronic component is the 

quality of its associated design tools. Digital Application Specific 

Integrated Circuits (ASICs) can be highly integrated microcircuits 

and could soon reach a density of one billion gates. The design tools 

used to synthesise a specification into a usable circuit are highly 

complex software suites. Similarly, the performance of mixed signal 

ASICs (containing both analogue and digital circuits) and analogue 

ASICs are to a great extent dependent on the quality of their 

associated computer design tools. The evolution of the design tools 

has experienced difficulty in keeping up with the rapid evolution in 

microelectronic components as reflected in Moore’s Law. 

The availability of electronic components also depends upon the 

capability of the industrial base used to supply them, and the means 

by which governments can influence this supply base. Generally, 

government-funded, defence-specific electronic components 

(category three above) will be manufactured on-shore in “trusted 

foundries,” whose security can be controlled. This supply base is 

reasonably assured. 

 Commercial components used in defence-critical applications 

(category two above) can present more problems. Vendors may 

choose to discontinue components due to commercial pressures such 

as obsolescence. “Off-shore” (non U.S. or UK) vendors may not be 

trusted to supply in times of tension. “Off-shore” vendors may have 

an opportunity to insert unwanted functions (trapdoors) into ASIC 

designs or to reverse-engineer their purpose. The required 

environmental envelope of a military application may be outside of 

commercial specifications, and the components may not be 

guaranteed to perform beyond such a specification. 
 

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54 

While the DSB Electronic Components panel concentrated their 

analysis primarily on industrial and political issues to enable a more 

robust and innovative industrial base, the DSAC panel focused their 

efforts on a “bottom up” analysis of known military capability 

requirements. The UK results were shared with the U.S. counterparts 

and vice versa to allow the two efforts to reach a common conclusion. 

The studies are entirely complementary. 

Table 1 below lists the UK’s top 15 electronic technologies and 

their priority. The specific technologies on the list were found to be 

very similar to the U.S. needs although the individual priorities vary 

due to differing needs and national industrial strengths. 

Table 1. UK Defence Critical Technology list and its associated priority 

category. 

Defence Critical Technology Title Priority* 

Analogue to Digital Converter (ADC) 1 

Optically Sampled ADC 2 

16-Bit Fixed-Point Precision DSP Implementations 2 

32-Bit Floating-Point High Precision Arithmetic DSP 

Implementations 1 

RF Components for Adaptive Array Radar 1 

EW and Communications Systems Power Amplifier 1 

Components for Antennas - Ultra-Broad Band 

Manpack Electronic Countermeasures /Communications Antenna 1 

Superconducting Filters for EW and Communications 3 

RF through Optics 3 

Components for Burst Illumination and 3D Imaging 1 

Advanced Thermal Imaging Detectors 1 

Ultra Fast Photon Counting Technology: Single Chip Photon 

Counting 2 

Fibres for High-Power Transmission and Fibre Lasers 1 

Sub-mm Wave (TeraHertz) Detectors and Sources 2 

Software tools for design, capture and simulation of components. 2 

 

*Priority ranked as 1 (highest) to 3 (lowest). 
 

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55

Often a technology list is best viewed through the lens of a 

specific mission or system. It is through the specific system design 

that the true leverage and value as well as the specification can be 

calculated. Thus, the priorities are really mission specific and need to 

be viewed in that context. Figure 2 lists the key technologies as seen 

by the U.S. intelligence’s remote surveillance mission area. It can be 

seen that many technologies are similar, but also there are others that 

are unique. 

4

Critical Technology List

Launch Vehicle 

Technologies

Mission Ground 

Processing Technologies

On-Board Processing Autonomy Technologies Quantum technologies

Spacecraft Computer 

Language

Lightweight Structures and 

Mechanisms

Navigation Technologies

Smart Spacecraft In Space Propulsion Power Technologies

Structures

Micro- and 

Nanotechnology

Antennas RF Technologies

Rad Hardened 

Components

High Power Microwave High Precision Clocks

Electronic Optical Beam 

Steering

Spectrometers Laser Technologies

Avalanche Photo Diode 

Receiver Arrays

Uncooled Sensors Cryocoolers

Composite Lightweight Adaptive Optics Large Focal Plane Arrays

Mirrors

Source: Space Research And Development Industrial Base Study Phase Two Final Report, August 2002, p. 31

Figure 2. National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) key technologies required for the future of remote 

surveillance. 

In considering the criticality of evolving and emerging electronic 

components it is important to understand the system architecture 

into which the components are being incorporated. For example, 

conventional receivers typically have used several stages of downconversion to translate the RF input signal down to a centre 

frequency that is low enough to be sampled by a realizable analogueto-digital (A/D) converter. Each down-conversion added complexity 
 

CHAPTER 4 __________________________________________________________________ 

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56 

and sometimes undesired effects that limited overall system 

performance. As A/D converters become available with both high 

dynamic range and high sample rates, it is now feasible in many 

cases, to sample the RF signal directly. This reduces the number of 

down-conversion stages, and also eliminates the complexity and 

distortions introduced by the multiple stages. Although this 

architecture may require a costly state-of-the-art A/D converter, the 

receiver simplicity and high fidelity performance make it attractive 

for many applications. 

Other notable emerging technologies will impact system design. 

An example is Micro Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS). The 

advantage of MEMS technologies do not necessarily lay in new 

functionality or better performing elements, but rather in the 

miniaturization and higher level of integration. 

MEMS is now enabling an even more transformational or 

disruptive capability, that of an entire sub-system on a single chip. 

Each key component measuring centimetres has been re-engineered 

using various MEMS techniques to archive dramatically smaller 

components measuring fractions of a millimetre, yet still maintaining 

high performance. An entire GPS receiver can now be integrated into 

a wristwatch to enable precise knowledge of time and space. A 

complete networked radio/information system can be integrated into 

sun-glasses or a helmet-goggle system. This sub-system on a chip 

technology enabled by advanced ASICs and MEMS technologies 

show promise and could spur further miniaturization. 

Silicon-based component technologies and manufacturing 

resources 

Most information processing is realized through the combination 

of memory chips (DRAMs, SRAMs, etc.) which store data (including 

programmes), and programmable components, such as ASICs, 

application specific signal processors (ASSPs), programmable gate 

arrays (PGAs), CPUs, network processing units, and DSPs, which 

perform operations on the data. Of the two classes, the 
 

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57

programmable components have more intricate designs and are 

where the DoD derives most of its advantage. 

Manufacturing 

Stand-alone CPU and DSP parts are largely produced by 

integrated device manufacturers whereas PGAs, ASSPs, and ASICs 

are often manufactured at independent foundries. 

Of the major U.S. commercial integrated device manufacturers 

and foundries, only IBM, Jazz Semiconductor and Peregrine 

Semiconductor retain domestic foundries to support leading edge 

defence applications. Table 2 shows the remaining manufacturers, the 

location of their U.S. based foundries and the technologies they 

support. As a result, the Department of Defense has launched a 

programme to develop a “trusted foundry” model, initially with IBM, 

with planned extensions to other foundry suppliers.11 This DoD 

programme will provide an assured “chain of custody” for classified 

and unclassified integrated circuits, ensure that there will not be any 

reasonable threats related to disruption in supply, prevent intentional 

or unintentional modification or tampering, and protect them from 

unauthorized attempts at reverse engineering or evaluation of their 

possible vulnerabilities. 

 

11. See for example, http://www.manufacturingnews.com/news/04/0203/art1.html, or R. 

Price, “Trusted ICs for Defense Applications”, GOMACTech-04 Tutorial, Monterey, 2004. 
 

CHAPTER 4 __________________________________________________________________ 

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58 

Table 2. Major U.S. Commercial Integrated Device 

Business 

Model 

Manufacturing 

Location Available Technology 

Company 

Integrated Device Manufacturer Foundry Services Bulk CMOS CMOS/SOI SiGe BiCMOS Rad Hard CMOS SiGe CMOS III-V (Ga

As, InP) 

II-VI (HgCdTe) 

AMD • TX, CA • 

AMI • Pocatello, ID • 

ATMEL • CO, TX • • • • • 

BAE Systems • • NH, VA • • 

Cirent Semi • Orlando, FL • 

Cypress Semi • CA, TX, MN • 

Freescale 

Semiconductor • AZ, TX • • • • 

Hewlett Packard • CA, CO • • • 

Honeywell • • Plymouth, MN • • • • 

HRL Laboratories • Malibu, CA • • 

IBM • • Fishkill,NY, 

Burlington, VT • • 

IDT • CA, OR • 

Intel • NM, AZ, OR, CO, CA • 

Jazz Semiconductor • CA • • • 

LSI Logic • CA, CO, OR 

Maxim Semiconductor • CA • • • 

Micron Technology • VA, ID • 

Northrop Grumman • Linthicum, MD • • • • 

Peregrine 

Semiconductor • • SanDiego, CA • 

Texas Instruments • TX • • 

Vitesse Semiconductor • CO, CA • • • 
 

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59

Manufacturers and Foundries 

While the initial Trusted Foundry effort is under development at 

IBM, DARPA is funding a parallel technical effort to extend the 

successful Metal-Oxide Semiconductor Implementation System 

(MOSIS) to include trusted foundry suppliers. The current and 

planned technology extensions are shown in Table 3 and will provide 

access to leading edge CMOS technology at modest volumes on a 

foundry basis. 

Table 3. Trusted Foundry Technology Extensions to MOSIS Program 

JAZZ

InP

HBT Vitesse

GaAs

(CMP)

0.2u

OMMIC

BiCMOS

0.8u

(CMP)

AMS

Peregrine SOI-SOS

CL018

CM018

CL025, 

CM025 TSMC CL035

C5N, C3N ABN

(1.5u) AMI CMOS

8HP, 

9HP 6HP, 6DM 7HP, 7WL

5HP OR 5SO

5DM, 5AM

5HPE, 5PA

IBM SiGe

IBM SOI 9S2 9SFG

9SF 10SF

8SF, 

8RF, 

8SFG

IBM CMOS 6SF, 6RF 7SF, 7RF

0.25 0.18 0.13 0.090 0.065 0.5 –

0.35 other

Technology 

(microns)

Supplier

Note: MOSIS develops access to advanced processes as 

soon as a viable customer base exists to support the new 

process. TFMOSIS will be driven by the specific needs of the 

DoD in this regard

* GOMACTECH 2004

Available or planned from Trusted Foundry*

Available from both Trusted Foundry and MOSIS

Available from MOSIS

Presently unavailable

The U.S. Integrated Device Manufacturers environment is 

somewhat healthier, as U.S. based companies continue to lead in the 

high volume CPU and DSP sectors. Although their manufacturing 

chains are globalized, a substantial fraction of the leading edge wafer 
 

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60 

fabrication facilities associated with these parts remains in the United 

States. 12 

Component Design 

There is evidence that leading edge application specific 

(ASIC/ASSP) design is migrating off-shore.13 Perhaps more 

importantly, the non-recurring engineering costs associated with the 

development of an ASIC and ASSP have been rapidly increasing, to 

the point that ASIC/ASSP design is cost-effective only in cases where 

there is a compelling case that the resultant chip will be produced in 

sufficient volume to amortize the non-recurring engineering costs.14

Thus, the use of leading edge ASICs by the DoD is becoming 

increasingly problematic.15

In contrast, U.S. based companies continue to lead in the design of 

application independent programmable parts (CPUs, digital signal 

processors, Network Processing Units, Programmable Gate Arrays). 

For example, Texas Instruments is a leader in DSPs; IBM and 

Freescale (formerly Motorola) are leaders in CPUs and Systems on a 

Chips with embedded processors; Xilinx and Altera are leaders in 

Field Programmable Gate Arrays; and Intel is a leader in Central 

Processing Units and Network Processing Units. 

Placing emphasis on the use of “standard” programmable parts is 

attractive because these parts are manufactured in high volume, thus 

when the DoD uses them it is a beneficiary of the economies of large 

manufacturing scale. However, DoD challenges and opportunities 

related to various types of Programmable Gate Arrays are so 

 

12. As discussed in the High Performance Microchip Supply standing, part packaging and 

test is almost exclusively performed off-shore and some IDMs are reliant on off-short 

mask suppliers. 

13. This topic was extensively covered in the “High Performance Microchip Supply” study. 

14. There may be additional low-volume cases where the value of integration (e.g., to 

reduce weight and power) make the non recurring engineering (NRE) justifiable. 

However, these become less common as NRE costs increase. 

15. NRE costs for parts that are a few generations behind the leading edge tend to be 

considerably lower. 
 

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61

significant that they are addressed in a separate set of findings and 

recommendations. 

Although U.S. based leadership does not in and of itself assure the 

trustworthiness of these parts or the continued scaling of their 

performance, it does put the DoD in a superior position to potential 

adversaries, whose systems rely on U.S. based designs and/or 

inferior parts. This advantage accrues not only to fielded weapon 

systems, but to all aspects of the defence community and of our 

national infrastructures. It would be a distinctly disadvantageous 

situation if all of our nation’s PCs, servers, routers, DSPs, etc. were to 

some day be built using designs whose suppliers are based in an 

adversarial country. 

The current advantageous position cannot be taken for granted. In 

the absence of a commitment to U.S. leadership in this space, there is 

reason to believe that the global consolidation underway in the 

semiconductor industry will lead to the off-shore migration of these 

design capabilities. There is some evidence that process has already 

begun. Of perhaps greater importance is the decline in the DoD’s 

investments in the visionary university research that has sustained 

the pace of innovation in information processing techniques, i.e., in 

the design and application of these parts. These reductions are 

threatening the wellspring of innovation in computer architectures, 

algorithms, programming languages, distributed systems, etc. 

Without a continuing supply of such innovations, the ongoing 

translation of Moore’s Law progress into defence systems, and thus 

our overall information superiority, is threatened. In particular, 

without dramatic improvements in the design and application of 

programmable devices, the DoD and MoD will not be able to extract 

benefit from their unparalleled leadership in many critical defence 

technologies, such as sensors. 

Non-silicon based component technologies and 

manufacturing resources 

In other technologies such as IR focal-plane-arrays (FPAs), 

radiation hardened electronics, compound semiconductors (III-V and 

II-VI) and Mixed-Signal ASICs, the United States currently maintains 
 

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62 

a significant technological lead. By securing, expanding and 

controlling this lead, the DoD and the MoD will continue to have the 

opportunity to leverage technological innovation to maintain a 

significant edge in system performance. 

DoD has traditionally funded leading-edge, low-volume 

electronic technologies (e.g., Microwave/Millimetre Wave Monolithic 

Integrated Circuit, IR FPAs, analogue-to-digital and digital-toanalogue converters, etc.). However, for those technologies where 

large commercial markets have developed (e.g., Gallium Arsenide

(GaAs), high power amplifiers for wireless communication, mediumperformance analogue to digital converters and digital to analogue 

converters, etc.) the DoD has found it difficult to maintain reliable 

onshore suppliers willing to design and/or manufacture for lowvolume, specialty military applications. 

