OCEAN2020 aims to provide the EU and the European Armed Forces with the demonstration of a comprehensive “system-of-systems” open- architecture solution, interoperable with national Maritime Operations Centres (MOC), achieving an integrated situational awareness to better plan, safely operate and task the deployed assets particularly the UxS. The project includes the setting-up of a prototype representing the European Union Maritime Operations Centre to demonstrate sharing situational awareness at a European operational and strategic level. The project objectives will be pursued by using a specific methodology, based on a consolidated and proven systems engineering lifecycle with an accurate and detailed work break down. This approach leads to split project activities into five main areas:

 

Incorporating the user perspective

The project will follow standard proven processes and will facilitate user involvement during the whole project cycle, from definition to demonstration and assessment. This approach is essential to align the objectives and scope of OCEAN2020 with the EU Members Navies vision and cover requirement elicitation, validation of potential technologies for future certifications, standardization and procurement strategies. This group of activities relates to the WP 1 Requirements in the work breakdown.

 

Building up a common architectural vision through best practices

The system architecture will include communications, data definition, processing of information, integration of assets.  Special attention will be given to interoperability aligning multi-domain standardisation efforts with NATO initiative. Open, modular and scalable system architecture will be achieved as a logical consequence of this effort. This group of activities relates to WP2 Design and WP3 Technology Development.

 

Removing barriers

Different types of barriers have to be removed for the effective integration of UxSs in tactical naval systems. That implies work on naval systems, platforms, sensors and information fusion functionality. The project will put a strong emphasis in operations modelling and simulation, to test the overall OCEAN2020 architecture`s resilience against environmental, operational, technical and functional obstacles. The optimization of the system usability and the training processes will be also addressed, analysing operator tasks and operator training needs, and designing prototypes of future operator interface and effective training tools. This group of activities relates to WP 3 Technology Development, WP 4 Integration and WP 5 Human Factor in the Project Implementation.

 

Integration and evaluation trials

The project activities include platform and ship integration, adapting adapt legacy assets to the system architecture and enable participating countries MOC’s adaptations. Simulated and live demonstration trials, in the Mediterranean and the Baltic Seas, will be carried out. The live demonstrations will show integration of close-to-market existing platform and integration of data from multiple sources. The simulated trials will demonstrate technology improvement, de-risk live trials and address specific aspects that cannot be covered in live trials (e.g. contested environment, meteorological conditions). This group of activities relates to WP 3 Technology Development and WP 4 Integration in the Project Implementation.

 

Impact Assessment

The project results will be translated into recommendations for technology exploitation and procurement. Dissemination and exploitation of project results will lead to improvements in the competitiveness and innovation of the European defence industry and stimulate cooperation amongst actors in all Member States. Specific focus will be put on UxS standardization and integration. This group of activities relates to WP 6 Impact Assessment in the Project Implementation.

 

Sea demonstrations

The sea demonstrations will take place respectively in the Mediterranean Sea in 2019 and the Baltic Sea in 2021. Two demonstration scenarios will be run in each demonstration trials to consider different naval operations and different threats, both conventional and asymmetric.

 

The Mediterranean demo will be focused on “The integration in naval systems of close-to-market new or improved existing platforms demonstrator with improved sensors capacity, persistence and autonomy”. The demonstration will be planned within the “Mare Aperto” Naval exercise, collaborative trials organized annually by the Italian Navy.

 

The Baltic demo will be focused on “Demonstration of integration of data from multiple sources in a single predefined tactical picture” by performing operations against threats above and below the water. The demonstration will be in conjunction to an international exercise hosted by the Swedish Navy in 2021.