Multinational forces in a military exercise in Arizona shared intelligence information of dissimilar classifications through technology from Lockheed Martin.

According to Lockheed, end-to-end processing, dissemination and exploitation of non-traditional intelligence data were also demonstrated using fully operational products built on the new Defense Intelligence Information Enterprise framework.

"What we demonstrated at Empire Challenge was the art of the possible," said Jim Quinn, vice president for C4ISR Systems with Lockheed Martin's IS&GS-Defense.

"The demand for better, quicker intelligence sharing between our allies has never been more important than it is today. By leveraging our expertise in secure intelligence processing we provided 'Five Eyes' nations access to real-time intelligence from classified and unclassified networks."

"Five Eyes" refers to the countries participating in the demonstration and exercise at Fort Huachuca -- the United States, Canada, Britain, Australia and New Zealand.

Currently, coalition access to intelligence from the global Distributed Common Ground System sites -- which process, correlate and disseminate intelligence feeds from air, ground and sea-based assets -- is limited solely to U.S. force collaborators or requires utilization of high level cross-domain guard solutions, both of which inhibit seamless intelligence sharing between multinational forces.

Lockheed said that operating at multiple locations, including Langley Air Force Base, Va., and Fort Huachuca, Ariz., in an environment replicating that of Afghanistan, the team demonstrated capabilities that managed vast amounts of high-definition video and intelligence data spanning multiple security domains using Lockheed Martin's Trusted Manager data guard.

Employing soon-to-be-fielded, next-generation intelligence sharing technology developed for the DCGS Integration Backbone, the Lockheed team enabled U.S. and "Five Eyes" coalition partners to readily access intelligence data and video from classified and unclassified networks among multinational partners.

Access to operational DIB data is limited to U.S. forces, requiring a cross-domain secure guard to enable U.S. and coalition collaboration. Lockheed Martin's development and employment of the latest generation of DIB technology within the DCGS Enterprise verifies data classification tags against user security credentials before allowing them access to data.

Lockheed said this trusted computing layer enacts authentication and authorization access controls to enable coalition partners to discover and access intelligence via the DIB as it became available using interoperability standards.

Lt. Col. Thomas Tschuor, the U.S. Air Force DCGS Multi-Service Execution Team Office director, was quoted by Lockheed as saying that the upcoming release of the DIB Message Translation Service, deployed at Empire Challenge 2011, demonstrates the sharing and interoperability of new and existing applications and services within the enterprise.

"The next release of the DIB version 3.0 will contain the Message Translation Service and will enable faster and more affordable exposure of intelligence data to the DIB federation at the enterprise level," he said.

Empire Challenge, which ends Friday, is an annual joint and coalition interoperability demonstration that showcases emerging U.S. and multinational intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance solutions that can be fielded rapidly.