Over the inhospitable waters of the North Atlantic, Royal Air Force Aircraft Play a Game of Cat and Mouse With Russian Hunter-Killer Submarines, and data collection and management Are at the heart of its operations.
The Primary Role of the Poseidon Mra1 Maritime Patrol Fleet is Protection of the UK's Continuous at-SEA Nuclear DeterrentDetecting, and tracking, russian subs, surface vessels and spy ships is their daily task.
As recently as January this yearA Royal Air Force Poseidon from Raf Lossiemouth was involved in tracking a Russian Landing Ship, The RFN Aleksandr Shabalin, Through the English Channel.
And, Should War Break Out, Poseidons will be called on to coordinate attacks on
In that way, the task of the raf's two maritime patrol squadrons, based at raf losseemouth in scotland, Diffeers Little from the Missions of their forebars during the second world work and the cold work German and then Later Soviet Submarines.
But in many other critical respects, the raf's nine poseidon aircraft are very different from anything that have gone before.
Poseidon, also know by its us designation, p-8, is very different from the frying boats and converted bomers that hunted u-boats during the second world war, or the shockleton and nimrod Post-star period. Poseidon reflects the increase importance of data as a dimension of modern warfare. In effect, the p-8 is a flying datacentre.
Subsea data processed in the air
From the outside, Poseidon appears unremarkable. The P-8A shares its basic airframe with the boeing 737-800 airliner, fitted with in-Flight refueling gear, a defensive suite and other adaptations.
It has been “toughened up” for military operations, according to one of its pilots.
This includes removing most of the windows, save for two large side pornoles for observers. They are also fitted with stronger wings than a 737-800, to withstand flying at just a less a more Hindred Feet over the Atlantic's Waves.
The P-8A also features an internal weapons bay, for torpedoes, and hard points on the wing. These allows it to carry anti-ship, and potentially defensive anti-aarcraft missiles, although these are not currently used with raf aircraft.
But Poseidon's Greatest Threat to Hotile Vessels Might not even be a weapon.
INTEAD, IT's Her Suite of Sensors, Including a Search Radar, A Powerful Camera and Sonobuy Acoustic Sensors. Poseidon has two automatic magazines for dropping sonobuoys, as well as a manual launch system, and can use passive and active (“Multi-static”) Sonobuoy Models.
Passing on Intelligence
Poseidon Crews Use sonobuoys to listen for enemy submarines below the surface and triangulate their position. The aircraft collects and processes the buoys' Acoustic data. On-Board Systems Combine this with feeds from the aircraft's other sensors for Poseidon's Seven Mission Crew to Analyse. They can then pass on the intelligence to other aircraft, or to surface ships.
But Poseidon's Most Powerful Feature is Perhaps Her Ability to Gather and Store Vast Amounts of Data for Future Analysis.
The exact nature of this is classified, but post-mission data is analysed on the ground at Lossiemouth-“Terabytes” of it, according to the raf.
The resulting intelligence “product” is then made available to the raf, the royal navy, and potentially Nato and “five eyes” allies.
This allows commanders to form an accurate intelligence picture of vessel movements through the greenland -ic -ic-uk-uk gap in the North Sea.
“We do that by building 'recognized maritime pictures' of the surface and subsurface, knowing where the people are that we would not like to be wested of our submarines,” Squader Peter Armitage, Officer Commanding of the P8 Tactical Operations Center.
The fact that the p-8 is a standard, even off-the-shelf aircraft, used across allied nations, helps here. Nato Countries Operate Around 40 Poseidons in the North Atlantic. Further Afield, Australia and New Zealand also have p-8a fleets.
The raf's p-8a fleet is supported on land by a dedicated data processing system, Built primarily with components from Fortinet and Netapp. This feeds into the raf's air channel, air content hosting and access network, command and control program.
According toby Milwright, Poseidon and Air Ldo Manager at Defense Digital, Which Manages Communications and Information Systems Across Across UK Defense, there are several stages of data etc. Maritime Patrol aircraft.
