The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency awarded Lockheed Martin Advanced Technology Laboratories (ATL) $1.24 million for phase III of the Fast Connectivity for Coalitions and Agents Program (Fast C2AP).

Fast C2AP is a Web-accessible suite of software tools that allows U.S. Navy watchstanders to compose and launch intelligent software agents to improve situation awareness in maritime domains. The suite is a stand-alone component and uses external inputs from web-based sources and applications as well as from maritime databases. Phase III will fund software upgrades and transition Fast C2AP this year to several U.S. Navy commands.

Fast C2AP began two years ago as an applied research initiative to examine the composition and application of agents in dynamic, operational environments. During Phases I and II, ATL with Naval Undersea Warfare Center developed and installed progressively more sophisticated releases of the software at U.S. Navy Sixth Fleet Theater Maritime Fusion Center (TMFC), Naples, Italy, where watchstanders reported marked improvement in situational awareness of the Mediterranean maritime domain.

The NATO Component Commander Maritime Operations Center used Fast C2AP during a recent NATO maritime exercise. For two weeks watchstanders monitored merchant ships, fishing boats, cruise ships and warships transiting the Mediterranean Sea. Results showed that Fast C2AP and associated software improved by two orders of magnitude the number of tracks humans could process and that agents effectively helped them manage overwhelming amounts of actionable data for intelligence centers.

As a result of Fast C2AP's performance, Admiral Henry G. Ulrich III, Commander U.S. Naval Forces Europe, recommended its transition to a "Program of Record" to ensure continued engineering and programmatic support.

ATL will transition Fast C2AP to the U.S. Navy Office of Program Manager, Warfare-Command and Control (PMW-150) and to Second Fleet facilities. The TMFC-using an earlier version of Fast C2AP-will receive the Phase III upgrade in November.

Headquartered in Bethesda, Md., Lockheed Martin employs about 140,000 people worldwide and is principally engaged in the research, design, development, manufacture, integration and sustainment of advanced technology systems, products and services.

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SOURCE: Lockheed Martin