 The panel believes that these specialty electronic technologies can 

enable unique military capabilities in the future. Specific examples of 

these technologies include: 

 Mercury-Cadmium-Telluride (HgCdTe) Focal Plane 

Arrays and associated Readout integrated circuits: 

Large-format imagers and longer wavelength (e.g. Very 

Long Wave IR) imagers can provide the ability to detect 

and image relatively cool threats in complex 

backgrounds. This capability will be a key to future air 

and missile defence systems. However, difficult 

material and manufacturing issues (and the resulting 

costs) make it unlikely that significant commercial 

markets will develop for these technologies. 

 High-speed InP Mixed-Signal Circuits: DARPA’s 

Technology for Frequency Agile Synthesized 

Transmitters programme has recently demonstrated 

complex digital logic devices with clock rates in excess 

of 150 GigaHertz. This technology will enable 

significant improvement in A/D converters, digital to 

analogue converters, direct digital synthesizers and 

high-bandwidth communications. The systems that 
 

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63

will be developed using these components (e.g., radars, 

signal intelligence receivers, digital radios, etc.) will be 

lower in cost, higher in performance, higher in 

reliability, and more adaptive due to the flexibility 

added once analogue subsystems are replaced with 

digital circuitry. 

 Gallium Nitride (GaN): Newly emerging components in 

GaN will offer unique performance enhancements for 

military systems. Prototypes of high-power amplifiers, 

low-noise amplifiers and even digital circuits have been 

demonstrated in GaN. Among GaN’s unique 

characteristics are: ability to operate at high 

temperature, ability to tolerate high terminal voltages, 

and a presumed inherent radiation tolerance. GaN 

devices have demonstrated very high power densities 

and competitive noise figures at frequencies well into 

the millimetre waves. 

 Other emerging technologies: exotic electronic materials 

are currently being examined or developed by the DoD. 

Examples include the antimonide compounds, diamond 

materials, and even carbon-nanotube-based devices. 

Many such materials have special thermal or bandgap 

properties that make them potential critical enablers of 

future systems. 

Although the panel was briefed on research and development 

efforts related to each of the specialty electronics areas listed above, 

we were not made aware of any coordinated efforts by the Office of 

the Secretary of Defense to ensure either the maintenance of a critical 

edge or low-volume design and production capability for these 

technologies. For these technologies, there is no equivalent of the 

government supported efforts in CMOS (i.e., MOSIS and the trusted 

foundry). We heard concerns from the developers and suppliers of 

specialty electronics technologies regarding the viability of their 

future design and low-volume production capability. 

It is the opinion of the panel that DoD and the MoD should jointly 

and separately develop and manage a plan to not only maintain our 
 

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64 

lead, but to expand it in these technologies. Keeping in mind the 

lessons learned from CMOS in the 1990’s, the panel believes that the 

DoD and MoD should ensure that onshore design and low- to 

medium-volume microelectronic fabrication capabilities exist in these 

technologies. 

Available design talent and design tools 

The defence trend toward fewer but more capable systems means 

that there are fewer people in the defence work force with 

programme experience. Reduced personnel with appropriate 

experience will ultimately limit the ability to design and develop 

complex systems and system-of-systems. It is the case that this work 

force – in engineering to manufacturing – is more efficient due to the 

use of modern tools, such as automation tools for 3-D computer aided 

design, simulation and modelling to create a simulation based design 

capability and the automation of the factory floor with computer 

aided manufacturing processes. 

This limited programme experience base gives more reason to 

develop advanced design tools that can make an individual more 

productive. Of particular value are tools to rapidly capture a design 

in a form that allows parametric functional modelling in order to 

perform “virtual” evaluation and design libraries containing 

modular, standard functional blocks that can be rapidly reused. 

The solid state electronics which found their way into nearly 

every aspect of the communication satellites provide a good example 

of the increasing complexity the designers must manage. As 

electronic components became more capable, of lower weight and 

smaller, and more reliable, the satellite system’s capability grew 

along with its complexity. This evolution in capability and 

complexity are shown in Figure 3. Standard cells and gate arrays 

used in satellites grew in complexity along with general purpose 

microprocessors. Since 1995, the introduction of ASICs and FPGAs 

enabled custom switched telephony (that connects arbitrary caller to 

arbitrary caller without the aid of any ground based systems) and 
 

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65

permitted the transfer of data at tens of gigabytes per second which 

made high bandwidth video applications like Direct TV possible. 

7

C

O

MPLEXITY (TRANS STORS)

Source:

Intel Corp.

10

Digital Processing

Milstar-I DDS

Command Security Module 

HS-601, UHF F/O 

AJ VLSI, EHF 

PCSP 

8080

8086

80286

80386

80486

Pentium 

10

10

10

10

4

5

6

3

INSERTION YEAR

1975 1980 1985 1990 1995

Commercial

Std Cell /

Gate Array

2000

SS4Q

SOI4

Pentium Pro Commercial 

Full Custom, High NRE

Microprocessors

RAD Hard

Standard Cell Products

2005

Transition to 

Commercial ASICs

(GEM/Thuraya)

8 10

IBM

CU-11

IBM

SA-12

IBM

SA-27

IBM

CU-08

ICO (SS4E)

Spaceway, WGS, 

UFO

IBM

CU-65

Pentium II 

Pentium III 

2010

AESOP

TCM

Figure 3. The evolution of processing complexity over the last 30 years in Military and Commercial 

Communication Satellites. 

FPGAs are employed in large numbers as a standard way to 

manage the cost and design complexity of modern electronic systems. 

It is not uncommon to find subsystems using 100 FPGAs and tens of 

ASICs all programmed to accomplish different functions, and 

modern systems having 1000 FPGAs and 100 ASICs in total. If design 

tools and design engineers were of sufficient supply today, we would 

see entire systems designed primarily with ASICs due to their higher 

performance, but due to limitations in both tools and the work force, 

companies are forced to organize their work force around a few 

FPGAs and ASICs. This may limit the capability of future systems. 

Radiation hardened microelectronics are required to ensure that 

key military systems can perform in the combined nuclear and 

natural space radiation space environments. Without radiation 

hardened microelectronics, U.S. military power – including 
 

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66 

conventional military power – and battlefield satellite 

communications and data transfer could be disrupted. Typical total 

dose and dose rate radiation hardened requirements for defence 

systems are illustrated in the Figure 4. Radiation tolerant electronic 

components are sufficient for commercial communications satellites 

and many National Aeronautics and Space Administration missions. 

Requirements for upper radiation hardened electronics are almost 

exclusively dominated by defence systems. The COTS market for 

radiation hardened electronics is insufficient to warrant investments 

by the commercial sector and must be addressed by the DoD. Design 

talent and tools will only be available if funded by the defence users. 

Figure 4. Radiation Hardening map for Radiation Tolerant to Radiation Hard. 

10 13

10 12

10 11

10 10

10 9

10 8

10 7

10 6

10 5

10 2 10 3 10 4 10 5 10 6 10 7

Total Dose [rad) Si)]

Strategic

Space

Strategic

Missiles

Strategic

Digital

Spacecraft

Processors

Other

Military 

Space

Strategic

Analog

Avionics

10 0

Upscreening Region

Endo Interceptors

Total Dose Hard Upper Hard

Exo

Interceptors

Commercial/

civil space

Rad

Tolerant

Ground

Systems

Low Medium High

Dose Rate [rad)Si)/s]

Extreme

High

Medium

Low

Rad

Hard
 

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ASSESSMENT OF ELECTRONIC COMPONENT CRITICAL 

TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT AND TRANSITION PATHS 

In the silicon-based semiconductor space, the industry has 

partnered with government and universities to establish the 

Semiconductor Research Corporation and Microelectronics 

Advanced Research Corporation (MARCO) research consortia. The 

former operates in a roadmap-driven fashion while the latter 

undertakes longer term and higher risk research. While successful, 

the MARCO programme has never been fully funded and the DoD 

contractor base has not been effectively integrated into it. More 

importantly, there is no equivalent partnership to stimulate 

university research in computer architecture or its application 

(software). Historically, DARPA has been a major agent driving 

innovation in these spaces. However, in recent years its role and 

influence over university research has substantially diminished. 

Arguably, this has resulted in less aggressive behaviour on the part of 

the university research community, i.e., a shift in the balance towards 

incremental research as opposed to the visionary, high-risk efforts 

that have enabled information superiority. 

RECOMMENDATIONS

Finding: Maintaining U.S. Leadership in Semiconductor 

Technologies critical to National Defence 

Electronic technologies play a critical role in defence systems; the 

DoD must continue to protect and support critical electronic 

technologies to maintain asymmetric advantage. These critical 

technologies are listed in Table 1 with high priority emphasis on 

FPGAs, compound semiconductors, electro-optical components; 

radiation hardened components, as well as high power and high 

frequency radio frequency components. 

State-of-the art wafer manufacturing facilities (fabs) are being 

established in the Far East in order to support the rapid increase in 

consumption in the region. As a result, the United States no longer 

has the asymmetric technology advantage that it once had vis-à-vis 
 

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our adversaries and potential adversaries. The United States is not 

behind. But it is no longer as far ahead as it once was. One 

consequence of this is that state-of-the-art COTS technology is 

available to our adversaries. 

Some observers’ worry that the move of wafer fabrication (fab) to 

the Far East is the beginning of a trend, and that soon, all wafer 

manufacturing will move to the Far East, and the United States will 

not have an assured and trusted supply of state-of-the-art integrated 

circuits (ICs). However, it is the view of the DSB task force that, in the 

next 10-20 years, wafer manufacturing in the United States will 

remain sufficiently strong to support DoD needs in the event of 

supply disruption in the Far East. One key reason is that the cost of 

wafer fab in the Far East is not substantially cheaper than the cost of 

wafer fab in the United States. Wafer fab costs are dominated by 

capital depreciation, and low cost labour has minimal impact on 

wafer fab cost. These issues have been addressed by the recent 

Defence Science Board Task Force report on High Performance 

Microchip Supply (February 2005). This panel endorses the relevant 

recommendations made in that report. 

Technologies that are critical to DoD needs and that have minimal 

commercial use require DoD support for the continued 

advancements needed to maintain superiority. They include: 

 III-V components: The DoD need for high frequency 

and high power components requires III-V technology. 

Most of the commercial RF products currently use 

frequencies 5 GigaHertz and below. For these 

applications, Silicon CMOS, Silicon Bipolar CMOS and 

Silicon Germanium Bipolar CMOS are replacing III-V 

components. 

 II-VI components: II-VI compounds, such as HgCdTe 

for night vision systems, remain almost exclusively the 

domain of DoD systems. There is almost no commercial 

utilization of II-VI technology. 

 Radiation hard components: Commercial satellites 

require radiation tolerant components which defence 
 

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satellites require radiation hardened components. DoD 

requires availability of “Upper Rad Hard” components. 

DoD must continue the development of rad-hard 

technology. 

 Technologies for which DoD systems require higher 

performance components to enhance total system 

performance beyond the commercial needs include: 

− A/D converters with performance beyond 14-

bit at 500 MSPS, 

− Opto-electronic components and subsystems, 

− TeraHertz components, 

− High efficiency, space qualified solar cells, and 

− Readout ICs. 

Recommendation: Design Tools. The DoD should develop 

Computer Aided Design Tools to enable the design of affordable low 

volume, high performance custom ASICS. 

The cost of designing high-performance custom ASICs in 90 

nanometre CMOS is on the order of $20M and increases with every 

technology generation. The high cost of reticles is often cited as the 

reason for the demise of low volume, custom ASICs in 90 nanometre 

CMOS, but, in fact, the design cost far exceeds the $1M cost of 

reticles. DoD systems requirements demand high performance, low 

volume custom ASICs. 

Tool development should be directed to solve the specific 

problems that result in the increase in design cost for leading edge 

CMOS, particularly timing closure in physical design and statistical 

design to optimally design margin for parameter variation. 

The tools should be integrated into the industry mainstream 

toolset for CMOS design. The development can be cost-shared with 

the commercial industry. The commercial Electronic Design 

Automation industry is currently developing such tools, but rate of 

investment is not sufficient to meet the challenge for DoD. While 

commercial industry will benefit from these tools, the DoD will 
 

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benefit disproportionately because of the importance of their 

contribution to the development of low volume, high performance 

custom ASICs. 

Recommendation: Dual Use Technologies. Notwithstanding 

the erosion of the U.S. lead in technology as discussed in the DSB 

Task Force report on High Performance Microchip Supply, the 

United States has a continuing lead in the design of the following 

dual-use technologies: 

 Fixed/Floating point DSPs and CPUs and their 

software, 

 FPGAs (see finding on use of COTS by our adversaries) 

and their firmware, and 

 Very high performance A/D converters. 

Because these technologies are critical for the superior 

performance of DoD systems, the DoD needs to ensure that this lead 

is maintained, and that these technologies are exploited for DoD 

systems. 

Recommendation: Trusted Foundries. The DoD should 

continue and expand the trusted foundry initiative. Additional 

foundries should be added. CMOS among the trusted foundries 

should be standardized in order to reduce the cost to DoD for 

developing new chips and to provide multiple sources for ICs. 

DoD should also monitor the number of new U.S. based fabs and 

provide incentives for U.S. companies to locate fabs in the United 

States as required. 

Recommendation: Military Unique Electronic Components. 

There are many technologies that have limited commercial use at 

present and may provide new capabilities for future defence systems. 

They include: 

 Components for Adaptive Array Radar, 
 

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 Wide bandgap (power) devices for extreme 

environments Components for Antennas, 

 Superconducting Filters for Electronic Warfare and 

Communications, 

 RF through optics (photonics), 

 Components for 3-D Imaging, 

 Advanced Thermal Imaging Detectors, 

 Single Chip Photon Counting, 

 High-Power Fiber Lasers & Diodes, 

 Sub-millimetre Wave (TeraHertz) tech, 

 Retro-reflective tags, 

 Novel materials for antennas, and 

 Light-emitting polymers. 

These technologies are candidates for joint DoD-MoD technology 

development efforts. These hedge-technology investments might best 

be developed in either a collaborative fashion or each country could 

focus on different pre-competitive technologies and share the 

research results in a fashion similar to that done by industry. 

Recommendation: Talented Workforce. The United States 

and the United Kingdom face an increasing shortage of engineers, 

and this shortage affects results in a shortage for DoD and for MoD 

contractors. The shortage is particularly acute in the area of mixedsignal design. The number of American engineers graduating from 

U.S. universities is decreasing, and enrolment in U.S. engineering 

graduate schools is increasingly dominated by foreigners. The United 

States needs to take action to develop engineering manpower for 

DoD engineering needs. In 2005, the Director of Defense, Research 

and Engineering started to address this need for highly educated U.S. 

citizens in technical fields relevant to DoD by initiating the National 

Defense Education Program. In addition to vigorously supporting 

this program, the DoD should do the following to improve the 

workforce available to support defence electronics needs: 
 

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72 

 Encourage development of government sponsored U.S. 

student industry/academic apprenticeships, and 

 Advocate changes to our immigration quotas to enable 

and encourage immigration and retention of the best 

students who get their graduate degrees in U.S. 

engineering colleges and who want to remain in the 

United States. 

