Empire Challenge

By John Liang / July 29, 2010 at 2:34 PM

U.S. Joint Forces Command this week kicked off an annual intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance interoperability exercise "that showcases emerging ISR capabilities, and provides vital lessons learned to improve joint and combined ISR interoperability to support warfighters at the tactical edge," according to a command statement.

Empire Challenge 10 runs from July 26 to Aug. 13, and "focuses on near-term capabilities that can be delivered rapidly to Afghanistan," the statement reads. "Requirements from Afghanistan will drive the event schedule, venues and scenarios, which are conducted through a combination of modeling and simulation, laboratory and live events."

The event itself is not limited to one location, according to a command fact sheet:

USJFCOM will host EC10 at Fort Huachuca, Ariz., and Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake, Calif., with locations at the Joint Intelligence Lab and Joint Systems Integration Center in Suffolk, Va.; the Combined Air Operations Center-X at Langley Air Force Base, Va.; service Distributed Common Ground/Surface System (DCGS) labs; coalition sites in the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia; and the NATO Consultation, Command and Control Agency in the Netherlands.

The fact sheet also lists the exercise's purpose and objectives:

EC10 Purpose

* Demonstrate and assess interoperability of the DCGS enterprise

* Evaluate sensor developers on data intake into DCGS and coalition ground station/enterprise

* Demonstrate and assess coalition interoperability

* Demonstrate and evaluate multinational data sharing

* Explore emerging ISR capabilities that can address warfighter requirements

* Explore joint and coalition ISR interoperability with command and control from national operations centers to deployed warfighters

EC10 Objectives

* Provide assessments of the DCGS enterprise, the capability-based interoperability of multinational systems, and the quality of intelligence support to command and control

* Enable a quick reaction capability and optimize the live-fly phase of EC

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