The
United States Army
The United States Army (USA) is the land warfare, land military branch, service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight Uniformed services of the United States, U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army o ...
's Command Post of the Future (CPOF) is a
C2 software system that allows commanders to maintain topsight over the battlefield; collaborate with superiors, peers and subordinates over live data; and communicate their intent.
Originally a
DARPA
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is a research and development agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the development of emerging technologies for use by the military.
Originally known as the Ad ...
technology demonstration, in 2006 CPOF became an Army
Program of Record
The processes of government procurement in the United States enable federal, state and local government bodies in the country to acquire goods, services (including construction), and interests in real property.
In fiscal year 2019, the US Federa ...
. It is managed by the Product Manager Tactical Mission Command at
Aberdeen Proving Ground
Aberdeen Proving Ground (APG) (sometimes erroneously called Aberdeen Proving ''Grounds'') is a U.S. Army facility located adjacent to Aberdeen, Harford County, Maryland, United States. More than 7,500 civilians and 5,000 military personnel work ...
,
Maryland
Maryland ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; ...
, and integrated with the Army's
Maneuver Control System and other products.
[
] The prime contractor on the CPOF program is
General Dynamics
General Dynamics Corporation (GD) is an American publicly traded, aerospace and defense corporation headquartered in Reston, Virginia. As of 2020, it was the fifth-largest defense contractor in the world by arms sales, and 5th largest in the Un ...
C4 Systems, which purchased the original developer of the software (MAYA Viz Ltd) in 2005.
Overview
CPOF began as a DARPA investigation to improve mission command using networked
information visualization
Information is an abstract concept that refers to that which has the power to inform. At the most fundamental level information pertains to the interpretation of that which may be sensed. Any natural process that is not completely random, ...
systems, with the goal of doubling the speed and quality of command decisions. The system was developed in a research setting by Global Infotek, Inc.; ISX Corporation (now part of Lockheed Martin Advanced Technology Laboratories); Oculus Info, Inc. (now called Uncharted Software Inc.); SYS Technologies, Inc.; and MAYA Viz (now part of General Dynamics C4 Systems) with the active participation of military personnel as subject matter experts.
CPOF is one of
several examples of
collaborative software
Collaborative software or groupware is application software designed to help people working on a common task to attain their goals. One of the earliest definitions of groupware is "intentional group processes plus software to support them".
As re ...
, but intended specifically for use in a mission command. A shared workspace is the main interface, in which every interface element in CPOF is a shared piece of data in a networked repository. Shared visual elements in CPOF include iconic representations of hard data, such as units, events, and tasks; visualization frameworks such as maps or schedule charts on which those icons appear; and brush-marks, ink-strokes, highlighting, notes and other annotation.
All visual elements in CPOF are interactive via
drag-and-drop
In computer graphical user interfaces, drag and drop is a pointing device gesture in which the user selects a virtual object by "grabbing" it and dragging it to a different location or onto another virtual object. In general, it can be used ...
gestures. Users can drag data-elements and annotation from any visualization framework into any other (i.e., from a chart to a table), which reveal different data-attributes in context depending on the visualization used. Most data-elements can be grouped and nested via drag-and-drop to form associations that remain with the data in all of its views. Drag-and-drop composition on live visualizations is CPOF's primary mechanism for editing data values, such as locations on a map or tasks on a schedule (for example, moving an event-icon on a map changes the lat/lon values of that event in the shared repository; moving a task icon on a schedule changes its time-based values in the shared repository). The results of editing gestures are conveyed in real-time to all observers and users of a visualization; when one user moves an event on a map, for example, that event-icon moves on all maps and shared views, such that all users see its new location immediately. Data inputs from warfighters are conveyed to all collaborators as the "natural" result of a drop-gesture in-situ, requiring no explicit publishing mechanism.
CPOF is also used as a live-data alternative to PowerPoint briefings. During a CPOF briefing, commanders can drill into any data element in a high-level view to see details on demand, and view outliers or other elements of interest in different visual contexts without switching applications. Annotations and editing-gestures made during briefings become part of the shared repository. The commander's topsight is based on ground-truth at the moment of the briefing; the commander can then communicate intent on live data.