Finding: Importance of Adaptability and Programmable 

Gate Arrays 

The United States appears to have a unique advantage in the 

design of FPGAs and with the design of systems that exploit a mix of 

FPGAs and ASICs.16 Recently, the defence primes have begun to 

adopt Programmable Gate Arrays (PGAs) technology to support a 

variety of digital signal processing needs. PGAs, especially FPGAs, 

are rapidly becoming the essential, high performance integrated 

circuit building block of choice for many commercial and defence 

systems. As their performance, complexity, cost, and capacity have 

improved, these devices have begun to challenge the use of 

Application Specific Integrated Circuits in many electronic systems. 

In some applications their ability to incorporate built-in core 

functionality such as those of microprocessors or DSPs have led to 

preferred system level solutions over traditional design approaches. 

A comprehensive Special Technology Area Review (STAR) was 

recently conducted by the Advisory Group on Electron Devices. 

Among other things, this review found that the Department of 

Defense has been an early adopter of FPGA technology to reduce the 

design cost and development time of technology insertion. 

Furthermore, the STAR found that a very capable, but currently 

small, DoD design community is emerging. 

 

16. Special Technology Area Review on Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) for 

Military Applications. Report of the Department of Defense Advisory Group on Electron 

Devices, July 2005. 
 

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The STAR reviewed all major aspects of FPGAs for military use 

and found that immature FPGA technology has already been 

incorporated into military systems with significant impact on cost 

and schedule. The traditional role that FPGAs have played as “glue 

chips” in electronic systems has changed as their complexity and 

functionality has increased in recent years. DoD designers have 

chosen FPGAs over ASICs overwhelmingly because FPGAs have a 

large variety of intellectual property (IP) hardware cores (e.g. Power 

PC 405) including various high-speed input/output circuits up to 10 

Gigabits per second (Gbps) Rapid input/output. 

This panel endorses the findings and recommendations of this 

FPGA STAR. They include: 

 FPGAs have found widespread use and acceptance in 

digital military electronics systems. The domain of 

applicability is growing at the expense of general 

purpose processor and ASIC solutions due to 

functionality, availability and 

development/prototyping advantages. 

 Processing speed, power consumption/dissipation and 

functionality are the primary performance selection 

metrics for applications. Low non-recurring 

engineering cost, availability, and reduced development 

time are economic selection drivers. 

 Reconfigurability to address evolving requirements and 

extend mission life remains a selection driver. This is 

especially important for long life, remote platforms, 

such as satellites. 

 Application for space and harsh military environments 

is still problematic due to unknown reliability problems 

and/or lack of design information and 

qualification/radiation immunity testing. 

 System design tools lag hardware in capability and ease 

of use serving to limit the realization of FPGA 

technology for military applications. 
 

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 The engineering cadre skilled in the design and 

application of FPGAs in military electronics system 

design is scarce. 

 There is no standardization among FPGA hardware and 

design software. This restricts portability of designs 

among and across vendor’s product lines. 

 Short FPGA product life cycle is at odds with military 

legacy system logistic demands. A new paradigm is 

required in the government for planned upgrades. 

 The Trusted Source concept is viewed as potentially 

restricting competition, reducing technology advances, 

increasing cost and reducing supply. 

 Security concerns with FPGAs are not viewed as a 

severe problem due to domestic procurement of 

standard and programming control. Battery back-up 

and encryption storage methods are viewed as 

solutions to be implemented as required. 

 Off-shore fabrication is not identified as a major concern 

except for the lack of visibility into processing changes 

at the manufacturer and their potential detrimental 

affect on performance/reliability. Periodic lot testing is 

suggested as a solution. 

In addition, this panel endorses the recommendations of the DSB 

Task Force Report on High Performance Microchip Supply. We 

repeat their recommendation that the DoD support research to enable 

firmware integrity. 

A targeted DoD programme in the area of firmware integrity 

would likely lead to the rapid development, dissemination, and 

adoption of improvements to these trust-related aspects of 

programmable parts. Today’s standard parts, especially FPGAs, offer 

limited protection against the compromise of their firmware, i.e., the 

configuration software that is loaded into the parts prior to or during 

execution. The loading of low-level firmware (e.g., the BIOS) into 

CPUs can also have similar vulnerabilities. However, it is likely that 

suppliers of commercial parts would incorporate protective measures 
 

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if they were readily available. Thus, DoD investment in university 

research in this area could yield significant improvements in the 

trustworthiness of standard parts. 

Recommendation: Adaptability and Programmable Gate 

Arrays. The DoD should consider the utility of the creation of a 

library of re-usable DoD-relevant firmware building blocks. In the 

commercial sector, one of the attractions of PGAs is the availability 

those building blocks either in open source or licensable form. This 

advantage could be extended to the defence sector through the 

creation of a web-based forum for the exchange of PGA firmware 

building blocks that can be re-used across DoD systems. The re-use of 

known good building blocks could reduce cost, development time, 

and risk. Furthermore, it could ameliorate the impact of the scarce 

pool of designers with expertise in the hardware implementation of 

key signal processing algorithms. 

Finding: Commercial Electronics marketplace has made 

obsolete the U.S. Export Administration Regulations (EAR) 

The U.S. EAR is based on the assumption that technology 

advantage resides to a great extent in the United States, and its export 

should be controlled. In electronics, while U.S. companies do have 

certain technology advantages, commercial companies have global 

markets for both development and sales. Forces in those markets, 

together with impediments created by the Export Administration 

Regulations, often promote off-shore migration of technology 

development and production capability of the electronic industry. 

Where EAR identify technology capability thresholds, sometimes 

those thresholds are not maintained at appropriately discriminating 

levels. EAR restrictions can even encourage the development of 

foreign sources of technology and are completely ineffective in 

keeping critical technology from our potential adversaries where 

components of comparable performance are available elsewhere. 

These problems with the current Export Administration Regulations 

result in a loss in technology development investments by U.S. 

companies in addition to a loss of business and a high administrative 
 

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cost of compliance, sometimes with no redeeming protection of U.S. 

technology. 

This issue of economic competitiveness is also relevant to ITAR 

regulations, which are focused on controlling the exports of items 

and technologies with direct military (and little or no civilian) 

application. With increased reliance on foreign military sales and 

technical cooperation with international partners, a more agile 

process that balances security and industrial concerns are needed in 

order to deliver military capability in a more timely and efficient 

manner. 

Recommendation: The United States should re-evaluate export 

controls (EAR and ITAR) as it pertains to the critical microelectronics. 

New regulations should recognize modern market forces and allow 

the export of technology that is available in foreign markets. A time 

phased downgrading should allow older generations of technology 

to be exportable. This will help to balance the threat of the loss of 

technical leadership against the restriction of technology released to 

foreign markets. Ideally, new regulations would allow the United 

States to export technology that is just a bit better than the foreign 

competition.

Finding: Use of COTS by our adversaries 

Modern COTS electronics technologies are enabling both nationstates and terrorists to obtain significant military capabilities at 

modest costs. Furthermore, the rapid pace of change in the 

commercial world allows such adversaries to quickly evolve and 

advance their capabilities. 

In the past, the development of key military technologies (e.g., 

computers, night vision, spread-spectrum radio, etc.) was controlled 

by the military. Governments spent large sums of money developing 

and controlling these technologies. The huge consumer markets for 

advanced technologies have not only overtaken the government 

influence in the electronics business, but the magnitude of these 

markets has accelerated the rate of technological advance. 
 

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Video games, computers and consumer electronics drive the 

processor markets. Telecom drives the networking market. Cell 

phones drive the spread-spectrum and software-controlled radio 

businesses. Even DoD-funded technologies that were once controlled 

by DoD (such as GPS) had to yield to commercial market influences. 

Extremely powerful COTS technologies such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, 

public-key encryption, and the Internet continue to evolve and 

advance at a dizzying pace due to commercial market forces. 

Very effective and militarily significant tools are at the disposal of 

our adversaries. The improvised explosive devices used today in Iraq 

are one example of this. Commercial satellite imagery is widely 

available and subject to resolution enhancement by COTS processors. 

Hand-held GPS units can provide precision target locations. The 

internet, cell phones, pagers, satellite telephones, etc. can be 

combined to provide a robust, global command and control network 

at an insignificant cost. Furthermore, if the past is any predictor of the 

future, very substantial advances in these kinds of capabilities at even 

lower costs can be anticipated. 

Recommendation: DoD and MoD need to prepare for dealing 

with the COTS-equipped adversary. Studies should be initiated to 

understand the strengths, weaknesses, and vulnerabilities of COTS 

based systems that can serve key military capabilities, like 

communications, sensing, etc. These studies could lead to the 

development of counter-COTS systems to exploit vulnerabilities. 

Exploitable vulnerabilities that should be explored include intercept, 

detection, geolocation, infiltration, and spoofing. It is equally 

important that the DoD and the MoD reduce the acquisition cycle 

time for electronic components for its’systems in order to exploit the 

rapid pace of change for intelligence, command and control, and 

weapons systems. This could be accomplished by designing systems 

intended to be adaptable to a rapidly evolving threat based on 

leveraging the commercial market offerings. 
 

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Finding: Failure of COTS to meet DoD/MoD Quality & 

Reliability requirements 

COTS integrated circuits have different design, testing and 

environmental requirements and are not suitable in many military 

applications without additional adaptation and/or qualification. As 

the DoD and the MoD have come to rely on these COTS parts, some 

critical systems have become vulnerable. 

Some of the environmental challenges are relatively obvious, i.e., 

COTS ICs are explicitly not designed or tested for space applications. 

However, there are other cases where a COTS part might come close, 

but not quite be able, to meet military requirements. For example, 

COTS ICs typically are not intended for use at the extremes of the 

outdoor (artic and desert) temperature ranges to which military 

systems are sometimes subjected. Similarly, the performance of a 

COTS part might degrade over time in a manner that does not 

compromise its integrity during its specified commercial lifetime, yet 

may compromise longer-lived military systems. 

In some of the above cases, it might be possible for a third party to 

qualify parts for the harsher environment through extended testing 

(e.g., for lifetime and temperature range), environmentally controlled 

packaging, etc. However, the opaqueness of COTS parts, i.e., the 

limited availability of design information, can mask fundamental 

limitations that may not be apparent through such “black box” 

testing. 

One particular area of concern is with testing, which is a 

substantial fraction of the manufacturing cost of modern integrated 

circuits. Manufacturers rigorously test their products to reduce the 

substantial cost of allowing parts that do not meet their specifications 

to “escape” into the market resulting in customer disappointment, 

recalls, brand impairment, etc. Nonetheless, the degree of testing to 

which parts are subjected is the subject of a cost and benefit analysis 

that trades-off the incremental costs of additional testing against the 

risks and potential costs of escapes. A key assumption underlying 

these trade-offs is that most COTS ICs are not intended for use in “life 

or death” applications. Thus, when escapes occur, their remedy 
 

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typically involves short-term inconvenience rather than loss of life or 

the long term impairment of a strategic asset (such as a space 

vehicle). Escaped parts may produce dire consequences in military 

situations. 

Recommendation: The DoD should forge coalitions with other 

sectors that face similar stringent requirements for COTS parts that 

meet higher quality and openness demands, e.g., the automotive 

industry, public utilities, healthcare, etc. These broader coalitions 

should find a common set of requirements that meet their reliability, 

openness, and quality needs. Of these, the automotive industry may 

be the most advanced in obtaining COTS-like parts that meet quality 

standards considerably above those of consumer electronics. 

Finding: Where are the new innovations and 

technologies? 

One final concern that arose during the panel’s deliberations is the 

belief that the list of critical technologies is surprisingly familiar with 

few, if any, being new additions that would not have been on a list 

compiled five or ten years ago. Of those that are new, many are 

technologies that can be substituted for existing components – as 

opposed to those that create revolutionary new capabilities. A failure 

to discover and develop revolutionary new technologies is of 

particular concern, given the belief that new systems concepts often 

arise in response to the development of new component technologies. 

Recommendation: The panel recommends that the DoD and 

MoD conduct a longitudinal analysis of the emergence of novel 

electronics to determine whether or not the electronics “discovery 

engine” has slowed and, if so, identify the root causes, including the 

impact of organisational and process changes. For example, one 

process hypothesis to be investigated is whether the early coupling of 

research to DoD acquisition programme offices is impeding the 

development of new technologies, i.e., if a key criterion for 

investment in a new component technology is the support of a preexisting systems programme office then one should not be surprised 

to see a dearth of revolutionary new technologies of the sort that in 
 

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the past would have led to the creation of new capabilities. This type 

of linkage might be particularly acute in the current environment, in 

which few new systems are under development. 

SUMMARY

The DSB and DSAC Electronic Components panels have studied a 

number of specific defence critical electronic components with a view 

to examining the role they play in determining the performance of 

defence systems, and the key issues that are facing our defence 

industries in the light of ever increasing globalization. The critical 

security of supply chain and the robustness and innovativeness of 

our industrial base were reviewed and recommendations made to 

better focus and enable their long term health as well as the security 

of our respective nations. 
 

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CHAPTER 5. ADVANCED COMMAND ENVIRONMENTS 

INTRODUCTION

The reason for our interest in Advanced Command Environments 

(ACE) is to enhance the command function and increase military 

effectiveness. Command is at the heart of military capability and is 

essentially, a human activity. We therefore take a human-centric view 

of ACE. 

The U.S. and UK panels encountered the ACE problem first hand 

in the course of this study. Information technology and current stateof-the-art commercial tools fell far short of enabling collaboration at a 

distance, even for these modest sized panels. It was not until the UK 

and U.S. panels decided to physically meet and visit some of the key 

military locations to hear, firsthand, the warfighter’s view, that 

consensus on the goals of the study emerged. The U.S. team came to 

agree with the UK team that without a framework for analysis and 

metrics for assessing a particular technology, there would not be 

much chance for sound evaluation. 

DISCUSSION

Definition of Advanced Command Environments 

We believe it is appropriate to use a broad definition of a 

command environment if we are to ensure that all components are 

successfully integrated and together support superior human 

command performance. The ACE must therefore take into account 

physical layout, equipment, information, processes, organisation, 

team membership, doctrine, culture, and any other relevant 

contextual factors. 

An advanced command environments has component elements 

including the physical surroundings of the members of the command 

staff, the information space that the ACE supports, and the physical 
 

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and social connectivity provided to material assets and to other 

members of the command staff and its supporting organisations. In 

addition, the environment is so integrated into command staff 

activity, that it must support the formal and informal processes being 

executed by that staff. This holds true for all levels of command. 

Physical Surroundings 

The physical elements in the near vicinity of command staff 

members form their surroundings, architecturally and ergonomically. 

Physical objects, light, sound, and the way that the material objects 

affect humans all play a part in the command team’s ability to be 

aware, understand, remain focused, carry out physical and mental 

tasks, and not suffer undue fatigue over the watch time. 

