Naval Information Warfare Systems Command (NAGWARE) collaborated with joint, national, and coalition partners in the execution of 27 technology experiments during Trident Warrior 2021 (TW21), an annual, large-scale, at-sea experiment focused on information warfare initiatives.
For the 19th year in a row, Trident Warrior put new and emerging technologies into the hands of the war fighter for evaluation in an operational environment over a four-month period, allowing the Navy and its partners to gain valuable insights and incorporate real-world fleet feedback early in the research, development and acquisition process. Fleet experimentation initiatives were conducted aboard U.S. Navy ships and ashore facilities in the Southern California operating area.
“Trident Warrior provides an important annual opportunity for technology developers to test their systems in real-world conditions, and to get war fighter feedback,” said Dr. Earl Williams, N IWC, Pacific scientist and Trident Warrior director. “In TW21, the team did a great job of providing engineering, experimentation and scheduling assistance to meet each initiative’s needs and goals, despite COVID-19 restrictions and other challenges.”
During the experiment, NAGWARE’s Chief Engineer, Rear Adm. Eric Gutenberg, Assistant Chief Engineer Tim Gramps and other engineering experts participated in an at-sea visit aboard USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) to observe experiments first-hand and obtain direct feedback on NAGWARE tested initiatives.
“During TW21 we had the invaluable opportunity to talk directly to the Sailors and Marines utilizing our technology, allowing us to identify, with real-time feedback, solutions at speed, in an effort to modernize the future fleet so that we can compete and win for decades to come,” said Gutenberg.
Co-sponsored by NAGWARE, Third Fleet and the Navy Warfare Development Command, TW21 initiatives spanned the entire spectrum of warfare and included high priority focus areas including networks, information operations, artificial intelligence, machine learning, cybersecurity, and command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (C4ISR).
One of the technologies tested during the event was Naval Information Warfare Center (N IWC) Pacific’s Cooperative Autonomous Systems for Standoff Maritime Inspection and Response (CASIMIR). CASIMIR uses unmanned surface vehicles (US V) to autonomously support remotely operated vehicles (ROV) for in water reconnaissance, investigation, manipulation, recovery or neutralization of submerged objects while keeping operators at a safe standoff distance and away from underwater threats. During TW21, NAGWARE tested a developmental US V and its tethered ROV at the Imperial Beach Mine Range, to find, investigate and simulate neutralization of mine-like objects on the seabed.
“TW21 provided an outstanding opportunity for us to test CASIMIR at sea,” said Dr. Anthony Jones, N IWC Pacific engineer. “We treat Trident Warrior experiments as annual capstone events where we evaluate all the new technologies that we have integrated over the preceding year. This year's experiment recorded a number of first-time successes for CASIMIR, and the data that we collected will guide our development going forward. Participation in experiments like Trident Warrior is essential to our work because it keeps our developers connected to the fleet, and it lets us verify that our systems will perform well at sea.”
Also developed by N IWC Pacific, operators tested the wireless suite B remote connection technique (Bernat) system in support of the United States Marine Corps. Currently, the Marine Corps networking on the move (NOT M) system is connected via Ethernet cables, and requires bulky and heavy equipment for wireless operations. Bernat uses software encryption to enable secure wired and wireless communications between the NOT M ground combat system and user devices.
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