ENGINEERING THE TOTAL SHIP SYMPOSIUM 2004 "Building Ships Around Sailors -- Building the Force Around Ships" 17 - 18 March 2004 ~ Gaithersburg, MD Classified Event SECRET U.S. ONLY

THE FOLLOWING UNCLASSIFIED PAPERS ARE APPROVED FOR PUBLIC RELEASE

Ships and the Sailors inside Them
Philip Sims

Wooden warships sickened and killed their own crews due to poor food, disease and dangerous work. Iron shipbuilding allowed safer and healthier ships but their internal compartmentation created communication problems which were gradually solved with mechanical systems. Ships developed their own "nervous system" allowing a central director to fire every gun.

The creation of high-powered machinery meant that small ships were driven into seas up to the limits of human endurance. Coal fuel created its own back-breaking workload and industrial hazards until replaced by oil.

The displacement limits in arms reduction treaties forced Navies to study trading-off crew quality with carrying more armament.

The adoption of the peacetime-forward deployment mission meant sending ships to sea for 100-200 day periods that hadn't been seen since the days of sail. The loss of overseas bases and the threat of terrorist attack has greatly complicated going ashore for liberty compared to the 1950-60s.

The long term trend of sailor's job has been changing from providing muscle to brains. On submarines, aircraft carriers and low-signature surface combatants, sailors have lost places topside to quietly view the sea and sky. The seaman is gradually losing the pleasure of the contact with the ocean.

The Role of the Sailor as a Networked Element of Sea Power 21: Engineering Ships for the Sailor
Captain Steve Huber, USN, Mr. J. Robert Bost, and Mr. Waldemar H. Koscinski

In his "Sea Power 21" strategic concept paper released last fall, Chief of Naval Operations Vern Clark recognized the human, the Sea Warrior, as "a premier element of all operational systems." Admiral Clark's Sea Warrior initiative has underscored the Navy's commitment to the growth and development of its people. "As optimal manning policies and new platforms such as the DD (X) and Littoral Combat Ship reduce crew size further, the Navy will increasingly need Sailors who are highly educated and expertly trained," Admiral Clark has noted. "All the advanced technologies will be for nothing," Admiral Clark recognized, "unless we have the right people, with the right skills, where and when we need them."

Just as important, however, is the realization that the Navy must design and engineer ships and systems for the Sailor at the onset of the design and acquisition cycle. Indeed, a seamless and comprehensive fusion of people, hardware, and software is.or must be.a principal goal of all engineers and designers, program managers and acquisition specialists, logisticians, and operators. In short, if we seek to maximize operational effectiveness and ensure mission success as our ships go in harm's way, while at the same time we strive to minimize total ownership costs, we must design and engineer the total system for maximum warrior performance. Most fundamentally, that means ensuring that the human is taken into account, up front, in system and platform design and engineering.

In fall 2002, Vice Admiral Phillip Balisle, Commander, Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA), announced the creation of a new Human Systems Integration (HSI) Directorate (NAVSEA 03). The HSI Directorate serves as NAVSEA's single point of contact for all HSI- and human performance-related long-range strategic planning, policy, acquisition issues, future research and development investment, and technology insertion into existing and future surface ship and submarine systems.

This paper addresses the charter, roles, tasks, and progress of NAVSEA 03 during the past year, as it proceeds to ensure the total integration of the Sailor into the systems and ships the Navy is designing, engineering, and acquiring. This integration will guarantee the most beneficial Sailor work environment as well the most effective total system performance at the lowest total ownership cost. The effective application of human systems engineering, optimal manning, tailored training, and measured human performance are key to this success. This objective is to be reached by ensuring that the Sailor is given equal emphasis with technology, equipment, computers, and software applications during ship development. NAVSEA 03 is pivotal in this quest.

The Center for Innovation in Ship Design (CISD): Setting the High-Speed Ship Technology Roadmap for SEA POWER 21
Robert G. KEANE, Jr. Ship Design USA, Inc.

In the late 1960's and early 1970's, Admiral Elmo Zumwalt, then the Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) for the U. S. Navy, had a vision of a 100-knot Navy. As a result, considerable research was invested in developing high-speed craft, such as air cushion vehicles (ACV's), surface effect ships (SES's), and hydrofoils. However, political and economic pressures from a costly Vietnam War and an oil embargo forced cessation of research in high-speed naval ships.