CPOF users at any level can assemble workspaces out of smaller tool-and-appliance primitives, allowing members of a collaborating group to organize their workflows according to their needs, without affecting or disrupting the views of other users. CPOF's Tool-and-appliance primitives are designed to let users create quick, throw-away mini-applications to meet their needs in-situ, supporting on-the-fly uses of the software that no developer or designer could have anticipated.
The CPOF software is based on the
CoMotion {{For, the game, Blockade (video game)
The CoMotion platform is a commercial product from General Dynamics C4 Systems that provides a synchronous and asynchronous collaborative workspace enabling data sharing, data visualization, and messaging. I ...
platform, a proprietary commercial framework for building collaborative
information visualization
Information is an abstract concept that refers to that which has the power to inform. At the most fundamental level information pertains to the interpretation of that which may be sensed. Any natural process that is not completely random, ...
systems and domain-independent "decision communities". CoMotion's design principles originated as a research program at
Carnegie Mellon University
Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. One of its predecessors was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools; it became the Carnegie Institute of Technology ...
led by Steven Roth, and was subsequently developed at MAYA Viz Ltd and General Dynamics C4 Systems.
Operational details
CPOF uses a proprietary
navigational style database based on
U-forms to store, represent, and operate upon a wide variety of types of data. CPOF can receive real-time or near-real-time data from a variety of standard sources—such as
GCCS-A Global Command and Control System (GCCS) is the United States' armed forces DoD joint command and control (C2) system used to provide accurate, complete, and timely information for the operational chain of command for U.S. armed forces. "GCCS" is m ...
, C2PC, and
ABCS—and display them using
MIL-STD-2525B
NATO Joint Military Symbology is the NATO standard for military map symbols. Originally published in 1986 as Allied Procedural Publication 6 (APP-6), NATO Military Symbols for Land Based Systems, the standard has evolved over the years and is ...
symbols on maps and charts. Plans, schedules, notes, briefings, and other battle-related information can be composed and shared between warfighters. All maps, charts, pasteboards, and other work products can be marked up with permanent and/or fading ink, and annotated with text or "stickies" to provide further context. A VOIP solution is included, although it can integrate with a pre-existing voice solution.
Fault tolerance for low bandwidth, high latency, and/or error-prone TCP/IP networks is supported by CPOF's multi-tiered client-server architecture. It can thus be deployed on systems from a two-hop geosynchronous satellite link to a radio network such as JNN while remaining collaborative. The software is largely Java-based, but is only currently deployed on a Microsoft Windows platform.
Deployment
CPOF was first deployed operationally in a handful of locations in Baghdad, Iraq by the
1st Cavalry Division of the US Army in 2004, and was subsequently deployed throughout Iraq and Afghanistan and used by coalition forces. Variants of CPOF have participated in
United States Joint Forces Command
United States Joint Forces Command (USJFCOM) was a Unified Combatant Command of the United States Department of Defense. USJFCOM was a functional command that provided specific services to the military. The last commander was Army Gen. Ray Odie ...
's Urban Resolve 2015, the
United States Air Force
The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army S ...
's Joint Expeditionary Force Experiment 06 and 08, and has been in use by the Marines in Combat Operation Centers since 2007.
CPOF became an official US Army program of record in 2006.
See also
*
Collaboration
Collaboration (from Latin ''com-'' "with" + ''laborare'' "to labor", "to work") is the process of two or more people, entities or organizations working together to complete a task or achieve a goal. Collaboration is similar to cooperation. Most ...
*
Collaborative software
Collaborative software or groupware is application software designed to help people working on a common task to attain their goals. One of the earliest definitions of groupware is "intentional group processes plus software to support them".
As re ...
*
Project Manager Battle Command
Project Manager Mission Command (or PM MC) is a component of Program Executive Office Command, Control and Communications-Tactical in the United States Army
The United States Army (USA) is the land warfare, land military branch, service ...
References
{{reflist
2. Jacob Mowry, Lead Trainer
External links
General Dynamics Mission Systems Command Post of the Future (CPOF)
United States Army equipment
Military technology
Groupware
Communication software