Information Space 

The command environment supports the presentation of a virtual 

information space or volume. Just as the personnel occupy a physical 

location, they operate within this information space. The most critical 

aspect of the information space is whether each member of the 

command staff receives, digests, and can use the information 

elements needed, while being able to ignore information that is 

irrelevant or of insufficient priority for the task being carried out by 

the human. The job of the environment is to permit humans to 

operate at high productivity levels. 

Technological systems within the command environment present 

information, graphically display it in myriad forms, on demand, and 

automatically. Other systems process extant information to change its 

form and to derive new information. Technology for processing and 

displaying information has advanced to the stage that command 

staffs demand what they describe as situational awareness 

presentations, which are the result of accumulating and 

amalgamating raw and interpreted information from many sources 

into a holistic view. The advanced command environment should 

present situational awareness descriptions in a fashion that best 
 

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serves the specific commander and staff, with their own knowledge, 

insight, and judgement. 

Information can be presented in myriad representations. One of 

the challenges of designing an advanced command environment is to 

determine how to adapt information from one format to another – 

without loss of accuracy – and to amalgamate information from many 

sources; possibly deriving new information that some may view as 

new information or even knowledge. Because the information fed 

into a command environment is typically created independently from 

the command environment, integration of both representations and 

even of information itself is an immense challenge. Feeds may be 

technically and semantically incompatible. 

The command environment must support an understanding of 

situational awareness that appears to the command staff to be stable 

over time. Information needs to be timely, if feeds permit. 

Information that will be presented repeatedly needs to be kept in data 

bases accessible to command environment systems. Hence, there is 

substantial background task of maintaining both historic and 

reference data, as well as the information in the instantaneous 

situational picture. 

Connectivity 

The command environment provides connectivity from the 

command staff members to assets that they control on air, land, and 

sea, as well as, network connectivity to remote members of the staff, 

or to supporting and superior organisations. Network bandwidth 

depends upon the locations of the communicating entities. Over time 

bandwidth improves as communication technologies improve. In the 

near future new capabilities such as Transformation 

Communications, Future Combat Systems, and the Joint Tactical 

Radio System should enhance bandwidth. Today, in practice, 

information feeds are gated by the ability of the command 

environment to receive and to send using the network assets 

deployed as well as competing demands on backbones. Latency, the 

time for a signal to travel from end to end, and therefore interactive 
 

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responsiveness is limited fundamentally by the speed of light, and 

practically by less than idea communications. 

Support of Command Staff Processes 

The advanced environment is more integral to the activity of the 

command staff than environments of the past. As a result, the 

environment must effectively support the command staff activity and 

the human value it brings to operations. This entails support for its 

procedures, often step by step. Consequently, the environment must 

scale to fit location, communication capability, size of the command 

team, and its specific objectives. For coalition partners in a command 

environment, the handling of multiple levels of security on a “need to 

share” versus the current “need to know” is required both for current 

data and for the background intelligence needed for interpretation. 

The environment must allow a command thread, from initiation of a 

command action through to its execution, to form, perform, and 

disperse on an ad hoc basis. In summary, the environment needs to 

support organisational as well as individual agility. 

Our assessment of ACE must be focused on the output, or endproduct. Our measure of “goodness” is the effectiveness in delivering 

desired military effects in the desired manner. Concepts and doctrine, 

types of operation, and conditions of operation (e.g. in coalition, with 

global visibility) will determine the what, when, and how of the ACE 

outputs. 

The idea of a human-centric view of the architecture is a key 

theme in our findings. Without the ability for human beings to 

interact around diverse perspectives of the same situation, decisionmaking, effects-based operations and collaborative evaluation are not 

easily achieved. This was illustrated by the panel’s own experience of 

collaboration. The social (human) architecture enabled us to reach 

consensus while an architecture based on technology (video 

teleconference, etc.) did not. Furthermore, this approach allowed us 

to consider the issue of organisational agility. To paraphrase a 
 

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concept paper prepared by the Joint Doctrine and Concepts Centre17, 

by organisational agility we mean the ability of the humans in a 

command organisation to think creatively, adapt, improvise, and 

respond to the unexpected. It is what humans do best. One of the 

dangers of modern command systems is that they can allow or even 

lead a commander to “over-control” the environment which may 

prevent necessary improvisation at the lower levels of command. 

Organisational agility is characterised by four attributes: 

responsiveness, robustness, flexibility, and adaptability. If an 

advanced command environment is to support and enable 

organisational agility, then that environment must be designed 

around the human participants, answering to their needs and 

amplifying their strengths and capabilities. 

Our focus remains on the development and use of technologies to 

enhance command, and the key to doing this effectively is to consider 

command environments to be human-centric systems. Since the 

United States and the United Kingdom can expect to be part of the 

same military ”system” (projecting a coalition military capability) in 

the future, the development and application of a human-centric 

command environment should be an area of technical collaboration 

between us. 

TECHNOLOGIES ASSOCIATED WITH ACE 

The critical technologies other than human-centric methods that 

are associated with ACE are in various stages of development in a 

wide variety of commercial and government markets. Three 

technologies will drive the command environment as key enabling 

elements. The first is large scale media management as practiced by 

major video broadcast news agencies such as FOX, NBC or Sky 

News. The second is remote collaboration which is emerging in 

global enterprise management in both the government and the 

private sector. The third is in visualization technology which has its 

roots in the entertainment and media sector. 

 

17. The UK Joint High Level Operational Concept: An Analysis of the Components of the 

UK Defence Capability Framework, para 202 
 

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Large scale media management encompasses the end-to-end flow of 

information from the creation, development, retention, 

dissemination, and destruction of each bit in a distributed system. 

The required technologies for end-to-end media management 

(E2EM2) in ACE are network management for converged information 

architectures. Multiple protocol label switching will allow 

information to flow through the environment as voice, video or data 

all in the Internet protocol format while accommodating the widely 

different data rates, display capabilities or security of end devices or 

users. Very large database technologies, such as tuple storing, will 

allow the rigor of a structured database to have some of the 

advantages of Google’s capability. Databases will be measured in 

exabytes not petabytes but will still have the required control for 

command. This will enable search and access using XML and will 

create the ability to horizontally integrate traditional islands of 

automation without converting relational databases. E2EM2 will also 

benefit from new storage technologies such as laser optical tape and 

metadata generation technologies. 

Collaboration technology is accelerating in the large multinational 

corporations. Collaborative network environments that run on top of 

E2EM2 systems allow for teams to develop a joint understanding of 

the opportunities and constraints that are before them. 

Pharmaceutical research companies are moving quickly to deploy 

corporate wide collaboration technology. Key elements of this 

technology are advanced video teleconferencing; human interface 

devices such as video tables, large displays, eye-limited resolution 

work stations, gesture recognition tools, virtual environments, 

attention cueing, graphical relations analysis tools, Bayseian-based 

decision tools, and chat schemes. These technologies are efforts to 

improve the human to human connection. 

Visualization technology is rooted in the entertainment sector. The 

use of special effects to convey a complex situation is becoming more 

important in the art of story telling. In the ACE, the E2EM2 will 

perform the complicated information tasks but the visualization layer 

will allow the command team to do what humans do best which is to 

understand the complex. A critical step between information and 
 

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knowledge is visualization. Key advances in this area are very large 

seamless displays. Synthetically fused images from heterogeneous 

sources create an almost omnipresent experience for the commander. 

Visual simulations of real world models are commonplace in the 

massive gaming industry. Holographic and other three dimensional 

techniques are in development to give better situational awareness 

and improve the common operating picture. 

THE HUMAN AT THE CENTRE OF THE ENVIRONMENT

The challenges of harnessing new information technologies to 

design and operate advanced command environments are great. 

While the human must be at the centre of the environment, the 

technologies permit changes in process and organisation that can 

yield new and useful capabilities. The environment must enhance 

and not hinder the human beings who are providing flexibility, 

rationality, accountability, and creativity. Ingenuity will still come 

from people, not from automated systems. 

Three major defence challenges exist when developing advanced 

command environments: 

1. Technology must not erode or limit valuable human 

capability. Yet, for some highly sophisticated, technical 

system-of-systems, the human appears to be the limiting 

factor. Key concerns include: 

− Constraints on people imposed by technology 

that may erode the value humans bring to 

military capability (e.g. information 

management demands can constrain 

flexibility), 

− Demands on people to deal with a greater 

complexity and range of functions, 

− Demands on people to respond more rapidly 

than they are comfortable with, 
 

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− The diversity of demands of future operations 

and command, including the need to carry out 

very different tasks, 

− Insufficient integration between teams, 

horizontally and vertically, to create a 

seamless networked capability, 

− Difficulties in team interactions involving a 

wider range of cultures, processes, situations 

(e.g. more remote team working, other 

government departments, coalition) and the 

need to rapidly integrate and collaborate with 

many new people in coalition command 

centres, 

− Insufficient, and diminishing, numbers of 

people and lack of appropriate skills, and 

− Greater technological and information 

overhead. 

2. New command-related concepts are being developed which 

rely on a greater understanding of human interaction and 

performance issues. These concepts need to be evaluated in the 

new military environment. Some of the concepts are: 

− Distributed decision making, 

− Agile mission groups (forces that can be 

configured on demand to address a wide 

range of effects based operations; fighting, 

peacekeeping, humanitarian, etc, 

− Increased reach-back, 

− Command “by exception,” 

− Command in a distributed environment, 

− Effects based operations/comprehensive 

approach, and 

− Large scale modelling, simulation, and wargaming. 
 

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3. The way in which existing command concepts, such as mission 

command, can operate in the new military environment of 

Effects Based Planning, is not understood. Current military 

planning has a constrained set of options that is quickly 

expanding to include the use of military systems for relief 

efforts, counter-terror, policing, and administration of local 

governments. Given the sensitivity of human behaviour to 

environmental influences, we cannot take for granted that 

current effective human performance will continue unaffected 

as we introduce new technology and information. 

An advanced command environment is intended to support 

transformed command processes. Compared to processes of the past, 

tomorrow’s command processes will involve faster decision cycles, 

orders of magnitude more data available to be digested by the 

command staff, and more diverse sources of data as well as human 

perspectives. The desire to build advanced command environments 

breaks new ground. Today’s experts have insufficient understanding 

of how human beings interact, reason, reach consensus, and make 

decisions in a fast-paced, information-rich, collaborative 

environment. The relative immaturity of knowledge about human 

beings is a formidable impediment. As we have said before, the 

command environments must be human-centric. Therefore, the issues 

of how humans perform and behave must be considered early in the 

design. It is very difficult to articulate requirements for systems when 

fundamental knowledge of how to design information systems to 

support human processes is not well understood. 

There has been insufficient investment in research to achieve an 

understanding of how humans perform in a system-of-systems 

military context, where technology, information, organisation, 

culture, process, and people are integrated. More specifically, new 

command concepts have not been well-articulated and thoroughly 

tested. So, it is not surprising that there is difficulty in articulating the 

requirements for command environments that can deliver the 

underpinning to support those concepts. 

Understanding and applying human science to ACE (and other 

military systems) is critical to the exploitation of technology and to 
 

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the delivery of overall military capability. Human science is the 

means for transforming the components of a command environment 

into effective military command. 

THE SCOPE OF “HUMAN DISCIPLINES” 

Many disciplines contribute to better understanding human 

behaviour in a command environment. Many disciplines can 

contribute knowledge to be employed in creating more effective 

systems and environments. These disciplines include psychology, 

ergonomics, human factors, cognitive science, neuroscience, biology, 

archaeology, philosophy, history, literature, sociology, anthropology 

and more. Some are “hard science” in the sense that they use rigorous 

methods such as laboratory-based experimentation and mathematical 

analysis. Others are “softer” using methods such as field studies and 

ethnography. In each case there must be a methodical and controlled 

approach to knowledge. 

We shall use the term human knowledge base to describe the body of 

knowledge that offers relevant observations and understanding that 

relate to human performance in the command environment. The 

skills and methods required to apply human knowledge base is a 

discipline in itself. We shall use terms such as human factors 

integration, human systems integration, and human factors engineering to 

refer to the application of such knowledge. The first term is in 

common use in the United Kingdom, and the latter two in the United 

States. 

Human behaviour processes, especially those used in complex 

environments are not well understood. Some experts contribute 

perspectives as they describe “system thinking,” “complex adaptive 

systems” and “socio-technical systems.” It is understood that humans 

are strongly affected by influences external to the immediate system 

in which they are working. Influences include cultural attitudes, 

expectations, motivations, and values. In some cases they are not 

taken sufficiently into account. A system-of-systems approach will 

deliver a more reliable assessment of overall performance by 

factoring in the broader influences which determine human 
 

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behaviour. To do so necessarily calls upon knowledge from a broader 

range of human disciplines. Operational analysis techniques are 

being developed to carry out integration at this level, and the human 

factor will be central to this. The ACE panel finds that there is a 

critical need for the development of more advanced means of 

applying the human knowledge base to the design of future 

advanced command environments. 

SPECIFIC AREAS TO BE ADDRESSED

The panel has identified that there is insufficient application of 

human factors in the development of military command capability. 

There are research findings in areas such as human decision-making, 

remote and co-located team-working, cultural determinants of 

behaviour, intuitive and analytical thinking, the use of information 

and knowledge in developing understanding. However the findings 

from such studies need to be applied in the context of military 

capabilities and used to inform doctrine, organisation, process, and 

technology application. The ACE panel suggests that there are 

several ways in which this can be done more effectively: 

 Experimentation to understand human (military practitioner) 

requirements for ACE using new technologies in display, 

communications capability, visualization, special effects to 

replace iconography, and simulation tools, 

 Experimentation to assess the impact on individuals and teams 

of potential ACE or components of ACE, 

 Full utilization of both human discipline specialists and 

human factors engineers throughout the ACE lifecycle from 

capability analysis to termination. Human discipline 

specialists will have a deep knowledge of areas such as 

cognition, sociology, problem solving, decision making, and 

team building. Human factors engineers will have experience 

in the practice of incorporating knowledge about human 

behaviour into the systems engineering process, 
 

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 Modelling human cognition and behaviour to develop 

technologies to support own command behaviours and to help 

in the analysis of opponent behaviour, 

 Development of metrics, language and taxonomy to assist in 

multi-disciplinary collaboration in a human-centric systems 

approach to command environments, and 

 Early engagement of stakeholders, especially the future 

commanders, in the design process. 

The explorations proposed in the list above can only be conducted 

with substantive military involvement. Indeed, the panel believes 

that outside contractors and universities are generally unable to do 

this work in a way that sufficiently involves the military. 

Consequently, we believe that a concentrated programme needs to be 

created by the two nations. In the next section we discuss two 

organisations within the MoD and the DoD that have demonstrated 

capability in this area. 

JFCOM AND NITEWORKS

Two leading stakeholders in the area of developing advanced 

command techniques and environments are the U.S. Joint Forces 

Command (JFCOM) Joint Futures Laboratory (JFL) and the UK 

NITEworks (Network Integration Test and Experimentation Works). 