Almost thirty years later with the explosion of the global economy and the increasing number of military conflicts in widely dispersed geographical locations, the U.S. Navy is under much greater pressure to maintain a forward presence in an expanding number of locations around the globe. The Navy's present CNO, Admiral Vern Clark, in a recent speech to the Naval War College, shared his vision for a new operational construct that he calls SEA POWER 21, as well as his thoughts on how the U.S. Navy needs to be transformed in order to meet the requirements of the new century. However, the Navy continues to experience decreased budgets for building new naval ships. The result is that the number of ships in our worldwide fleet is decreasing. These political and economic pressures are forcing the Navy to seriously consider much higher speed for the operational requirements of new ship designs and to acquire these new ships at lower costs.

The increased interest in high-speed naval ships has raised once again the design trade-offs between ship speed, mission payload, and range. These trade-offs have highlighted the limitations imposed on the design solution space for new naval ships, a manifestation of the lack of investment in technologies critical to increasing these three ship performance parameters. Furthermore, increased interest in reducing the costs to develop and acquire naval ships has focused more attention on the time and costs to design and build new ships.

A major initiative on the part of the Office of Naval Research (ONR) and the Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) to address these apparent contradictory requirements is the recent establishment of the Center for Innovation in Ship Design (CISD) at the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Carderock Division (NSWCCD). Recent "Innovation Cell" projects are summarized, including high-speed naval ship concept formulation (CONFORM) design studies conducted by NAVSEA's Future Concepts and Ship Design Group (SEA 05D) and NSWCCD's Total Ship Systems Directorate (Code 20). These projects clearly identify near-term and far-term goals for the ship product technologies and design and construction process technologies critical for new high-speed naval ships to meet the operators' vision of future naval warfare: SEA POWER 21.

Submersible Combatant Concept For Improved Littoral Warfare
John Leadmon, Wesley Wilson, Louis Carl, David Woodward

The current proliferation of low-cost, low technology means of access denial raises the cost of U.S. power projection in many areas of the world. This problem is especially evident in the littoral environment, where enemy forces may employ a host of access denial methods including submarines, mines, small boats, and undersea sensor systems. These regions also exhibit maneuvering and navigational challenges such as underwater obstacles and civilian shipping vessels. Future naval platforms will rely heavily on the use of unmanned vehicles to more effectively perform their missions. While it is possible to deploy, support, and retrieve many of these unmanned vehicles from a high-end platform (e.g., SSN, SSGN), it is proposed that there may be a more efficient and cost effective means of managing these smaller vehicles and payloads.

The KAPPA submersible craft concept, the result of a Carderock Division Naval Surface Warfare Center (CDNSWC) Innovation Center project, may be an effective, cost-efficient force multiplier that can perform covert missions in littoral regions and austere ports, assist in providing and maintaining access, and support other joint assets. The KAPPA craft concept is a stealthy, highly maneuverable craft, with a modular payload volume and flexible ocean interface that acts as part of a "cascading payloads" chain for improved littoral warfare operations.

LHA(R): Designing the Next Generation of Big Deck Amphibious Assault Ships
Jason Reynolds (NAVSEA 05D3)

The existing LHA Class Amphibious Assault Ships will reach the end of their expected service lives between 2011 and 2015. Previous analysis has determined that extending the service life of these ships is not operationally suitable or cost effective. The future Aviation Combat Element (ACE) is growing in size and capability and is not fully compatible with the LHA Class ships. Design standards and policies for environmental, habitability, service life allowance and ship survivability have been modified and drive requirements for future ship designs.

Over the last several years, multiple ship concept formulation studies were conducted by the Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) to determine the most cost effective solution to meet the Marine Corps' emerging warfighting requirements. Although many possible solutions were explored, the final Department of Navy decision was made to design a modified repeat ship of the LHD 1 class, the LHA Replacement (LHA(R)).

Functional design and associated trade studies commenced in February 2003. This paper provides the details of the ship design process, the design products being developed, and the Integrated Product Team (IPT) that makes it all possible. The paper describes the functional design work accomplished to date and provides the author's vision for the first NAVSEA-led ship design in almost ten years.

Reduced Manning in DDG 51 Class Warships: Challenges, Opportunities and the Way Ahead for Reduced Manning on all United States Navy Ships
Rear Admiral James Hinkle, USN (Ret.), and Captain Terry Glover, USN (Ret.)

