Boeing reports that Project Vigilare, a Network Centric Command and Control System (NC3S) solution for the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF), has passed Site Acceptance Testing at the Northern Regional Operational Centre (NROC) located at RAAF Base Tindal, Northern Territory.

"The Site Acceptance Test verifies Vigilare, as installed at the NROC site, is able to interface with all the relevant external systems and is ready for operational testing," said Arthur Mamalis, Boeing Defence Australia program director for Project Vigilare. "This shows that we continue to make significant strides toward delivering Vigilare's full operational capability to our RAAF customer."

The system successfully demonstrated its ability to manage multiple datalinks concurrently from the site by using assets deployed over a vast geographic area, both in the Northern Territory and the East Coast of Australia. These datalinks connected test assets as well as operational assets such as RAAF F/A-18 Hornet aircraft.

"With data feeds from more than 45 different sensors and agencies using an enhanced Department of Defence communications network, the Vigilare Site Acceptance Test demonstrated an integrated, high-fidelity command and control system capability," said Tim Malone, Defence Materiel Organisation project director for Project Air 5333 Vigilare.

"This is the culmination of many years of hard work by operational specialists, engineers and logisticians to build a system that arguably will be the benchmark for Network Centric Warfare systems in the Australian Defence Force for some time."

Operational testing with the RAAF is scheduled to begin in June, before Vigilare is accepted at NROC by the Commonwealth of Australia.

"This milestone was a direct result of the commitment and dedication of our employees, our program partners and the customer," said Steve Parker, Boeing vice president and general manager of Network and Space Systems - Australia. "The overriding success of the test demonstrated the advanced capabilities Vigilare provides and allows the team to prepare for operational testing."

Developed by Boeing Defence Australia, NC3S integrates advanced technologies that combine data from land, sea, air and space platforms, sensors, data links and intelligence agencies to provide tactical and strategic-level surveillance and battlespace management operations across wide geographic regions.