The JFL conducts transformational experimentation locally or 

globally, through live or virtual means. The JFL facilities serve as the 

hub for the Headquarters of the Combined Joint Forces CommandFuture, a community of joint and service headquarters linked 

through common Collaborative Information Environment tools, 

networks, modelling and simulation federations, and methodologies 

to integrate and synergize joint experimentation. The JFL and the 

Distributed Continuous Experimentation Environment conduct 

continuous, collaborative joint experimentation to accelerate solution 

sets to current warfighter challenges, develop potential solutions and 

opportunities for future warfighting, and inform development of the 

Joint Force Headquarters of the future. JFCOM also works with the 
 

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Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to develop 

transformational technologies to enhance the capability of 

commanders and staffs to collaboratively plan and conduct effectsbased campaigns. 

NITEworks is an experimental environment that allows the 

UK Ministry of Defence to assess the benefits of Network Enabled 

Capability (NEC) and the options for its effective and timely delivery. 

NITEworks is a partnership between the Ministry of Defence and the 

defence industry rather than a traditional and more formal 

customer/supplier relationship. This unique arrangement allows 

NITEworks to draw on the widest possible range of specialist skills, 

information, and facilities in addressing problems set by the Ministry 

of Defence. In brief, NITEworks conducts activities such as 

warfighting experiments, including manipulation experiments, and 

empirical studies, tests and visualisations. Through NITEworks, 

various industry capabilities are accessible including: training 

simulators, test and evaluation facilities, the Battlespace 

Transformation Centre, and the Battlespace Management 

Environment. 

The JFCOM Joint Futures Laboratory and NITEworks are not the 

only candidate organisations that are qualified to be involved in this 

kind of experimentation. Appendix E lists other organisations in the 

United States and abroad. 

EXPLORING COMMAND ENVIRONMENT SUPPORT FOR 

ORGANIZATIONAL AGILITY

Anticipating our recommendation for joint experimentation 

between JFCOM JFL and NITEworks, this section explores a concrete 

example of the kind of exploration that would be valuable. It focuses 

on the dimensions and techniques that would enable a command 

environment support system. 

Experimentation, the development of high level operational 

analysis, and the involvement of multiple stakeholders are already 

well in evidence (JFCOM and NITEworks), and these activities could 
 

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be built upon effectively. Table 1, below, provides an example of 

some of the concerns and potential solutions that could be assessed 

through the application of human science to ACE concepts. 

Table 1. A U.S.-UK Common Goal 

DELIVERING AGILITY THROUGH THE COMMAND ENVIRONMENT(in the UK’s Joint Doctrine & 

Concepts Centre definition this includes: flexibility, adaptability, responsiveness, robustness)

Both the United Kingdom and the United States wish to increase military agility at all levels and scales. 

Command will play a key part in achieving this. 

Obstructions to agility Potential sources for enhancing agility 

• Compartmentalisation of process and 

information for security reasons 

• Necessity to integrate new people with 

different cultures for the purposes of effects 

based and coalition operations 

• Separation of decision makers and warfighters 

through reach back 

• Static structures, stove-piped information 

environments 

• Re-configurability of ACE to look inwards or 

outwards, to work as a whole or splinter into 

groups and individuals, to integrate back into a 

team. This will support different command styles 

and doctrine, the ability to deal with both micro and 

macro threats, and the movement of people, tasks 

and information across different environments 

• Concept of operations to allow simultaneous 

collaboration & compartmentalisation 

• Lack of exploitation of lessons learned 

• Long design and modification cycles for 

command environments 

• Rapid processes for responding to lessons learned 

(organisational learning); technology to assist in 

rapid learning; self-learning technology (e.g. 

modelling) 

• Involvement of all stakeholders (including 

suppliers) in early activities to understand 

requirements 

• “Locked-in” thinking arising from 

expectations, dependency on process, rulebased behaviour and inappropriate 

simplification of complex situations 

• Visualisation and thinking aids to help challenge 

assumptions, encourage lateral thinking, support 

broad and deep understanding of a situation 

• Cultural diversity 

• Over-dependency on technology; 

impoverishment of human understanding 

through de-skilling and removal from detail; 

misunderstanding of application functionality 

and mode status (e.g. modelling tools) 

• Erosion of human perception & understanding 

– through reducing the communication 

bandwidth (using IT not face to face) and 

trying to pump more information through this 

reduced bandwidth. 

• More effective modelling, simulation, and 

visualisation to match cognitive styles of 

commanders, analysts and planners. 

• Tools, organisation & processes to assist in rapid 

thinking (e.g. brainstorming tools) 

• Policy for face to face communication 

• Effects of accountability and global visibility • Training, organisation, tools for providing audit 

trail of discussions and decisions 
 

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RECOMMENDATIONS

1. Collaborative Experimentation 

The United States and the United Kingdom should develop a 

cooperative programme to collaborate on the physical design aspects, 

internal functionality and tools, and other human factors aspects 

related to optimizing future command/decision environments. The 

purpose of such efforts would be to spotlight the importance of 

optimizing decision environments at different levels of command, 

and to formalize opportunities for commands to draw from the 

technologies and human factors work already being done in battle 

and futures labs working in these areas across the respective 

governments and in industry. As a first step, we recommend a trial 

link between U.S. and UK facilities, such as NITEworks and the 

JFCOM JFL, and possibly other UK/U.S. military organisations (see 

Appendix E for additional organisations). This would host an initial 

set of experiments in the area of advanced command environments to 

assess the effectiveness of alternative architectures and components 

and supporting future command modalities. Specific issues to be 

explored are discussed in earlier sections. 

This experimentation should develop a model for more expanded 

collaboration on this topic, including: 

 Provision of a comprehensive method, including 

a definition of the scope of the operational context 

we need to address in order to assess command 

functions, 

 Establishment of measures and metrics for the 

output of ACE and the performance of elements 

within them such as human command 

performance or the extent to which a technology 

supports or hinders specific human performance, 

 Develop specifications and prototype 

requirements for ACE and their components in 

order to help define future research needs and to 
 

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frame the findings in terminology meaningful to 

both the militaries and supply industries, and 

 Test and evaluate the most relevant technologies 

such as: 

− Display technologies to support partially 

shared information environments, 

− Special effects as a visual tool to enhance 

situational awareness, 

− Technologies to enhance remote collaboration, 

− Large scale media management systems, 

− Human-in-the-loop modelling (using expert 

judgement to temper complex computation), 

− Tools and methods for enhancing lateral and 

intuitive thinking, 

− Training and education techniques for cultural 

understanding, 

− System interfaces to intuitive, emotional and 

social dimensions of human cognition, 

− Generic, agile planning aids, and 

− Large scale modelling and simulation for wargaming. 

An important goal should be to identify which aspects of the 

command environment are generic, and which are context-dependent 

(e.g. dependent on particular scenarios). This can be achieved by 

using three or more vignettes or scenarios representing different 

extremes of key variables. 

A baseline should be established with existing conditions (e.g. a 

single commander operating hierarchically with existing command 

information systems using current doctrine for group decision 

making and course of action analysis). 
 

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2. Conference 

The programme should also sponsor a conference with a call for 

papers to address the broad range of topics including behavioural 

modelling of specific populations, individual person modelling, 

methods for characterising individual members of a hypothetical 

command team, ergonomics, colour, light, sound, etc. These ideas 

should be evaluated and either dismissed or adopted as part of a 

broader command environment toolset after experimentation. 

It will be important to have key high-level stakeholder buy-in 

from the start and a commitment and mechanism to act on the 

outcomes. There will be important issues about how to provide 

resources for such a study, what timetable is feasible given existing 

programmes, who would have ownership of such an over-arching 

initiative, and what needs to be in place before such experimentation 

can take place. 

SUMMARY

As part of the terms of reference for the working party, each panel 

was tasked to develop a critical, disruptive and enabling technology 

list for their topic. The ACE panel submits the following list of 

technologies with potential to meet the requirements for advanced 

command environments listed above: 

 Advanced Displays, Visualizations and the Use of 

Special Effects, 

 Advanced and Collaborative Networks, Collaboration 

Technologies and Network Protection, 

 Advanced Computing and Communications, 

 Advanced Knowledge Management; End-to-end Media 

and Info Management, 

 Virtual Training, 

 Advanced Modelling, Simulation, Gaming, 

Demonstration and Experimentation, 
 

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 Human Performance, Psychological Factors and 

Behaviours, 

 Autonomous and Self-Organizing Networks, 

 Analysis Tools and Technologies, 

 COTS (Including Wireless) Advances and Vulnerability 

Mitigation, 

 Energy Sources and Management, 

 High Capacity Communications, 

 Advanced Encryption, Public Key Infrastructure and 

Identity Concepts, 

 Advanced Information Assurance, 

 Advanced Collaboration Concepts, 

 Smart Robots/Micromachines, 

 Advanced Materials and Designs, and 

 Compact Climate and Instrument Controls.

The panel believes that there is great value in joint 

experimentation between the two nations’ militaries. The result of 

this initial activity should then be evaluated to determine if a long 

term relationship can be achieved. 
 

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CHAPTER 6. PERSISTENT SURVEILLANCE

INTRODUCTION

This report is the U.S. and UK contribution to a joint UK/U.S. 

study of Persistent Surveillance (PS) for defence applications. The 

two teams met both separately and together and, as a result followed 

both individual and complementary threads. The UK team focused 

on the underlying technologies and the programme view required to 

achieving PS, while the U.S. group considered the definitional, 

organisational and architectural/systems issues in depth. This 

reflects the different approaches of the United States and the United 

Kingdom, i.e. the United States has extensive investment in PS 

technologies but requires effort on how to better exploit the outputs 

from these. The UK MoD has recently initiated a major coordinated 

programme in PS (DABINETT), while requiring a clearer vision of 

which emerging technologies require defence specific investment. 

The U.S. DoD and intelligence communities have undertaken a series 

of activities to discuss and analyze the PS attributes and definitions. 

Although U.S. members have not investigated the full extent of U.S. 

DoD and intelligence community activities in this area, we are not 

aware of a formal U.S. programme defined for persistent 

surveillance. 

Despite near-universal enthusiasm for next-generation “persistent 

surveillance assets” there is remarkably little informed discussion of 

what constitutes persistence and why we want it. We believe that 

increasingly targets of interest will require us to go beyond the 

current norm of point or sweeping type episodic surveillance. 

Enhancing the ability to track “lower signature” objects of interest 

(including persons and related entities) and better link them to 

specific threat activities will require a focused effort across the full 

spectrum of collection, analysis, mission and information 

management, and customer interaction. Persistence is a relative 

construct and a sensing system may be said to be sufficiently 

persistent if we can capture and recreate with sufficient fidelity the 
 

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relevant temporal characteristics of the target. Thus, persistent 

surveillance is most important if and only if, we are interested in 

some temporal characteristic(s) of the “target.” Specifically, we are 

interested in analyzing the “activity” of the target. To appreciate the 

texture of an activity we must observe systematically, i.e. “sample” 

the target (entities as well as objects) at a rate dictated by the activity, 

not by the sensor, sensor system, or platform(s). The role of 

surveillance – in the troika of Intelligence, Surveillance and 

Reconnaissance (ISR) – is to deny the adversary any opportunity to 

act unobserved. Just as intelligence aspires to omniscience, 

surveillance aspires to be omni-present with virtual dwelling, staring, 

resolution, and other performance attributes that make such 

persistence more powerful and differentiated from current and past 

ISR. Current trends also require that such PS also be able to support a 

wide variety of weapons delivery scenarios integral to the conduct of 

such surveillance. 

The context for PS is that adversaries increasingly are non-state 

players with many individual actors and entities, globally distributed 

with low signatures. Existing UK and U.S. collection capabilities are 

platform based. Increasingly as we align the information from 

different systems and phenomenologies, there will be significant 

implications for mission management, information management, 

processing, analysis, and archiving and network enablement. 

Interestingly, it is via these features of PS that backtracking of targets 

(or from events) (particularly those targets “hiding in plain sight”) in 

order to facilitate retrack (or for forensic benefits) onto other like or 

related targets is facilitated. As we achieve improvements in PS, it is 

envisaged that new interfaces will be required that will leverage 

traditional defence, as well as homeland-security and law 

enforcement capabilities. 

This PS study utilised the knowledge of subject experts plus 

solicited input from relevant experts when any capability gap was 

apparent. We must sense differently and more effectively and we 

must process and exploit that sensing with greater skill and with 

much improved results. This chapter summarises the key findings 

and the supporting evidence. The panel took the following approach: 
 

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twenty-nine defence critical technologies for PS were identified (not 

defined in this report, but available on request). These were 

categorised into Front-end Sensors, Back-end Capabilities and 

Interconnectivity Fabric. Three of these technology areas (identified 

below) were selected as “high priority.” The panel assumed the 

following caveats: space-based sensors are addressed in existing 

collaborations and were therefore not considered in this study. 

However, the output from these sensors was considered and we 

believe that capable space sources are critical to our evolution of a 

comprehensive PS programme. 

This chapter focuses less on the technologies of PS per se, and 

more on how to think about PS and for defining a way forward in PS. 

The technologies for PS are many and varied in the context of all 

domain legacy and “to-be,” penetrating and standoff, front-end 

(tasking, mission control and management, sensors and platforms) 

verses back-ends (processing, exploitation, analysis[story finding], 

reporting [storytelling], and target development), non-weaponized 

and weaponized ISR, etc. 
 

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DISCUSSION

The subject of the panel (PS) is an emerging concept within U.S. 

and UK defence operations, and this is reflected in the numerous 

definitions available. The main approach adopted by the UK team 

was to divide the area into three categories i.e. Front-end Sensors, 

Back-end Capabilities, and the Interconnectivity Fabric. The aim was 

to identify a subset of key technologies from these three categories 

that would directly benefit from focused defence investment, 

architecture development, system-of-systems engineering of PS 

integration, and enhanced collaborative efforts between the United 

States and the United Kingdom (and other international, coalition or 

allied partners). There is also a broader set of issues related to 

enabling coalition PS, including security management (biasing 

toward information sharing while simultaneously protecting sources 

and methods) and integration into a network enabled information 

environment co-shared by both operational and intelligence actors. 

A significant aspect of the shift towards persons, entity, and 

activity surveillance is the increased need for data forensics, 

modelling, and in-depth research based analysis of the subject 

behaviour. Improved analysis and modelling may lead to 

improvements in our ability to accurately predict activities. Such 

modelling and analysis needs to be taken into account as the United 

States and the United Kingdom define the future of PS architectures. 

Said another way, “its not just what the sensor brings to you, it’s also 

what you bring to the sensor.” 

The following sections first expand on the concept of PS and its 

application, followed by an outline of the analysis for each of the 

three key technologies identified in the summary. 
 