The need to transform the United States military is, arguably, the number one imperative of the Department of Defense. President Bush emphasized this in his National Security Strategy when he noted: "The major institutions of American National Security were designed in a different era to meet different requirements. All of them must be transformed." Transformation is a challenging imperative, especially in a service as rich in tradition as the United States Navy. Two generations ago, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, frustrated with how slowly the United States Navy was changing, famously said, "To change anything in the Navy is like punching a feather bed. You punch it with your right and you punch it with your left until you are finally exhausted, and then you find the damn bed just as it was before you started punching." Unlike the Navy of President Roosevelt's day, today's naval leadership is committed to transforming the Navy and ensuring that the Navy of tomorrow is a critical component of the Joint warfighting force and is a Navy that, in the CNO's words, "Gives the President options." Navy leaders have known intuitively that a smaller, better-trained, more stabilized crew could mean a more capable, more professional warfighting team. This paper addresses the ongoing DDG 51 Reduced Manning Initiative undertaken by the Program Executive Office, Ships and specifically addresses the policy, processes, culture, tradition, and technology aspects of this ongoing initiative. The major lessons learned from this effort for future optimal manning programs will be outlined. In order to prepare the waterfront, the distribution system, and the training establishment for a new generation of ships built in the philosophy of significantly reduced manning, the Navy must embrace new ways of doing business…especially if we expect the introduction of DD(X), CG(X) and LCS, to be "revolutionary vice evolutionary".

Composeable FORCEnet: Composeable Command and Control for Superior Decision Making
Mr. Mike Reilley, Mr. Jeff Grossman, Mr. Jeff Clarkson, and Mr. George Galdorisi, SSC San Diego; Mr. Christopher Priebe, Polexis Corporation

This paper examines one of the most critical aspects of networking the elements of Sea Power 21 - how do warfighters operating in a FORCEnet-enabled environment compose the C4ISR elements at their disposal to ensure superior decision-making and enable the Joint Force Commander to achieve the Joint Vision 2020 goal of Full Spectrum Dominance? The key word in this construct is composeable and our thesis is that commanders must have the ability to compose a command and control architecture that meets their warfighting requirements from a broad array of multi-tiered networked platforms and sensors, dynamic bandwidth capabilities and tailorable visualizations. This paper shows that, in the naval context, this requires that we engineer FORCEnet, from the keel up, not as a set-piece bundle of fixed systems, but as a fungible toolbox of capabilities that the commander selects based on the operational mission he must accomplish. Composeable FORCEnet provides the framework to achieve a faster speed to capability and it enables warfighters to make the superior decisions necessary to win in battle.

Distributed Weapons: Sea Strike Human Systems Integration in Tactical Tomahawk Weapons Control System Development
CAPT Chris Sullivan, USN Tactical Tomahawk Program Manager (PMA 282)
LCDR Joe Mauser, USN Advanced Concepts and HSI Lead (PMA 282T1E/2B)

In February 1997, the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations identified the need for quick reaction Tactical Tomahawk mission planning onboard Tomahawk Firing Units (FRU's). Other significant capabilities identified for "next generation Tomahawk" included the ability to redirect an in-flight missile, loiter a missile to allow quick reaction re-planning and provide Battle Damage Indication and Imagery to Tomahawk Command and Control stations. These capabilities have been successfully brought forward through the development of the Tactical Tomahawk Weapons System (TTWS). Along with new capabilities, the TTWS Weapons Control Segment (TTWCS) inherits legacy functionality from its predecessor, the Advance Tomahawk Weapons Control System (ATWCS), including shared Advanced Tactical Display Consoles (ATDC) with the Naval Fires Control System (NFCS). While these capabilities enable the tactical employment of Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles (TLAM), they also place new training and workload challenges on the operator. These challenges are exasperated by unnecessary burdens placed on operators forced to toggle between nonintegrated NFCS and TTWCS displays.

Research conducted at the University of Virginia has concluded that cognitive limitations of a single operator will inhibit the Launch Platform from monitoring and controlling all own-ship launched missiles unless dramatic gains in Strike team performance are achieved through the elimination of stove-piped data sources and disjointed displays. Integration of information and displays is essential to satisfy demands of shorter timelines associated with Land Attack Warfare and represents the core of the Tactical Tomahawk Weapons Control System Roadmap. The emphasis to place the operator at the center of system development is compliant with OPNAV Guidance: "…our ability to effectively and successfully employ Land-Attack Warfare systems will directly reflect our commitment to Human-Centered Design, Human Systems Integration, and Optimal Manning."

PMA-282 has converted these words into action by mandating the use of Task Centered Design principles in all facets of Weapons Control System development. This has started by placing the highest emphasis on User Work Flow Analysis and adherence to these workflows throughout the development and test cycles for future Tomahawk upgrades. A key development has been the incorporation of a "Task Manager" as the first step toward a Task- Centered Design that has already been shown to significantly reduce cognitive workload, error rates, and task completion times. Since operator productivity and effectiveness is central to all future development, TTWCS Version 5 (v5) will be the first Tomahawk baseline that applies human-performance, hardware and software measures, on an equal basis.

