The United Kingdom’s Ministry of Defence is integrating all of its intelligence and reconnaissance platforms and systems into a single architecture capable of providing 24-hour battlefield surveillance. The effort will provide a means of distributing and disseminating collected data to warfighters down to the tactical level.
 
Named after a type of apple, the Dabinett program was launched in 2005 with a series of studies designed to establish how the British military’s various intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition and reconnaissance (ISTAR) capabilities could be managed and coordinated. The program is now beginning its first five-year development and implementation phase.
 
Dabinett is separated into four “strands” covering specific activities and missions, and these occur in five- to seven-year development periods. The strands, in order of development, are: direct, collect, process and disseminate (DCPD); urban ISTAR; adaptable ISTAR platforms; and deep and persistent ISTAR. According to Barry Trimmer, technical director, Thales Aerospace U.K., Crawley, England, the effort will concentrate on immediate development needs and move on to long-term development aspects over time.
 
One potential technology that might be included in a future Dabinett architecture is Thales’ imagery-on-demand system. It can be used as part of a platform, such as the Watchkeeper unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). Trimmer explains that it is a method for trading time for bandwidth. He notes that if a person conducts a Google Earth search, he or she can zoom in and view a low-resolution map and then zoom in again for greater detail on a specific area. Imagery-on-demand applies this feature to full-motion video.
 
After the program has examined processing and dissemination aspects for ISTAR systems, it will move on to develop adaptable ISTAR platforms, urban ISTAR, and deep and persistent ISTAR capabilities. Adaptable ISTAR will support the Royal Air Force and consist of advanced UAV platforms such as the Predator B. Urban ISTAR will enhance the capabilities of dismounted soldiers for urban operations and consist of unattended ground sensors, lightweight thermal imagers and very small UAVs. Deep and persistent ISTAR systems may include unattended ground sensors, unmanned aerial platforms or space systems such as reconnaissance and surveillance satellites.
 
All the program strands are being undertaken as assessment phase studies. Unlike programs in the United States, the assessment phase examines specific things at its beginning and end. Following the concept phase, the assessment phase sets an established need and at least one credible method to meet that need. This phase also determines funding and confirms that a solution is achievable. 
 
The end of the assessment phase is referred to as main gate. This is the last step before development and production. “To get through a main gate, you need to have a level of risk that is under control. The IPT [integrated product team] needs to have all the development lines arranged. It needs to be credible in terms of force and equipment development,” he says. 
 
The programs coming out of Dabinett as a result of this development approach will resemble a group of interrelated or “stacked” efforts. Trimmer explains that there will be a number of main gates as the program moves on, each with its own requirements.
 
Dabinett will not have a single prime contractor overseeing the entire effort. Individual firms will bid and compete for contracts in each of the program’s strands. Industry can be involved with the Ministry of Defence (MOD) in three places in the program, says Trimmer. The first is providing contracts for strands that will be competed for by individual firms or consortia. The second method will support the program office. This program support organization will review companies that can provide expertise for the office to help it manage the overall effort.
 
The third method still has to be fully delineated, but Trimmer believes that it will probably support part of the Dabinett IPT, which is responsible for managing the high-level design aspects of ISTAR systems. This high-end approach will provide the structure that all of the separate program threads will exist and operate in.

“At a full ISTAR level, you can’t just have a group of programs and hope for the best. You have to have some form of overarching architecture that will give you standardization, common functionality and additional functionality if you’re going to use two or three of these threads to do something neither of them will do individually,” Trimmer shares.
 
The key issues for Dabinett or any other large ISTAR system will be to fuse data and task ISTAR assets, perhaps away from their command stovepipes. Questions of acceptable doctrine are important. But choosing hardware at this early stage of the program would be premature, he says.
 
After the first five years, there may be more possibilities regarding platforms and their capabilities. Trimmer notes that it may be possible to do more with smaller, expendable systems such as remote sensors and that these changing capabilities may alter perceptions about deep and persistent mission profiles.