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Defining “Persistent Surveillance”

Today, there are many definitions of PS, most of which we have 

analyzed. For the purposes of this report, we have come up with our 

own definition, to wit: 

The systematic and integrated management of collection, 

processing, and customer collaboration for assured 

monitoring of all classes of threat entities, activities and 

environments in physical, aural or cyber space with 

sufficient frequency, accuracy, resolution, precision, 

spectral diversity, spatial extent, spatial and sensing 

diversity and other enhanced temporal and other 

performance attributes in order to obtain the desired 

adversary information, even in the presence of deception. 

In this definition, there is a desired objective ability to observe 

with sufficient frequency and precision that the target will not be able 

to move, change, or function without notice. 

Understanding and quantifying the temporal characteristics of an 

intelligence target requires persistence. Therefore, we are interested 

in persistent intelligence collection, because there are a wide variety 

of defence and intelligence problems for which the temporal 

dimensions are important. Among the relevant parameters of 

persistent systems are: 

 Temporal parameters—e.g., sample rate, sampling 

duration, or “epoch” (time on target), and response 

time (time to target), 

 Geo-Spatial parameters—e.g., area covered (field of 

regard), and area of coverage (field of view or, 

ground-sampled area) and overall resolution, 

 Spectral parameters—e.g., frequency bands 

available, and sample frequency (spectral region of 

view), and 
 

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104 

 Adaptability—e.g. actively monitors and adjusts the 

sensing and processing to insure the capabilities are 

optimized for the situation and entities. 

Of pertinence to the summary recommendation is that persistent 

collection systems beg for automated processing—we recognize the 

impact of all the man-hours needed for staring at a target for long 

periods, with nothing happening most of the time – without machine 

enabled exploitation. Even if we were willing to spare the manpower, 

the “vigilance” literature guarantees that when the extremely rare 

event for which we are watching happens, we frequently miss it. 

Recognize that the humans need to be in the loop to drive the 

automated processing and react to the discovered information. 

PS in Network Enabled Capabilities and Network Centric 

Warfare

From the dialogue between the U.S. and UK teams it was agreed 

that while U.S. Network Centric Warfare (NCW) and UK Network 

Enabled Capabilities (NEC) are different they converge in the area of 

the Common Operating Picture (COP) derived from PS. In addition, 

commitments for future demands on collaborative operations 

between the United Kingdom and the United States require a COP. It 

was thought by our joint review of PS that the NCW and NEC 

concepts and programmes will become better aligned, with the NCW 

programmes leaning more towards the acceptance of the UK view 

that PS can only be enabled by the web character of the networks, 

and future trends in establishing the various layers of the global grid. 

It was agreed that space sensors would not be considered as part of this 

study for future collaborations since there are currently other 

Memorandums of Understanding and collaborations in this area. 

However, information and data that is collected from space sensors 

were considered in this study as part of the back-end capability and 

interconnectivity fabric considerations. 
 

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105

IDENTIFIED TECHNOLOGIES

The UK PS panel has identified their own list of technologies that 

it considered were defence critical technologies (not included in this 

report). These technologies were categorised into three broad areas. 

These were 1) Front-end Sensors; 2) Interconnectivity Fabric; and 3) 

Back-end Capabilities. Of these technologies, it was decided that 

three in particular should be proposed as a top priority for further 

MoD and DoD consideration. It should be noted that all three were 

analysed in the context of the Three-Block War Scenario as a 

grounding exercise. These three are detailed below. 

Integrated Sensing – Physical and Computer 

Definition: The processes and technologies for “persistently” 

monitoring the full spectrum of Information and Communication 

Technologies (ICT)/ISR activity within a selected area or within a 

range of selected networks and nodes of interest. Includes target 

development, collection management, and sensor application and 

management aspects of PS, as well as, PS connections to weapons, 

and weapons battle damage assessment/combat effectiveness 

assessment.

Why this technology is considered defence critical? 

Unlike other technologies, adversaries will likely be aware of 

many of our ICT/ISR technologies and they might have the means to 

exploit these PS modes for an asymmetric advantage or subject them 

to denial and deception. There is a need to integrate across the 

sensing domain with traditional geographic-based sensors as part of 

the COP. As well as monitoring the enemy, sensing can be used to 

monitor friendly forces. It has specific application in the Three-Block 

War, which assumes an implicit asymmetric threat. 

How will operations change using this technology? 

Operations will indeed change within a PS enabled framework. 

In addition to the physical world improvements driven by PS, 
 

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106 

cyberspace – both Signal Intelligence and Information Warfare –will 

be an important element of the PS framework. 

Observation: To scope, conceive, design, and model a joint U.S.-UK 

study team.

Horizontal (Knowledge) Integration 

Definition:To achieve a shared universal COP, comprehensive 

and timely situational awareness and integration of tasking, 

collection, analysis, and customer coordination is needed. All the 

attributes which were defined during the U.S. joint Under Secretary 

of Defense for Intelligence and Assistant Deputy of Central 

Intelligence (Collection) horizontal integration efforts are involved.

Why this technology is considered defence critical? 

Ideally different users want their own smart pool of information 

that is extracted from all the data gathered from sensors. This is 

because different users require different interpretations of the data 

depending on their requirements. 

How will operations change using this technology? 

This technology provides greater detail and confidence, increased 

precision and can reduce fratricides. 

Observation: The United States and the United Kingdom need to 

establish common standards and interoperability e.g. on sensor 

formats and meta-data. We need to move towards “service-oriented” 

warfare, and there is a need to link high level NEC/NCW activity. 

Both human and technical aspects must be considered to enable this. 

Establish goals to drive this activity.

Software Agents 

Definition: Any software or tools which are part of making PS 

work as a differentiated form of ISR. Agents are part of a computing 

and IT environment, which is capable of flexible autonomous action 
 

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107

in a dynamic, unpredictable, and complex target environment. They 

enable information fusion, knowledge management, and back-end 

integration. 

Why this technology is considered defence critical? 

Software agents are the key elements for large scale PS. They are 

applicable at each level of PS. 

 Apply to both the back and the front end, 

 Need for collaboration on putting together the 

infrastructure that enables software agents to be 

exploited, 

 Software agents need to be developed for military 

purposes to make them more: 

− Robust, 

− Fault-tolerant, 

− Address speed and tempo of defence arena, 

and 

− Scalable. 

This technology is also cross-cutting across the other critical 

technology panels. For example, it can be applied to manage 

distributed processes in HPC, and intelligent management of 

resources in large-scale sensor networks, including power 

management. They have also already been adapted to support 

advanced command and control interfaces. 

How will operations change using this technology? 

There is a strong military advantage in bringing all the software 

agent streams together from across the Atlantic. A specific example 

for the application of software agents in persistent surveillance would 

be in long dwell monitoring including covert surveillance. Agents 

will increase the rate at which information can be matched and 

reduce the time taken to back-trawl through data. Efficiency in the 

human loop can also be improved. 
 

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108 

Observation: Given that the United Kingdom has a PS 

programme (DABINETT), there is an opportunity for a joint UK-U.S. 

study for defence requirements. Activity in this area could be 

improved with increased emphasis. This effort could align activities 

and better leverage respective strengths. A joint U.S.-UK study would 

avoid any wasted effort and potentially save ourselves from running 

down the same dead end streets.

RECOMMENDATIONS

The UK and U.S. Persistent Surveillance panels therefore make the 

following specific recommendations. 

1. Establish a U.S. Persistent Surveillance Effort, Office or 

Programme Counterpart to DABINETT 

The U.S. Office Director National Intelligence (ODNI) and the 

Secretary of Defense should consider creating a programme or 

focused PS effort or office to define, build and integrate U.S. PS 

capabilities. The establishment of such a focused effort jointly at the 

level of the ODNI and DoD Under Secretary of Defense for 

Intelligence would provide a natural office/staff for working PS on a 

broadly based context and for transatlantic collaboration and 

coordination of U.S. and UK (as well as other) PS related 

programmes. This U.S. PS office would then be the natural interface 

point between the U.S. efforts and the UK DABINETT programme. 

The United States should review the UK DABINETT as a potential 

framework for establishing its counterpart. The United Kingdom has 

put a considerable amount of sophisticated staff energy into framing 

their DABINETT focus on PS, and the United States should close with 

the MoD, subject to their concurrence, to use the UK thinking as a 

potential reference model. 
 

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109

2. Establish a High Level Joint UK/U.S. Coordination 

Group for Addressing Persistent Surveillance 

The United States and United Kingdom should consider 

establishing a high level Joint Coordination Group on PS to work the 

TransAtlantic aspects of PS, including doctrine, concepts, sensors, 

architecture, analysis, processing, information management, 

interoperability, network enablement, customer support, security, 

export control, acquisition, systems engineering, etc. issues. 

SUMMARY

The working party was asked to identify critical defence 

technologies. The Persistent Surveillance panel submits the following 

list of critical technologies in this area: 

 Advanced Sensors and Sensor/Collection Management, 

 New Concepts for Tagging, Tracking and Locating, 

 High Performance and Quantum Computing, 

 Advanced High Capacity Communications, 

 Information Management and Analysis 

Technologies, 

 Alignment of Surveillance with Weapons Applications, 

 Stealth, Counter-Stealth and Signature 

Reduction/Management, 

 Low Power Consumption, 

 Counter Improvised Explosive Devices 

Attributes/Explosive Detection, 

 Autonomous Self-Organising Networks, 

 Advanced Materials, Engines, Energy Management, 

Modelling and Simulation, 

 Space and Satellite Remote Sensing and Cost Reduction, 

 Virtual Training, 

 Data and Network Protection and Survivability, 
 

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110 

 Nanotechnologies, Robotics and Micro-machines and 

related control, 

 Antennas/Apertures, 

 Data Fusion and Correlation; Networks; Software 

Agents, 

 Processing and Exploitation; Geolocation/Navigation, 

 Responsive Space, Air and Ground Systems and related 

Target Access Means, 

 Hypersonics, EMP, HPM and IO Protection/Defences, 

chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear 

explosive/WMD Detectors, 

 Pointing and Tracking, 

 Data Warehousing and Storage, 

 Collaboration Technologies, 

 Many of the same technologies in ACE, 

 Persistent Surveillance Total Systems Architecture, 

 Development of a common data dictionary of sensor 

data formats and associated meta-data formats for full 

interoperability, and 

 Context filters and compression. 
 

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111

CHAPTER 7. CONCLUSIONS

THE VALUE OF WORKING JOINTLY

This joint DSB/DSAB effort, in its own small way, echoes the 

value and power of U.S and U.K. collaboration that has existed over 

modern time. Our history together, given our respective world views, 

resource bases, assessment of mutual critical interests, application of 

policies, technologies and operations, and talents of our peoples 

proves again that there is great synergy and benefit to be derived 

from working together on important problems. Separated by an 

ocean and perhaps by a common language, this project, involving 

collaboration on five major and differing major defence technology 

areas, reaffirmed the benefits and importance of working together. 

This study was ambitious in terms of its breadth and scope of 

topics. We picked both traditional and new topics, some of which had 

relationships to one another. We depended on small teams to carry 

the major burden of detailed problem definition, collaboration, 

analysis and the formation of conclusions. Working the five task 

areas by five different teams using five different work styles resulted 

in differing approaches, problems and even frustrations related to 

bridging the distance, maintaining momentum and in the mutual 

collaboration processes, aided by video teleconference, 

teleconference, electronic mail as well as some face to face meetings. 

The observations and lessons learned from these differing approaches 

are discussed below. 

PROCESS

Our five topics of study included two broad, high level topics and 

three focused technology topics. As each of the panels proceeded, 

there was cross-fertilization on processes and procedures, but 

sometimes less on technical content. In the case of the three focused 

technology topics, the UK and U.S. panels operated independently – 

to a great degree. 
 

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112 

The chairs concluded that we selected more parallel efforts than 

was optimal. The individual panels were small, and in some cases 

would have benefited by being larger. The value of multi-national 

collaboration comes from engagement of individuals who bring 

different perspectives on mission, on technology, on the industrial 

base available to a nation, and on the assumptions that flow from the 

scale of the technology efforts contemplated. Larger panels would 

have brought a richer perspective, and would have provided for 

richer technology detail. 

Each panel grappled early on with finding common ground 

between the members from the two nations. And in the end it was 

only for the broad topic panels that common ground was established. 

In the three focused technology areas, the panels from the two 

nations did not meet face to face and agreed to pursue their topics 

independently, and then to integrate and harmonize their results at 

the end of the study. The process is reflected in the final written 

product. 

One impediment for the U.S. members could have been the export 

control – International Traffic in Arms Regulation (ITAR). However, 

the lawyers at DoD provided a release from the constraints of 

technology information release to the members of this working party. 

Although, most of the U.S. members of the working party were, for 

the most part, from U.S. industry and still felt constrained by their 

previous corporate ITAR histories related to these specific subjects. 

Therefore, they did not make optimum use of forward leaning 

posture which the ITAR staff provided for this project. 

In the two broader – closer to the mission – topics, the panels 

directly grappled with finding common ground. This was 

complicated by differences in approach to the mission by the two 

nations’ militaries and intelligence communities. Different views of 

mission lead to different views on technology needs. One panel, the 

Advanced Command Environments panel, made mutual exchange 

visits. The entire panel held meetings in both countries, receiving 

briefings from military organizations, including from the U.S. Joint 

Forces Command and the U.K. NITEworks. Panel members 
 

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113

interactively engaged with briefers and with each other. Based on 

those meetings the Advanced Command Environments panel did 

find a common ground. This experience is discussed in the opening 

of their chapter. Once they had come to better understand each 

other’s perspectives, they developed a joint product. 

The U.S. members of the Persistent Surveillance panel visited the 

UK MoD headquarters and took briefings, but did not visit 

individual organization locations in the UK. Face to face meetings in 

which they could vigorously debate issues such as “how persistent 

surveillance differs from traditional surveillance” formed a basis for 

their consensus. 

One reason why the face to face meetings are important is that the 

U.S. and UK styles of interaction are different. U.S. members were 

more animated and probing in style of interaction – brash, some may 

say – than the UK members were more reserved – more actively 

seeking consensus, some may say. But, when the individuals from the 

two nations had the opportunity to meet face to face, they forged a 

compatible view and the final product benefited from the face to face 

visits. 

The working parties utilized teleconference, video-conferencing, 

virtual networked working areas and electronic mail exchange. The 

technology supported information sharing and general discussion, 

albeit awkwardly and unreliably when dealing with live images. 

However, the technology support available to the working party was 

not – by itself – effective in creating genuinely integrated teams. The 

tools that we used were not secure. Future DSB/DSAC collaboration, 

at least for some topics, may require secure interchange support tools. 

There was another element that influenced the interaction of 

members from both countries. The DSAC traditionally focuses more 

on technology. The DSB takes the view that it must focus on the 

needs of clients within the DoD, their objectives and their policy and 

budget context. Therefore, a DSB working party routinely focuses on 

the objectives and constraints of the specific sponsors of the working 

party members of the DoD leadership who pose the issue being 

addressed. The DSB is concerned with the health of the industrial 
 

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114 

base, lessons learned from military operations, policy constraints, the 

characteristics of future missions, and resource allocation. 

