Navy Taps Modus Operandi For SOA NetworkNavy Taps Modus Operandi For SOA Network

The Navy has awarded a $600,000 contract to Modus Operandi to build a service oriented architecture (SOA) framework for an ongoing project to improve the way submarines gather and analyze operational data.

Modus Operandi, a software company based in Florida, is developing software that uses semantics to fuse and analyze intelligence information from different sensors on submarines as part of the Navy's Wave System of Systems (Wave-SOS) project.

The firm had already started work on the framework, having been awarded a $70,000 contract in January 2009 for the first phase of Wave-SOS. The new contract is for Phase II of the project, which the Navy categorizes as a Small Business Innovation Research project.

The company's Wave Exploitation Framework technology provides the basis for the Navy's Wave-SOS framework. The software enables unstructured intelligence data from multiple sources to be discovered and analyzed to provide a clearer picture of overall operations.

The Navy has been working to improve the way submarine sensors gather and analyze information from disparate sources to help sub commanders better operate the vessels and respond to potential threats or emergency situations.

Submarines typically have sophisticated sensor technology that gathers relevant information such as weather and environmental data, human intelligence, and mission parameters. It's been difficult, however, for the Navy to use technology to pull the information together in an analytical way because the data collected is often in a text-based format, which is not as easy to automatically process, correlate, and fuse.

The Wave-SOS project is with the Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) at the Washington Navy Yard, and is sponsored by the Program Executive Office for Submarines. NAVSEA's task is to develop, deliver and maintain Navy ships according to schedule and budget.

The Navy currently has some high-profile technology projects in the works to improve both operations and security. It's currently seeking proposals on a $16 billion, five-year project to build prototype cybersecurity system, and recently awarded the first contracts for a $1.75 billion project to build an ambitious new IP network across all of its ships and onshore operation centers.