Thales demonstrates battlespace management capability at CWID 2011

June 28, 2011 defpro.com

Thales has demonstrated its advanced battlespace management capability at the Coalition Warfare Interoperability Demonstration (CWID) at the Canadian Forces Warfare Centre located at Shirleys Bay, Ontario, near Ottawa. This was the 10th year that Thales has participated in CWID, an annual technology demonstration and field trail.

CWID is a technology demonstration and field trial sponsored by the United States’ Department of Defense to identify and deliver future military capabilities made possible by networked enabled capability. The demonstration is used to identify capability gap solutions, de-risk projects, identify innovation opportunities, and inform future research and development projects and initiatives.

Thales demonstrated WebS2AT, a web-based situational awareness tool that provides users with battlespace management capabilities, including advanced visualisation, and analysis tools to enable the synchronisation, prioritisation and de-confliction of activity across the battlespace.

WebS2AT is developed by Thales UKs air operations business, based in Wells, which has been providing mission support systems to the UK Ministry of Defence on a wide variety of operational platforms.

WebS2AT brings together all available sources of static and dynamic operational information from the existing Canadian Forces land, naval, and air command and control systems into a single integrated, secure web-based application. The tool also integrates additional information from other government departments and external sources, including environmental data, Jane’s databases, DAFIF (Digital Aeronautical flight Information File), video streaming, and third-party image reference libraries.

The result is an integrated operating environment that enables the command and staff team to coordinate the execution of missions using a common set of information with visualisation tools specifically tailored to their needs and access permissions based on communities of interest.

Victor Chavez, Chief Executive of Thales UK, says: “Thales UK has always been committed to CWID and are pleased to have been able to participate for the 10th year in succession. Together with our colleagues from Thales Canada we have been able to demonstrate the contribution we can make to the interoperability and the integration of systems in the battlefield.”

“CWID is a leading example of the benefits of a close working relationship between industry and defence departments, allowing for the early identification of capabilities that could be rapidly transitioned into operational service,” says Dave Spagnolo, Vice President of Thales Canada’s defence & security business. “Thales Canada was pleased to be sponsored at this demonstration by the Canadian Forces Joint Intelligence & Information Fusion Capability Detachment, which hosted the demonstration.”