VICTORY drives Army vehicle interoperability
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The Army plans to further incorporate the standard for Vehicular Integration for C4ISR Interoperability into its emerging and legacy fleet platforms.
For the military, interoperability with other service branches and platforms is critical. The Army, therefore, is planning to further incorporate the open VICTORY network development standard “to correct the problems created by the ‘bolt on’ approach to fielding equipment on US Army vehicles.”
VICTORY stands for Vehicular Integration for C4ISR (command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance) Interoperability, and it aims to provide find more common sets of devices, displays and information in a wider range of tactical wheeled vehicles and ground combat systems.
More specifically, the Army is looking to develop fleet-based approached for VICTORY integration into both emerging and legacy vehicle platforms in the near future. The Army tested VICTORY at the Network Integration Evaluation (NIE) 15.2 this past spring in Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles, demonstrating how VICTORY-standard tools could increase situational awareness within vehicles and across unit formations by standardizing and simplifying communication and information sharing.
Because VICTORY provides a more common set of tools and capabilities, the Army can also get better insights into its logistics and maintenance needs.
Initial feedback indicates VICTORY solves problems that have plagued ground vehicle integration in situations where physical and network demands degrade situational awareness. The Army said it will also use VICTORY to leverage the “real-time, safety-critical, embedded portion of its approved computing technologies and standards.”
The VICTORY standards body began operation in May 2010 and has produced architectural descriptions, standard specifications, reusable software and compliance verification tools. In 2013, the Army invited all interested U.S. entities not already participating in the VICTORY standard-specification initiative to consider participation starting in December 2013.
The Army plans to develop fleet-based approaches for integrating VICTORY into emerging and legacy vehicle platforms, with the goal of incorporating VICTORY and VICTORY-compliant hardware onto ground vehicle platforms beginning in 2017.
In a similar effort, the Air Force recently announced its Aug. 4 Sensor Open Systems Architecture (SOSA) Initiative kickoff Industry Day. Like the Army’s VICTORY, SOSA aims to create “an open and common framework to facilitate hosting C4ISR payloads ... in a manner that is vendor and platform agnostic,” the announcement said.
SOSA’s stated goal is to reduce development lifecycle costs through competition, driving agility into the design, facilitating quick and efficient mission payload changes and achieving buy-in across DOD services and industry partners, the notice stated.
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