FORT SILL, Okla. (June 29, 2022) More than 60 members of the Artillery Systems Cooperation Activities (ASCA) program met at Fort Sill June 22-29 for the annual Interoperability Committee.
ASCA is a software program that creates one consistent line of communication digitally, in real time, linking artillery commands and control systems. The ASCA program links the United States and NATO partners and allies’ systems to one interface and nullifies language barriers by communicating seamlessly for interoperability on the battlefield.
The ASCA interoperability Committee is made up of representatives from 13 fully capable ASCA nations and nine sponsored countries in various stages of ASCA development, who meet to provide guidance, direction and administration of the ASCA program through three primary subcommittees.
“We are continuing engagement with our multinational partners and developing interoperability,” said Maj. Aaron Ammerman, lead U.S. delegate ASCA Operational Subcommittee, Army Capability Manager Fires Cell – Targeting. “The whole point of ASCA is that the U.S. is not going in solo anymore.”
Interoperability capabilities can be expanded across the three domains — human, technical and procedural. ASCA provides for the technical piece of interoperability with communication. The Interoperability Committee is the first step to providing the procedural and human pieces.
“The committee governing body is formed through a memorandum of understanding that all partners sign,” said Ammerman. “This community meets three times a year and we have the various subcommittees. The operational subcommittee and its national representatives that work, discuss and deliberate to develop those operational requirements that the ASCII interface needs to incorporate in order to enhance its’ interoperability and capability. Then you have the technical subcommittee who are the folks who know how to do the coding and really work from a software perspective to implement the requirements in and then we have the testing evaluation working group.”
According to Jonathon Ochs, ASCA Foreign Military Sales Support, Product Manager Mission Command, the conference is a continuous process to ensure all NATO partners expand their interoperability capabilities.
“It allows participants to work side-by-side with other members of the ASCA community, gain an understanding of how their systems operate, and begin to understand the process other nations have to go through when conducting missions,” said Ochs.
“We develop the requirements and the technical guys code them, and develop an interface control document that each nation owns as their intellectual property, which is given back to their test leads. And then we do developmental testing between these two nations before you can certify as an estimation, and then you can send it out and do exercises and modifiers. So it's just a simple round robin between the working groups,” he said.
The process allows the partners to expand interoperability in the human domain. Over the course of the conference, the artillery professionals gathered and talked about the fires process within their respective countries and units, built an understanding of each other’s systems and built relationships with allies and partners.
According to Dana Hatcher, a government contractor and functional analyst who tests the software partner nations have implemented and developed, interoperability is the key word.
“We're testing their software against our versions, to ensure that we get a one-to-one operability. We're moving to a new version of ASCA and when we do that, we have a very stringent guideline to ensure that we have no safety issues that come across and that what we get and what they get is exactly what we sent. We’re testing it — that’s all we do,” Hatcher said. “As soon as anyone makes a change in a software, then we do a regression testing, they bring that back, we throw out as many of the testing that we can with as many nations as we can.”
Hatcher said there were 13 nations testing at Fort Sill including Poland, Canada, Estonia, Finland, Spain, two from Poland, Turkey, Belgium, Denmark, Netherlands, Sweden, Romania and Norway.
“We have some new nations who have decided they want to join the program. Once they have met the criteria and they get that software, they come in here with the specs and we help them test the software. Really the responsibility is to be there for testing,” she said.
Testing ensures that the software is going to work the way NATO partners expect on the battlefield, which is important. ”You want to find out now — not when they're actually engaged in battle. I definitely don't want it to be someone's grandson, son, or daughter whose life is lost,” she said.
Another benefit of having all the partners test the software is the relationships they are forming as they work side-by-side as partners.
“Because the more you listen, the more likely you are to cooperate and work together,” said Hatcher. “It's about the relationships that we have actually gained with these countries — the human dimension.”
Social Sharing