Information exploitation
How Thales helps the RAF exploit sensor information
Thales has a longstanding relationship with the UK Ministry of Defence to provide the Royal Air Force with an information exploitation capability, under the Multi-Domain Mission Support System. Berenice Healey finds out about its history, capability and functionality.
Thales has a longstanding relationship with the UK Ministry of Defence to provide the Royal Air Force with an information exploitation capability, under the name Multi-Domain Mission Support System. Berenice Baker finds out about its history, capability and functionality.
In April 2021, the Royal Air Force (RAF) signed a five-year contract confirming its continuing partnership with Thales to support and develop its primary information management system for air operations. Information exploitation is crucial for armed forces to maintain a competitive edge over adversaries.
The UK Ministry of Defence’s (MOD) Intelligence Surveillance Target Acquisition and Reconnaissance Mission Support System (ISTAR MSS) has long been the backbone for RAF information management.
Thales lead for business development for information advantage Paul Baller explains: “It offers a decision advantage by speeding our decision cycle and improving the quality of our decisions.”
By the early 1990s, the RAF recognised the utility of the MD MSS data platform and the Mission Support System was adopted more widely to include the RAF’s ISTAR Force.
The Multi-Domain Mission Support System (MD MSS) started life in 1980 as an acoustic replay tool for the RAF’s Nimrod maritime patrol aircraft, which quickly evolved to become the Maritime Force’s key information exploitation system – providing a central hub for data feeds to and from the Nimrod aircraft. By the early 1990s, the RAF recognised the utility of this early data platform and the mission support system was adopted more widely to include the RAF’s ISTAR Force.
MD MSS has continued to evolve and today, with an expansion of defence, intelligence and aeronautical data feeds, it provides support to the RAF’s Combat Air and ISTAR Force, Battlespace Management Organisation and Space Command. MD MSS is also being used by the Royal Navy in support of air and maritime operations.
Baller says of the process: “What we're doing in MD MSS is taking what existing systems offer and trying to improve the capabilities step by step. Instead of the hyperbole of the discourse of data strategies, we understand what the current problem is and improve that.
“You're providing a single source of truth for as many users as you possibly can so that everyone sings from the same hymn sheet. From a support side of things, you're managing the obsolescence for all the data feeds you have in one place. It makes everyone's life easier from the commercial and operational side.”
One challenge being addressed under the latest contract is that the MOD has several bespoke air mission planning systems – each requiring access to similar defence, intelligence and aeronautical data. Not unifying and centrally controlling these data feeds could significantly impact operational efficiency and safety and MD MSS has evolved to meet this requirement.
According to Thales, MD MSS provides a single point of access for all operation information data exchange requirements through a distributed mesh network, ensuring data is available where and when users need it. The architecture allows information to be sourced from static infrastructure and distributed to end-users although information can also be generated by the end-user and shared with other users or used to update existing data feeds.
// Banshee Jet 80+ aerial target launches from the deck of HMS Prince of Wales. Credit: QinetiQ
Elix-IR for input overload
As armed forces become increasingly digitalised, they risk being overwhelmed by an incremental growth of information from an increasing number of sensors and systems. One Thales solution that aims to alleviate this is a threat warning capability, called Elix-IR.
“When defending an aircraft against a hostile threat such as surface-to-air missiles, the timescales are so short. You can't have humans in the loop; you need algorithms that look at a very complex situation,” explains Baller.
“Instead of passing raw sensor data to humans, Elix-IR processes it, analyses it, and uses AI to understand what the threats are. Then, instead of terabytes an hour, it puts out bits and bytes saying it has located a threat.”
MD MSS deals with the structured intelligence and situational awareness produced by the smart sensors and distributes it to take the workload off humans and enable decision making.
Five-year plan
Over the five-year duration of the new contract, Thales expects MD MSS to further evolve its data analytics capability to reduce the user data burden and increase data insight and incorporate cloud hosting to meet the evolving MOD digital strategy.
It will introduce new data feeds, including from open sources, to support new users and platforms. The company also wants it to provide data services across security boundaries with different safety implications and support new users across the five domains to support multidomain integration.
Baller explains: “MD MSS deals with the structured data that comes out of the sensors. The key thing for us is overlaying data analytics on top of that.”
We believe that in the next five years MD MSS will be viewed by all three services as a critical enabler, helping them to manage their decisive moments in the increasingly ambiguous, data-rich and complex future operating environment.
MD MSS currently has to deal with data in its native format, providing feeds to the user and layering them together, perhaps over a map, so the user can get situational awareness and take into account factors like latency.
“The exciting thing for us is to take what the user knows and put it in data analytics, either for semantic-based rule-based type approach, or world learning and infuse it into not one single semantic database but correlating as many of those fields as we can,” adds Baller.
“You don’t get vast amounts of heterogeneous data coming in that humans can’t absorb. We’re taking away some of that intelligence and analyst expertise and encoding the lower levels so they can do the higher-level pattern recognition and all the other things that humans are really good at.”
// BeiDou constellation satellites use medium earth orbit, an inclined geosynchronous orbit and geostationary positions. Credit: BeiDou programme
Multidomain integration
Multidomain integration was one of the key policies set out in the MOD’s 2021 Integrated Review and is a functionality that MD MSS aims to support over the duration of the contract.
“We believe that in the next five years MD MSS will be viewed by all three services as a critical enabler, helping them to manage their decisive moments in the increasingly ambiguous, data-rich and complex future operating environment,” says Baller.
As an additional benefit, MD MSS directly sustains around 50 highly skilled jobs in the project team based at Thales Templecombe in Somerset. This is augmented by support functions within the related business unit and across Thales UK, which employs some 7,000 people across all regions of the UK.
Thales works closely with several data analytics SMEs for research work related to MD MSS. This research aims to host SME data analytics capability on MD MSS supporting the UK ecosystem of world-leading digital technologies.
// Main image: SkyGuardian aircraft in the hangar at RAF Waddington. Credit: UK MOD / Crown Copyright 2021