C4i in The Royal Navy

What is this report about?
This report describes a study that was conducted in order to analyse C4i in the Royal Navy. Observational data was recorded onboard a Type 23 frigate operations room simulator at HMS Dryad. Three scenarios (air threat, surface threat and subsurface threat were observed with several different methods (e.g. social network analysis, propositional networks, coordination demand analysis) used to analyse the data to assess the communications and command on board.

What problem does the report address?
Attempts to identify best practice in C4i.

What is the benefit of this work?
The work will inform the requirements for the development of demonstrators and provide a way of seeing future developments in C4i operations.

Who should take note of it?
People developing future C4i systems.

What is the report's status?
Unclassified

What are the main issues addressed in the report?
The issue addressed in this research programme was Command and Control within the frigate.

What are the findings?
The main conclusions were:

• The Type 23 crew use a distributed communications network.
• Several of the knowledge objects were shared within the three individual scenarios as well as across the whole mission.

What is recommended?
No recommendations. The results of this application of the methodology are intended to form a part of wider data collection and analysis with a view to developing a generic model of C4i.

Why bother?
As part of a larger scale project looking at C4i on various platforms this research will aid the validation of human factors methods used in the C4i environment.