Technology, alone, is rarely the focus of a DSB study. 

In a visit to the United States, the DSAC leadership found this 

wider scope interesting and one reason for the creation of this joint 

working party is that the DSAC leadership wanted to experience 

working on a problem using the approach of the DSB. So, one 

objective for this study was to expose DSAC and DSB members to 

each other’s style in the context of grappling with real and specific 

problems. 

The working party certainly succeeded in exposing panel 

members with two styles of operation, particularly the panel 

members that dealt with the two broad topics. It remains to be seen if 

the DSAC will adapt its operation in any way as a result of the 

experience with this working party. 

RECOMMENDATIONS

Recommendations from the five specific areas of study are 

included at the end of each chapter and summarised in the table in 

the Executive Summary. The three co-chairs have two further 

recommendations relating to the benefits of continuing the 

relationship which has now been established between DSAC and 

DSB through future collaboration, and relating to common concerns 

on the state of the “pipeline” for future defence scientists and 

engineers in the United States and the United Kingdom. 

Recommendation 1 

Based on our positive experience, the three co-chairs of this 

working party recommend that the DSAC and DSB collaborate 

further on joint studies. The topic of each future study should be 

constrained, explored in depth and defined to be in areas in which 

there are different perspectives in the two nations along dimensions 

important to the chosen topic. Early working party meetings should 
 

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115

be in person and should involve briefings by appropriate 

organizations from both sides. 

Recommendation 2 

During working party discussions, plenary sessions, and 

teleconferences between the co-chairs, the issue of the shortage of 

U.S. and UK nationals opting to take undergraduate and higher 

degrees in science, engineering and technology was raised 

repeatedly. At a time when potential adversaries have access to high 

levels of technology (often at low cost), and when the rapidly 

growing economies of the east, such as China and India, are 

developing advanced and highly competitive industries in areas such 

as information and communication technologies and electronics, the 

United States and the United Kingdom are both experiencing a 

decline in the number of citizen graduates able to support our 

defence research programmes and defence-critical industries. We 

recommend that the MoD and DoD jointly consider ways to mitigate 

this problem and recruit more of our brightest young scientists and 

engineers into defence research. Collaborative programmes 

involving opportunities to train at universities in both the United 

States and the United Kingdom, and to work at U.S. and UK 

laboratories is one way to emphasise both the importance of, and the 

excitement and challenges offered by, working in this area in the 21st

Century. 
 

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__________________________________________________________ TERMS OF REFERENCE

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117

APPENDIX A. TERMS OF REFERENCE
 

APPENDIX A__________________________________________________________________ 

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118 

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April 21, 2004

MEMORANDUM FOR CHAIRPERSONS, U.S. DEFENSE SCIENCE BOARD

UK DEFENCE SCIENTIFIC ADVISORY COUNCIL

Terms of Reference -Identifying and Sustaining U.S. Department of

Defense/UK Ministry of Defence Defense Critical Technologies (Study)

SUBJECT:

Technology plays a vital role in the success of U.S. and UK armed forces. The

development of useful technology arises from different sources: Government may

itself develop unique technology for which there is no evident commercial use;

Government may provide the initial impetus to enable industry to take over future

development; or Government may choose to adapt technology developed solely in the

market place. None of these sources, alone, is capable of satisfying the need for

defense technology.

Governments can not afford to duplicate market-driven technology development,

while the marketplace does not always develop technology which fulfills U.S. DoD or

UK MoD niche needs or in the required time frame. For example, there is a

requirement for a small number of radiation hardened integrated circuit chips for some

missions but there is no commercial market to fulfill this need. High Performance

Computing (HPC) represents another technology in which military needs are not fully

met. As industry commits to massively parallel machines there exist several computing

domains that are resistant to this technological approach. Quantum computing may

hold the key to future military HPC needs but this unproven technology is still several

years, if not decades away.

The Study will develop a methodology to identify unique defense technologies

as well as commercially developed technologies needing augmentation to fulfill defense

niche areas, and then apply the methodology to develop a list of defense critical

technologies. The Study should focus its effort on high leverage, differentiated and

transformational technologies. The Study may then use this list of defense critical

technologies to further assess the tools available to the U.S. DoD or UK MoD to

develop its critical technology needs. Some of the considerations the Study should

examine include mechanisms to develop niches in pre-existing technologies, foster new

technology until the commercial marketplace takes over, or develop technology without

any expectation of commercial development; the analysis should include a review of

the applicable acquisition/business case. Finally, the Study should consider the impact

of technology development in other countries and the implications that this may have

on Angio-U .S. unique needs.

The Study will specifically address U.S. DoD and UK MoD technological needs

in the following areas: power systems; HPC; materials, including energetic, structural

and functional; advanced micro- and opto-electronics; communication systems; security

and information assurance; vaccines and pharmaceuticals; and human factors. The
Study should assess relevant technologies and the means of transferring them to the

defense arena using the above methodology.

This Study will operate under an exchange of letters. The Defense Science

Board and Defence Scientific Advisory Council will work in parallel, comparing

interim findings and working together to produce a unique UNCLASSIFIED report.

The UK part of the Study will be sponsored by the UK MoD Science and

Technology Director and chaired by Dr Julia King. The Executive Secretary and UK

Point of Contact will be Dr. Alexander Churchill.

The U.S. part of the Study will be co-sponsored by me as the acting Under

Secretary of Defense (Acquisition, Technology and Logistics) and the Director, Defense

Research and Engineering. Admiral William Studeman and Dr. Anita Jones will serve as

Study Co-Chairpersons. Mr. John Grosh will serve as the Executive Secretary and

Commander David Waugh will serve as the Defense Science Board Secretariat

Representati ve.

Mike Markin

Science & Technology Director

ichael aJ~W. knne

cting Unde Secretary of Defense

Acquisition, Technology and Logisitics)
 

________________________________________________ WORKING PARTY U.S. MEMBERSHIP

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119

APPENDIX B. WORKING PARTY U.S. MEMBERSHIP

CO-CHAIRS

Dr. Anita Jones University of Virginia 

ADM Bill Studeman, USN 

(Ret) 

Private Consultant 

WORKING PARTY MEMBERS

ADVANCED COMMAND ENVIRONMENTS PANEL

Mr. Rocky Rocconova (Chair) Northrop Grumman Technology 

Ventures 

Mr. Chuck Benson RTA, Inc. 

Dr. Wayne Zachary CHI Systems 

Mr. David Jakubek DoD Liaison 

POWER MANAGEMENT FOR SMALL, DISTRIBUTED NETWORKED SENSORS 

PANEL

Dr. Larry Dubois (Chair) SRI International 

Dr. Robert Nowak Private Consultant 

Dr. Brad Ringeisen DoD Liaison 

HIGH PERFORMANCE COMPUTING PANEL

Mr. Steve Wallach (Chair) Centerpoint Ventures 

Professor Bill Dally Stanford University 

Dr. John Gilbert University of California, Santa 

Barbara 

Dr. Peter Kogge University of Notre Dame 

Dr. Bob Lucas University of Southern California, 

Information Sciences Institute 

Mr. John Grosh DoD Liaison 

ELECTRONIC COMPONENTS PANEL

Dr. David Whelan (Chair) The Boeing Company 

Dr. Dennis Buss Texas Instruments 

Dr. Matt Ganz HRL Laboratories, LLC 
 

APPENDIX B__________________________________________________________________ 

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120 

Mr. Zach Lemnios MIT/LL 

Dr. David Tennenhouse Intel 

Dr. Chuck Byvik DoD Liaison 

PERSISTENT SURVEILLANCE PANEL

Mr. Jeff Harris (Chair) Lockheed Martin 

Dr. Edward Gerry The Boeing Company 

Mr. Lee Hammarstrom Pennsylvania State University 

Mr. Rich Haver Northrop Grumman 

Mr. Leo Hazelwood SAIC 

Dr. Joe Markowitz Private Consultant 

Mr. Robert Gold DoD Liaison 

EXECUTIVE SECRETARY

Mr. John Grosh ODUSD (S&T) 

 

DSB REPRESENTATIVE

CDR Cliff Phillips, USN 

LtCol Dave Robertson, USAF 

STAFF

Dr. Evelyn Dahm Strategic Analysis, Inc 

Ms. Julie Evans Strategic Analysis, Inc 
 

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121

APPENDIX C. BRIEFINGS RECEIVED BY THE PANELS

U.S. ELECTRONIC COMPONENTS PANEL

Dr. Charles Holland and Mr. Sonny 

Maynard, OSD 

Trusted Foundry Discussion 

Ms. Joan Pierre, DTRA RDD 

Dr. John Zopler, DARPA MTO DARPA Component Technology Briefing 

Mr. Warren Snapp, Boeing DARPA Design Technology Programs 

Address Emerging Challenges to DoD 

System on Chips 

Dr. Matt Goodman FPGA 

Dr. Pete Rustan, NRO Discussion of Critical Electronic Components 

COL Tim Gibson, USA, DARPA, ATO Multi-level Coalition Functionality 

Mr. Rick Thompson, BAE Systems Future Advances in High Performance 

Silicon Essential for DoD to Maintain 

Technological Superiority 

Mr. Roger Van Art, Jazz Semiconductor Commercial Pure Play Semiconductor 

Foundry Business Models Serving Aerospace 

& Defence 

Mr. Joe Jensen, HRL Mixed-signal electronics 

Dr. David Chow, HRL High-performance RF electronics 

Mr. Randy Isaac, IBM Leveraging Commercial Silicon Foundries for 

Government Needs 

Dr. Paul Monticciolo, MIT/LL High-Performance FPGAs in DoD Systems 

Dr. Sonny Maynard Discussion 

Dr. George Valley, Aerospace 

Corporation 

Photonic Analogue-to-Digital Converters: 

Fundamental and Practical Limits 

Lt Col Chris Warwick, USAF, OUSD (IP) Defence Industrial Base 
 

APPENDIX C__________________________________________________________________ 

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122 

Dr. Barry Gilbert, Mayo Clinic Can the U.S. Military and agency 

communities execute their long-term 

mission without (on shore) access to 

advanced electronic technologies? 

Dr. Eliot Cohen, EBCO Technology 

Advising, Inc. 

Accelerating the Insertion Of Electronic 

Component Technology Into DoD Systems 

Mr. Bob Walden, Phenomenon 

Consulting 

Analogue-to-Digital Conversion in the Early 

21st Century 

U.S. POWER MANAGEMENT AND SMALL NETWORK PANEL

Mr. Larry Schuette, NRL Near Earth RF Propagation 

Mr. Dave Watters, SRI International Wireless Sensor Tags: Smart Passive 

Devices for Remote Monitoring 

Dr. Robert Poor, Ember Ember Architecture 

Dr. Vjay Raghavan, DARPA Ad Hoc Wireless Sensor Networks: 

Applications and Challenges 

Dr. Clark Nguyen, DARPA/MTO Microscale power generation, and Radio 

isotope micropower sources 

Dr. Daniel Radack, DARPA/MTO Thoughts on low power dissipation in 

electronics 

Mr. Jim Smith, In-Q-Tel Private Company Landscape of Power 

Sources 

Mr. Tim McVey FBI Perspective 

Dr. William Kaiser, Dr. Mani Srivastava 

and Dr. Deborah Estrin, Center for 

Embedded Networked Sensing 

Challenges in Energy-aware Embedded 

Networked Sensors 

Dr. Paul Wright MicroScale Systems supported entirely by 

Vibrational Energy Scavenging 

Dr. Bob Brodersen, UC Berkeley Low Power Architectures 

Mr. George Methlie, In-Q-Tel Power Sources for Distributed Systems 

Dr. David Culler, UC Berkeley Power issues in Wireless Sensor Nets 

Dr. Jan Rabaey, Berkeley Wireless 

Research Center (BWRC);Gigascale 

Systems Research Center (GSRC); 

Department of EECS, University of 

California, Berkeley 

Ultra low power wireless communications - 

status, challenges and opportunities 
 

_______________________________________________ BRIEFINGS RECEIVED BY THE PANELS

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123

U.S. HPC PANEL

Mr. Robert Graybill, DARPA High Productivity Computing Systems 

Programme- Technology Update 

Visit to National Security Agency NSA/CES HPC Arsenal- Tom Page 

CA Needs for HPC- John McNamara 

HPC for CA and Beyond- Mike Merrill 

SPDs- Baron Mills 

CES Perspective and ECI Briefing- Dave 

Muzzy 

Superconductivity study- John Pinkston 

HPC Research and Vendor InteractionCandace Culhane 

LUPS verses GUPS: What does CES need in 

a Supercomputer?- Boyd Livingston 

Emerging Areas for HPC at NSA- George 

Cotter 

Turmoil- Mike McGlynn/Jeff Fritz 

KSP- Steve Pritchard or John 

Walker 

Visit to NRO Organisational Overview 

HPC related to R&D 

U.S. ADVANCED COMMAND ENVIRONMENTS PANEL

Mr. Richard Lee, Office of the Deputy 

Under Secretary of Defense 

Advanced Systems & Concepts 

Advanced Concept Technology 

Demonstrations (ACTDs) 

Showcasing Emerging Technology for 

Contributions to the 

GIG 

Mr. Don Diggs 

Director, C2 Policy, OASD(NII) 

The Unified Command Structure (UCS) 

A Net-Centric Approach to 

Information Integration & Decision 

and Global C2 Services 

JOINT ACE PANEL MEETING

JDCC Briefings from Mr. Julian Starkey, Wg CDR 

T. Harris 

Farnborough Dstl Briefings from Dr. Graham Mathieson, 

Human Systems, Dstl 

NITEworks Tour of the Battlespace Management 

Environment (Alastair Prickett). Briefings 

from Wg Cdr Mike Oldham and Mr. 

Christopher Morris 

JFCOM visit Hosted by General Thomas Matthews and 
 

APPENDIX C__________________________________________________________________ 

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124 

Mr. David Morris 

Command 

Overview/Transformation/Multinational 

briefing 

Joint Center for Operational Analysis 

Lessons Learned briefing 

Standing Joint Forces Headquarters Core 

Element 

Tour of Joint Advanced Training Technology 

Lab 

Combined Joint Task Force Headquarters of 

the Future 

U.S. JFCOM DARPA Integrated Battle 

Command 

Joint Intelligence Operations Center – Iraq 

Joint Futures Lab tour 

Visit to VASCIC, Northrop Grumman Hosted by Mr. W. Dennis Gallimore 

Demo of FLEXLAB- a full scale mock-up of the 

O3 deck (command space) of a Nimitz class 

carrier and if there is time a briefing from CVN 

21, SPAWAR 
 

______________________________________________________ RECENT U.S. HPC STUDIES

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125

APPENDIX D. RECENT U.S. HPC STUDIES

Four studies were initiated to analyze the state of HPC and make 

recommendations. They are briefly described below. 

Information Science and Technology (ISAT) STUDY 

(2001) – Technology Gaps and Bottlenecks 

A consequence of the industry focus on the desktop and 

commercial markets is missed technology opportunities and the lack 

of development of novel computer architectures. The ISAT study of 

2001, eloquently describes this (picoseconds/instruction verses year).