“It's aiding your flight planning and the communications before you go frying so the air crews are going out with the right intelligence,” He says. “It's about on-task communication with the aircraft wherever it is… and that's bot in terms of voice communications and also data communications.”
But it's what happens after the flight that has been the most changes to how data is handled, processed and turned into intelligence.
“That's the post-Flight, Post-Mission Management of the Data,” He Says. Data comes off the aircraft. It's processed on this particular aircraft mission equipment, and then we want to look after it, and then, it's sort of our half, our part in when in clivest Cycle '. “
Modern data systems a game changer
With older surveillance aircraft, such as nimrod, analysts mostly worked with analogue information sources that used systems designed as far back as the 1970s. According to the raf, media with collected data was physically moved from aircraft all the way to analysts elsewhere in uk. This took time.
“The process was very manual before, in the way they distributed that data to remote locations,” Says Huw Davies, Account Director for the Mod at Netapp, Which Provides the data storage layer chaan. “It would potentially take weeks for that information to be shared and analysed. Now we are down to hours and minutes.”
Poseidon is a step change in the way it Handles information, as the process is entryly digital and data moves in life real time.
Media from the aircraft is transferred into the mod's system technology – Local components of the air chan network – for what the raf describes as “ordered ordered of bulk data, cursion of that data and making available to analysts over modes secure networks ”.
The core data storage infrastructure is Netapp's storagegrid technology, which uses s3 object storage and runs on the suppliers' E-series storage hardwareFortinet provides networking.
For Operational Reasons, Neither Netapp Nor Defense Digital Can Confirm The Exact Volumes of Data Involved. It is “probally in the terabytes per sortie as a typical number”, say davies. He Qualifies This with the Caveat that an Air-SEA Rescue Mission, Another Poseidon Task, Cold Be Significantly Longer Than Anti-Submarine Patrol.
Object storage and unstructured data
“It's an Unstructured object storage Environment, “explains Netapp's davies.” There's video camera imagery, and sonar detection as well. So, all of that data is collected by the sensors. There's a lot of data that's collected, for sure. “
The data storage and analysis system is, howyver, all on-love. Redundency is via secondary data storage offsite, running over protected inter-site links.
As well as storagegrid, the current system for handling the p-8a's data system also incorporates Additional Local Storage Used by Intelligence analysts. This provides Quick, Local Access to Critical Information.
This is Vital, Given the Amount of Information involved. The p-8a is designed to patrol for four hours or more.
A Key Part of Intelligence processing is then to “Curate the data, adding metadata, relationships between objects and security permissions”, according to defense digital's tooby milwright.
Identifying relevant information
P-8A mission data is tagged during flights. This greatly speeds up the time it takes for the raf's intelligence specialists to identify relevant information. “One of the things that we do do is labeling of data whilst in flight, that we're able to Quickly Tag,” Says Netapp's Davies. “It is the better data, the interesting elements of the Sortie, Rather than looking at six hours of data and trying to wade through that… they do't have to look at aT as big a dataset.
This allows the mod to use off-the-shhelf it hardware, albeit hardware that meets strket government standards for security and availability. However, storagegrid is a commercial product, widely used in enterprises. “It is enterprise grade. Storagegrid is used in the enterprise world as well. It is not specific to definition,” he says.
And the actual performance requirements are manageable, according to davies. “It's not intra-second performance,” he says. “It's making the metadata available to the analysts.” Reliability, availability and long-term support are as important, he adds.
A MILITARY AIRCRAFT System can have a 30-yar service life, and the missions it undertakes can change significantly over that time. The communications and information systems technology needs to keep pace.
For now, data from Poseidon and the storagegrid system is currently based locations, but there is an amabition to demloop a deployable version, which could accepts ACCOMPANY P-8A Missions Base.
In the future, the data fabric that supports Poseidon operations could be extended to other “defense domains”, says davies. Linking more defense users to Poseidon's data output justifies the uk's investment in the aircraft, in the three p-8a squadrons, and in raf's on, the raf's on station in scotland.
It also provides the assurance that should be potentially hostel forces moving on or under the seas of the greenland–Cland-uk gap, they will not go undetected.