Customer Challenge
Modern artillery consists of increasingly sophisticated and integrated technology platforms. From mortars to howitzers, these GPS-guided systems are designed to deliver pinpoint accuracy at ranges of up to 30 kilometres. Ensuring efficient and accurate fire is critical to guarantee decisive and cost effective results, while minimizing the risks of collateral damage. There is seldom an acceptable margin for error.
As one of the 29 member countries that make up NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization), Canada must integrate its operations with those of its allies. A Canadian contingent on deployment can be called upon at any time to provide artillery support to an allied force or may in kind have the need to call in such support.
Any response must address all the complex mathematical variables that affect the calculation of the ideal firing solution. This poses substantial technical challenges. NATO allies use artillery systems and related software from different suppliers that do not easily communicate with each other. This raises the risk that artillery support will miss the target, be delivered at the wrong time, fail to yield the desired effect and/or cause unacceptable collateral damage.
Approach
ADGA’s multi-disciplinary Weapon Systems Management (WSM) team provides the in-house software engineering capability for the Canadian Army to manage, develop and evolve government- owned software essential to artillery ballistics and fire control software that is interoperable with Canada’s NATO allies.
Since the mid-1980s, ADGA has been a WSM professional services contractor of choice to the Government of Canada. Today, almost 200 ADGA personnel are embedded with the Canadian Army’s Land Software Engineering Centre (LSEC)under the terms of the WSM Contract.
ADGA’s work at the LSEC initially focused on supporting the computerized fire control systems for the Royal Canadian Artillery. As the Canadian Army’s command and control (C2) software has evolved, the LSEC has played a critical role assisting with the integration of the Army’s weapons systems into what is now referred to as the Canadian Army Land Command Support System (LCSS). Over time, the LSEC expanded to include other essential services and tasks and is now subsumed into the WSM Contract. The software development component of the WSM Contract is now referred to as the Defence Software Engineering Facility (DSEF).
Services provided by ADGA encompass:
- Requirements, architecture, system, software, specialty, production, and/or test engineering
- Modelling and simulation
- Prototyping
- Independent verification and validation (IV&V) testing
- Qualification testing
- Systems engineering
- Software engineering
- Software production
- Program management
- Installation and configuration of COTS software
Outcome
In addition, ADGA’s WSM personnel regularly represent Canada by providing technical assistance and field service in trials and tests with NATO allies, both domestically and internationally.
ADGA does not supply the software systems on which its WSM team works. Instead, it works with whatever third-party systems have been procured by Canada’s military from qualified OEMs. This puts ADGA in the unique position of being completely objective, arms-length, and agnostic. The WSM client group can rely on ADGA’s highly capable and security-cleared project management and engineering support experts to be completely unbiased in their development and support work for the LCSS and its adjacent sub-systems and dependencies.
ADGA’s long-standing relationship with the Canadian Army through the WSM contract, its untarnished status as a trusted and unbiased partner, and its consistent service in support of Canada’s NATO obligations, is a testament to the expertise and character of its team. ADGA has the depth of talent and experience to support all in-house software engineering needs for Canada’s security and defence requirements.