 

In the ISAT study it was shown that the increases in computer 

performance experienced in the last 20 years (52%/year) will 

decrease to 19% per year in the future 20 years. This study states: 

 “Modern designs have nearly exhausted the benefits of pipelining, and 

conventional architectures are struggling to sustain even one instruction per 

cycle. Without further innovations, performance improvements will at best 

only match the rate of improvement due to further process technology 

innovations, which is projected to continue at 19% per year.” 

With an increase of only 19% a year (due to process technology 

innovations), the potential performance gain due to novel 

architectures (as in HPCS) is greatly enhanced. Again the study 

concludes: 

“Until now, the differential between the 74% (When accounting for 

increased transistor counts and faster transistor switching speeds, the 

capability of microprocessor-scale integrated circuits has been improving at 

74%/year) and 52% rates has resulted in only a factor of 30 of untapped 

performance potential. However, with only 19% per year projected in the 

future, the differential is expected to increase to a factor of 30,000 by 2020. 

This quantity represents a tremendous opportunity for novel architectures 

to help bridge the performance gap and to enable future computer systems 

to solve increasingly complex and important problems.” 
 

APPENDIX D _________________________________________________________________ 

126 _______________________________________________________________________

Integrated High-end Computing (IHEC) Study (2002) – 

High Performance Computing and National Security 

The IHEC study summarised in the report: (Ref: “High 

Performance Computing for the National Security Community”, July, 

2002) 

For the working groups involved with this report, the situation is 

clear. The mix of research, development, and engineering programs 

lack balance and coordination and is far below the critical mass 

required to sustain a robust technology/industrial base in high-end 

supercomputing. Requirements identified as critical by the national 

security user community (such as improved memory subsystem 

performance and more productive programming environments) will 

not be addressed. 

The impact is that the national security community will be 

unable to solve critical computational problems required to 

maintain our technology lead for select but important classes of 

problem, examined in the course of the study, which included:

 Weapons Development Program 

 Comprehensive Air Vehicle Design 

 Army Future Combat Systems 

 Stealthy Ship Design 

 Nuclear Stockpile Stewardship 

 Cryptanalysis 

 Global Ocean Modelling and Operational Fleet Weather 

Forecasting 

 Biological Sciences 

 Intelligence Support 

 Threat Systems M&S 

 Signals & Image Proc 

 Nuclear Effects 

 Future Critical Problems 

 Missile Defence 
 

______________________________________________________ RECENT U.S. HPC STUDIES

________________________________________________________________________ 

 

127

NRC STUDY (2004) - Getting Up To Speed, The Future of 

Supercomputing 

The recently completed NRC study (Ref: “Getting Up To Speed, 

The Future of Supercomputing”, NRC, November, 2004) made the 

following observations. 

Conclusion: The supercomputing needs of the government will not be 

satisfied by systems developed to meet the demands of the broader 

commercial market. The government has the primary responsibility for 

creating and maintaining the supercomputing technology and suppliers 

that will meet its specialized needs. 

Conclusion: Government must bear primary responsibility for 

maintaining the flow of resources that guarantees access to the custom 

systems it needs. While an appropriate strategy will leverage developments 

in the commercial computing marketplace, the government must routinely 

plan for developing what the commercial marketplace will not, and it must 

budget the necessary funds. 

Conclusion: The government has lost opportunities for important 

advances in applications using supercomputing, in supercomputing 

technology, and in ensuring an adequate supply of supercomputing 

ecosystems in the future. Instability in long-term funding and uncertainly in 

politics has been the main contributors to this loss.” 

FINDINGS

Whilst technology is advancing all the time, the results of these 

studies remain valid and relevant. 

The Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has 

established the High Productivity Computing Systems (HPCS) 

program. This is the only significant US government-sponsored 

advanced development HPC activity at this time. HPCS is not a 

research program. HPCS was initiated in 2002 in response to concerns 

that COTS systems were not adequate for meeting some very critical 

aspects of the Defence mission. A primary focus of the HPCS 

program is on the “Last Dimension of HPC, User & System Efficiency 

& Productivity”. The goal is to create a new generation of systems 
 

APPENDIX D _________________________________________________________________ 

128 _______________________________________________________________________

that double in productivity (or value) every 18-months, rather than 

merely a doubling in unachieved, peak performance. 

While primarily a DARPA program, HPCS has received 

significant support from other Defence agencies such as National 

Security Agency (NSA) and the National Reconnaissance Office, as 

well as the Department of the Energy, the National Aeronautics and 

Space Administration (NASA) and the NSF. While DARPA is 

leading, HPCS is truly a collaboration of all U.S. government agencies 

with a major stake in HPC. 

All these studies, from the DSB (2000) Study to the recent NRC 

study have made similar findings and recommendations. The high 

performance needs of DoD mission agencies will not be satisfied by 

systems designed for the broader commercial marketplace. A longterm program funding the development of HPC systems is required 

to ensure that the DoD mission agencies can meet their requirements. 

This program must fund both near-term acquisitions, and long-term 

research; the existing DARPA activities need to be expanded 

accordingly. 

High-End Computing Revitalization Task Force (HECRTF) 

Study (2004) 

The HECRTF report makes these recommendations: 

 Make high-end computing readily available to federal 

agencies that need it to fulfil their missions. 

 The overarching conclusion of the HECRTF is that action 

to revitalize high-end computing in the U.S. is needed now. 

The federal government’s historical success in motivating 

HEC R&D, the oversubscription of current HEC 

resources, the scarcity of alternative architectures for 

delivering high performance to applications, and the lack 

of current incentives for industry to engage in HEC 

architecture research all argue strongly that the Federal 

government should move to revitalize HEC R&D.
 

ADVANCED COMMAND ENVIRONMENT

_________________________________________________ EXPERIMENTATION AND FACILITIES

________________________________________________________________________ 

 

129

APPENDIX E. ADVANCED COMMAND ENVIRONMENT 

EXPERIMENTATION AND FACILITIES

U.S. ADVANCED COMMAND ENVIRONMENT 

EXPERIMENTATION AND FACILITIES

Combined Air Operations Centre-Experimental, Langley VA 

(Air Force Command and Control [C2] Intelligence 

Surveillance and Reconnaissance [ISR] Center) 

The C2 ISR Centre was established to support experimentation with 

processes, procedures, and systems associated with the USAF Air and 

Space Operations Center. It was intended to facilitate the acquisition of 

fielded capabilities through a rapid spiral process, resulting in “leave 

behinds” for operations. Combined air operations centre 

experimentation is conducted under the supervision of the Air Force 

Experimentation Office using the facilities and infrastructure at 

Hurlburt Field, Air Force Base and Nellis Air Force Base. 

http://www.hanscom.af.mil/hansconian/Articles/2001Arts/06082001

-5.htm 

Unit of Action Maneuver Battle Lab, Ft Knox KY (Army 

Battlelabs) 

This facility conducts experimentation, studies and analysis for the 

development of the Army’s Future Combat System and Unit of Action. 

http://www.knox.army.mil/center/uambl/index.htm

Futures Lab Fort Leavenworth, KS (U.S. Army Battle 

Command Battle Lab) 

Battle Command Battle Lab -Leavenworth’s Futures Laboratory is 

the focal point for the experimentation and demonstration of emerging 

Battle Command capabilities in support of Army Transformation 

Objectives. Experimentation and demonstration events span echelons 
 

APPENDIX E _________________________________________________________________ 

130 ______________________________________________________________________

from battalion through Army service component command. The 

Futures Lab is responsible for the maintenance, configuration, and set 

up of Models, Simulations, Communications and Networks to support 

the Battle Command Battle Lab –Leavenworth and TRADOC 

experimentation objectives. 

http://www.defense.gov/news/Jun2001/n06212001_200106214.html

Integrated Command Environment (Naval Surface Warfare 

Center Dahlgren VA) 

Integrated Command Environment developed a series of radically 

different options to influence command decision-making environments 

in future warships. 

http://www.navyleague.org/sea_power/sep_01_12.php

Joint Expeditionary Force Experiment (U.S. Air Force 

Experiment) 

Joint Expeditionary Force Experiment (JEFX) is a large-scale Air 

Force experiment designed to assist the U.S. Air Force in preparing for 

the challenges of the 21st Century Expeditionary Air and Space Force 

operations. The experiment is an operational innovation activity that 

attempts to anticipate and model a future command and control 

system. The JEFX Enterprise consists of Electronic Systems Command 

at Hanscom AFB, 505th Command and Control Wing at Hurlburt AFB, 

and the Air Force Command and Control & Intelligence, Surveillance 

and Reconnaissance Center and Air Combat Command/SC at Langley 

AFB. http://afeo.langley.af.mil/

Tidewater Node of the FORCEnet (Fn) Composeable 

Environment (FnCE) (Space and Naval Warfare Systems 

Command [SPAWAR] SC-CH Norfolk, VA) 

A composeable Fn portal interconnects voice, video and data with 

the entire SPAWAR claimancy in a very user-friendly manner. The 

portal provides an advanced collaborative engineering environment 

for the SPAWAR Enterprise labs to deliver higher quality & more 

expeditious solutions to the warfighter. Design Objectives: provide 
 

ADVANCED COMMAND ENVIRONMENT

_________________________________________________ EXPERIMENTATION AND FACILITIES

________________________________________________________________________ 

 

131

state-of-the-art information presentation systems & IT systems to 

replicate various system design options & to evaluate mission 

effectiveness/customer satisfaction. Designed with advanced human 

factor features to elicit optimum performance throughout the 

engineering process including requirements analysis, systems 

engineering, experimentation, acquisition & fielding. Provide an 

environment to expeditiously exchange systems information with key 

developers and fleet customers (S2C) so that the Navy can maintain 

information superiority to generate transformational combat 

effectiveness (Fn objective). https://mirage.norfolk.navy.mil/fnce/

Decision Architectures Research Environment (U.S. Army 

Research Laboratory) 

This facility was created to facilitate the integration and testing of 

decision support technologies on Army Research Laboratory (ARL) 

platforms. The architecture consists of different layers to include 

communications, data transmission, and data presentation. These 

layers are united through communication protocols, enabling interplay 

of multiple components, and providing the “plug and play” 

capabilities. After integration, the technologies will become a part of 

ongoing ARL programmes where experiments with soldiers are 

conducted and the value of the technologies are assessed. 

http://www.arl.army.mil/main/researchopportunities/alliances/adv

anced_decision_architectures_2005a.cfm

MULTINATIONAL ADVANCED COMMAND ENVIRONMENT 

EXPERIMENTATION AND FACILITIES

Combined Federated Battle Laboratories Initiative 

The Combined Federated Battle Laboratories (CFBL) Initiative links 

scientists and defence teams from the United Kingdom, United States, 

Canada, Australia, New Zealand and NATO. The CFBL network 

facilitates international research into command and control and 

information exchange between military forces - nationally or 

internationally. The output of this research can then be demonstrated 

in a representative battlespace environment for assessment by military 
 

APPENDIX E _________________________________________________________________ 

132 ______________________________________________________________________

users. From the front line forces through the command chain to the 

Commander-in-Chief and across coalition boundaries, this research 

will support strategic, theatre, operational and tactical information 

requirements with the aim of enhancing command and control of 

national and coalition forces. 

http://www.dstl.gov.uk/pr/press/pr2002/24-04-02.htm

Multinational Experimentation (North Atlantic Treaty 

Organization Allied Command Transformation) 

North Atlantic Treaty Organization Allied Command 

Transformation conducts multinational experimentation examining 

command and control and coalition operations concepts. 

http://www.act.nato.int/

International Technology Alliance (UK/U.S. collaboration) 

A bilateral UK/U.S. collaboration opportunity is currently being 

established. It's called the International Technology Alliance 

(www.usukita.com) and draws on the UK Defence Technology Centres 

and the U.S. Collaborative Technology Alliance (run by the Army 

Research Laboratory). It involves government, academia and industry 

and currently consortiums are being assembled to bid for this. 

http://www.usukita.com/program_info.html
 

_________________________________________________________________ ACRONYMS

________________________________________________________________________ 

 

133

APPENDIX F. ACRONYMS

ACE Advanced Command Environments 

A/D Analogue-to-Digital 

ADC Analogue to Digital Converter 

ARL U.S. Army’s Research Laboratory 

ASSPs Application Specific Signal Processor 

ASICs Application Specific Integrated Circuit 

CFBL Combined Federated Battle Laboratories 

CM Centimetre 

CMOS Complementary Metal-Oxide Semiconductor 

CPU Central Processing Unit 

COP Common Operating Picture 

COTS Commercial Off-the-Shelf 

DARPA Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency 

DoD Department of Defense 

DRAM Dynamic Random Access Memory 

DSAC Defence Science Advisory Council 

DSB Defense Science Board 

DSPs Digital Signal Processors 

EAR Export Administration Regulations 

E2EM2

 End to End Media Management 

 

Fn FORCEnet 

FPA Focal Plane Array 

FPGA Field Programmable Gate Arrays 

GaN Gallium Nitride 

GaAs Gallium Arsenide 

GB Gigabytes 

GPS Global Positioning System 

Gbps Giga bits per second 

GSM Global System for Mobile Communications 

HECRTF High-End Computing Revitalization Task force 

HgCdTe Mercury-Cadmium-Telluride 
 

APPENDIX F__________________________________________________________________ 

134 _______________________________________________________________________

HPC High Performance Computing 

HPCS High Productivity Computing System 

IC Integrated Circuits 

ICT Information and Communications Technologies 

IHEC Integrated High-end Computing 

IP Intellectual Property 

IR Infrared 

ISAT Information Science and Technology 

ISR Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance 

ITAR International Traffic in Arms Regulation 

JEFX Joint Expeditionary Force Experiment 

JFL Joint Futures Laboratory 

JFCOM Joint Forces Command 

KB Kilobytes 

KBPS Thousands of Bits Per Second 

MARCO Microelectronics Advanced Research Corporation 

MEMS Micro Electro-Mechanical Systems 

mA MilliAmp 

mJ MilliJoule 

mW MilliWatt 

MoD Ministry of Defence 

MOSIS Metal-Oxide Semiconductor Implementation System 

NCW Network Centric Warfare 

NEC Network Enabled Capability 

NITEworks Network Integration Test and Experimentation Works 

nJ NanoJoule 

NRC National Research Council 

NRO National Reconnaissance Office 

NSA National Security Agency 

ODNI Office, Director National Intelligence 

PGA Programmable Gate Arrays 

PS Persistent Surveillance 

RF Radio Frequency 

RFID Radio Frequency Identification 
 

_________________________________________________________________ ACRONYMS

________________________________________________________________________ 

 

135

SPAWAR Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command 

SRAM Static Random Access Memory 

STAR Special Technology Area Review 

TDMA Time Division/Demand Multiple Access 

 

μJ MicroJoule 

μW MicroWatt 

 

W/g Watts/gram 

Wh/g Watt hours/gram