CAE Addresses the Mission Command Systems Market

[In a new occasional series under the banner ‘Technology Without Borders,’ MON today starts to examine the way in which industry is responding to the opportunities – and challenges – presented by the inexorable pace of technological development and the imperative to expand into adjacent, parallel and associated markets. In keeping with the reputation it has developed for ‘walking the walk’ as well as it ‘talks the talk,’ CAE gets first crack at this: Group President, Defense & Security – Dan Gelston – talked in a Guest Editorial in MilTech 3/2021 (published next week) about taking the company’s core modelling and simulation expertise into the mission planning and rehearsal market – and lo – here is a concrete example! – Editor]

CAE USA has been awarded a contract by US Special Operations Command (USSOCOM), valued at $135 million (€111.2 million), including options, to provide the command with a next-generation Mission Command System. The first option, valued at over $19 million, has already been exercised.

Leading integration efforts for the Special Operations Force (SOF) Global Situational Awareness initiative, CAE will create a system to provide USSOCOM with a digital ecosystem, fusing data from multiple sources to deliver a common operational picture (COP). Following some detailed evaluation of prototype systems to deliver this kind of functionality, provided by several companies, CAE has been selected to lead the integration and architecture development efforts for the Mission Command System/Common Operational Picture (MCS/COP) programme. This scalable, next-generation system will unify the SOF enterprise through creation of an integrated COP, delivering enhanced global situational awareness.

“Combining decades of experience creating digital ecosystems with our multi-source data fusion and artificial intelligence/machine learning capabilities, CAE is providing a single visualization platform to support collaborative command and control decision-making in real-time,” explained Ray Duquette, President & General Manager, CAE USA. SOCOM’s Mission Command System will incorporate new solutions developed by CAE that integrate mission operations in a single synthetic environment.

“The USSOCOM Mission Command System program and our integrated digital ecosystem solution are directly related to CAE’s strategy to leverage our world-class modeling and simulation expertise beyond training to adjacent markets, such as mission and operations support,” stated Daniel Gelston, Group President, Defense & Security, CAE. “Integrating data analytics, artificial intelligence and digital immersion technologies into a synthetic environment has the ability to create an incredibly powerful tool for analysis, planning, and decision support.”