The Program Office has also placed great emphasis on achieving common look and feel displays across multiple Land Attack Systems. As a first step, the TTWCS Program has developed a HCI Style Guide that will be enforced for TTWCS v5 designs. Additionally, the program intends to capitalize on Office Of Naval Research (ONR) funded research that explores architectural alternatives to allow separation of all TTWCS HCI from the underlying Weapon Control System applications. Separation of the HCI from weapons system applications is fundamental to designing human interfaces around complete warfare tasks rather than individual operator functions. In doing so, the operator's view is expanded from looking through a "soda straw" to a "knowledge wall." This paper provides an overview of the evolutionary HCI development approach undertaken by the Cruise Missile Weapons Control Systems Program Office (PMA-282). Specific focus is placed on design process changes from TTWCS IOC to Version 5 and how those changes support User Centered Design. It will also discuss further reaching activities that are essential to achieving and Integrated Land Attack Presentation Layer.

Distributed Machine Intelligence for Automated Survivability
Katherine Drew, Office of Naval Research, David Scheidt, Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory

Future Naval platforms face new dynamic operational scenarios that demand more flexible performance. At the same time, reduced manning and lower total ownership costs are now major design and acquisition objectives. Improved warfighting capability can be achieved by reducing vulnerability to damage and failure events. Rapid system recovery from unanticipated damage using current doctrine and practice conflicts with today's reduced manning objectives. Decentralized ship system architectures and agent based technologies promise to enable the Navy to improve rapid system recovery and assist in meeting these affordability challenges. Decentralization of systems and resources improves both ship survivability and fight through capability. This is accomplished through rapid sensing and response as well as dynamic reconfiguration, which results in improved continuity of service of ship systems. Embedded intelligence at the component level insures rapid, effective autonomous reaction and response to local fault conditions. Agent based technologies are utilized to provide autonomous cooperation between sensors and actuators, where elements reason and react locally while achieving global objectives through agent-to-agent communications. While intelligent decision-making is performed locally by autonomous agents, the sailor will direct these agents through comprehensive supervisory control, with improved on-demand situational awareness. When fielded, these systems will provide increased situational awareness, increased fight through capability, and improved damage control. This paper describes Navy Science and Technology projects currently underway in academia, industry and Navy laboratories to achieve these goals.

Operator Centered Design of Ship Systems
Susan F. Chipman, Ph.D., U. S. Office of Naval Research,David E. Kieras, Ph.D., University of Michigan

Cognitive science research, much of it supported by the Office of Naval Research, is bringing about a scientific revolution in our understanding of the human operator. It is yielding computational theories of human cognition and perceptual/motor activity that provide precise quantitative predictions of important variables such as the times required to complete tasks or to learn them in training. Although the scope of coverage of these theories is limited and basic research aimed at expanding them is on-going, they already have much to offer in aiding the design of ship systems that will optimize the combined effectiveness of human operators and the systems they will be using. This presentation discusses 1) what can be done now, 2) tools under development that will facilitate the use of these theories, reducing the labor involved, and 3) a long-term vision for what might be achieved in this area.

Operational Impacts Of The Aegis Cruiser Smartship System
CAPT Jeff Fullerton, USN; LCDR Marc Scotchlas, USN; LCDR Thad Smith, USN; A. Scott Freedner, NAVSEA

The Chief of Naval Operations guidance over the past few years has challenged the fleet with finding ways to increase efficiencies while maintaining overall readiness as a highly effective force. In addition, today's ships must be continuously ready and surge capable in accordance with the Fleet Response Plan. One way to meet these goals is to leverage technologies that will optimize ship manning and streamline shipboard training. The Smartship installation in USS Antietam (CG 54), when used in synergy with a flexible manning concept (Core Flex), the conversion of steam systems to all-electric, and the development of web-based administrative tools enables the ship to meet and exceed these challenges. Antietam uses the enabling tools of virtual training devices and simulators, in conjunction with IT-21 installation and Core Flex to reduce underway watchstanding requirements and increase ship readiness, personnel qualifications, and training depth throughout the ship. These combined efforts reduce required unit level training time, increase situational awareness and dramatically decrease the administrative burden on personnel. Innovative ideas for leveraging technology to increase control and monitoring capability, and adapting our training organizations around new functionality allows for increased readiness and war fighting power. Employment of this technology is key. Unit level training time and required manning are decreased through automation. Situational awareness is increased through web enablement and a better common operating picture. This leads to a higher level of unit effectiveness and readiness, while directly supporting Strike Group needs, Fleet Commander ideology, and clearly sets foundations for future innovations.