CDC3 - at Hawaiʻi

From the 28th April till 6th May LSTS took part in a Cross-Domain Command and Control and Communications (CDC3) at-sea exercise. It took place in Moku o Loʻe (Coconut Island) in Kāne’ohe Bay, Oʻahu, Hawaiʻi, USA.

We partner with our hosts, Applied Research Laboratory at the University of Hawaiʻi and US Naval Undersea Warfare Center from Newport (NUWC), with support from the Office of Naval Research Code 34 and L3 OceanServer.

This event aimed at command-and-control improvements to support networked UxS operations in semi-and non-permissive environments. A cross-domain communication effort between Wi-Fi and underwater acoustics were the focus, developing protocol bridges between different vendor UxS.

The experiment involved LSTS’ LAUV-Nemo and Titan copter, L3 OceanServer Iver3, UH’s surface vessel and a seabed node, also from UH. All assets were equipped with Blueprint Seatrac acoustic modems.

The venue and our hosts were spectacular, providing all the needs for the exercise, and beyond. The experiments were successful, with room for improvement in what concerns interoperability between all assets.

This exercise is the first of a three-part exercise to bring forward this cross-domain command-and-control operation.

by Paulo Dias