Air Force intell system progressing

The National Air Intelligence Center (NAIC) is moving closer to its goal of having an easier way for its employees to access and use information maintained in various "threat databases."

The Air Force Research Laboratory's Information Directorate, Rome, N.Y., is about halfway through the development of the NAIC's Automated Virtual Information Production Support System (AVIPSS). Dennis Nawoj, program manager for AVIPSS, said the AFRL recently exercised its fiscal 2003 option with the system's prime contractor — Northrop Grumman Information Technology.

The contract includes the design, development, implementation and maintenance of information systems, applications and databases, as well as infusing appropriate technologies to support the generation of "new intelligence products."

This award is focused on "trying to take advantage of Web technologies...putting things online for accessing and utilizing information in the databases," Nawoj said. He added that because of the classified nature of the NAIC's work, he could only say that "new intelligence products" mean accessing information in databases, "primarily threat databases."

Northrop Grumman IT is charged with providing NAIC staff with greater access to the information they need for analysis and giving them the ability to rapidly visualize the results. Those disparate functions then must be integrated into a seamless environment to support a virtual product system.

The latest contract option, worth almost $5.25 million, was awarded Dec. 4 and is part of a five-year deal awarded to the company in March 2000 that has a potential total value of $37 million.

One task under the AVIPSS umbrella is to replace the outdated Electronic Warfare Integrated Reprogramming Database(EWIRDB) with a newer, next-generation system. The EWIRDB is used for U.S. and allied electronic warfare acquisition, modeling and simulation, to support reprogramming of electronic warfare systems.

The NAIC, located at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, is leading the development and management of the Next Generation EWIRDB System (NGES), Nawoj said, adding that the new system is one of the larger tasks within AVIPSS and caused an engineering change proposal earlier this year.

The current EWIRDB "serves its function, but with all new technology coming online, it was really necessary to update," he said.

The launch of AVIPSS, which will include the NGES, is on schedule for early 2005, Nawoj said.