Mission System: facing current and future needs in the Land Platforms domain.

Why Indra’s Mission System

Military operations are turning into scenarios with wider range of threats against which complex systems and disruptive technologies are being developed and used. Together with this battlefield framework, the digitalization process is turning missions into extreme cognitive load for the users that must handle so many sources and data volumes for the detection-recognition-identification (DRI) loop and the decision-making process.

This is especially noticeable in the land domain where military platforms (IFVs, MBTs, APCs, LAVs…) are becoming extremely sophisticated combat systems.

In this context, the traditional bolt-on approach with closed systems and technology added in layers is no longer efficient and does not answer the mission needs in future scenarios.

So the demand goes towards a cross and user-transparent system for improving ergonomics and processes automation.

This may not be a disruptive approach in the airspace field where vehicles have already applied this concept for decades, but sure it is in the Land Platforms.

What is Indra’s Mission System

Our Mission System is a data fusion and management technology for any military vehicle, from ATVs to MBTs, that automates crew activities from an operational approach turning independent systems and subsystems into a SoS. As a summary, it is a software and hardware set based on redundant compact mission processors with embedded SW, which transforms data into valuable information according the mission profile and needs.

A real-time DDS middleware over a video/comms/data network is applied to interconnect the subsystems, inter-relating data coming from the vehicle’ sensors and applying mission intelligence.

The system can be adapted to any land platform and mission requirements since is based in a scalable and modular compact architecture easily expandable and upgradeable throughout vehicle life cycle. Furthermore, the Mission System processors are based in a core architecture with easily growth capabilities to support a variety of applications such as AI, embedded simulation or health usage monitoring (HUMS).

Which is the impact of Indra’s Mission System

The benefits of our integrated combat system stem from three pillars:

• Ergonomics and efficiency: The Mission System integrates all the controls into a single human-machine interface that resumes all the operational needs, so there isn´t necessity of specific screens or devices for each sensor/subsystem/system. What does this mean? Less need for space, easier operation, higher proficiency due to a simpler learning curve and improved efficiency.
• Data interrelation and workload automation: Since our technology interconnects data from systems and sensors through an operational approach, it increases dramatically the situational awareness, improves the decision-making process and automates the user workload. The system provides all the needed information for the mission success and distributes it to all the crew (Commander, Driver, Gunner and/or Embarked Soldiers). This interrelation transforms the platform into an integrated combat system for gainin superiority into the battlespace.
•  Enabler of the Collaborative Combat: The importance of Indra’s Mission System is not only that gathers all the data coming from the platform’s systems and sensors, transforms into operational information and automates the tasks. It lies on the data management since it makes the information available for all the platforms and assets involved in a multi-domain mission.

Conclusions

The hybrid and digital warfare context and the increasingly complex systems to respond these new challenges, are leading the user to handle and control a huge volume of information. In the Land Platforms arena, this complexity is rising to substantial levels that dramatically increase the cognitive load and compromises the mission success.

This issue confirms the need for automation and subsystems integration for turning the land vehicle into a SoS, equivalent to what happened in the air domain.

Our Mission System is the next step towards the platform digitization, sensor inter-relation and data management, from an operational dimension.

Against the traditional bolt-on approach, our technology results in higher efficiency and better performances.