Distributed Common Ground System The Distributed Common Ground System ( DCGS ) is a weapons system which produces military intelligence for both the United States Army and United States Air Force ( where it is officially known as the AN / GSQ - 272 Sentinel ) . Description . While in U . S . Air Force use , the system produces intelligence collected by the U - 2 Dragonlady , RQ - 4 Global Hawk , MQ - 9 Reaper and MQ - 1 Predator . The previous system of similar use was the Deployable Ground Station ( DGS ) , which was first deployed in July 1994 . Subsequent version of DGS were developed from 1995 through 2009 . Although officially designated a " weapons system " , it consists of computer hardware and software connected together in a computer network , devoted to processing and dissemination of information such as images . The 480th Intelligence , Surveillance and Reconnaissance Wing of the Air Force Intelligence , Surveillance and Reconnaissance Agency operates and maintains the USAF system . A plan envisioned in 1998 was to develop interoperable systems for the Army and Navy , in addition to the Air Force . By 2006 , version 10 . 6 was deployed by the Air Force , and a version known as DCGS - A was developed for the Army . After a 2010 report by General Michael T . Flynn , the program was intended to use cloud computing and be as easy to use as an iPad , which soldiers over a few years were commonly using . By April 2011 , project manager Colonel Charles Wells announced version 3 of the Army system ( code named " Griffin " ) was being deployed in the US war in Afghanistan . In January 2012 , the United States Army Communications - Electronics Research , Development and Engineering Center hosted a meeting based on the DCGS - A early experience . It brought together technology providers in the hope of developing more integrated systems using cloud computing with open architectures , compared to previously specialized custom - built systems . A major contractor was Lockheed Martin , with computers supplied by Silicon Graphics International out of its Chippewa Falls , Wisconsin office . Software known as the Analyst ' s Notebook , originally developed by i2 Limited , was included in DCGS - A . IBM acquired i2 in 2011 . Some US Army personnel reported using a Palantir Technologies product to improve their ability to predict locations of improvised explosive devices . An April 2012 report recommending further study after initial success . Palantir software was rated easy to use , but did not have the flexibility and wide number of data sources of DCGS - A . In July 2012 , Congressman Duncan D . Hunter ( from California , the state where Palantir is based ) complained of US DoD obstacles to its wider use . Although a limited test in August 2011 by the Test and Evaluation Command had recommended deployment , operation problems of DCGS - A included the baseline system was " not operationally effective " with reboots on average about every 8 hours . A set of improvements was identified in November 2012 . The press reported some of the shortcomings uncovered by General Genaro Dellarocco in the tests . The ambitious goal of integrating 473 data sources for 75 million reports proved to be challenging , after spending an estimated $ 2 . 3 billion on the Army system alone . In May 2013 " Politico " reported that Palantir lobbyists and some anonymous returning veterans continued to advocate the use of its software , despite its interoperability limits . In particular , members of special forces and US Marines were not required to use the official Army system . Similar stories appeared in other publications , with Army representatives ( such as Major General Mary A . Legere ) citing the limitations of various systems . Congressman Hunter was a member of the House Armed Services Committee which required a review of the program , after two other members of congress sent an open letter to Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta . The Senate Defense Appropriations Subcommittee included testimony from Army Chief of Staff General Ray Odierno . The equivalent system for the United States Navy was planned for initial deployment by 2015 , and within a shipboard network called Consolidated Afloat Networks and Enterprise Services ( CANES ) by 2016 . Some early testing was announced in 2009 aboard the aircraft carrier . A portion of the software , a distributed data framework for the DCGS integration backbone ( DIB ) version 4 , was submitted to an open - source software repository of the Codice Foundation on github . The framework was new for DIB version 4 , replacing an Ozone Widget Framework . It was written in the Java programming language .