How can you ease your APP-11 burden?

SitaWare Maritime helps to expedite and automate your reporting and planning workflows

Managing complex operations and manoeuvres – for standard operations, exercises, and operational deployments – comes with a significant burden to planning staff. Operational staff also have to manage these similar processes, but with much faster turnaround times. Key to many of these processes is the APP-11 Message Text Format (MTF). Manual development and delivery of these messages is time consuming, and in certain operational environments can pull critical technical staff away from tasks where their knowledge is most needed.

For operators in the maritime domain, APP-11 is the default messaging format. Its catalogue of over 400 messages follows a logical and unambiguous structure, delivered in a way that helps to minimise the pressure on bandwidth. As it is constantly re-evaluated and maintained by a standing working group, the requirements of the user community are updated and re-baselined on a regular basis.

Systematic has long supported the APP-11 user community through its IRIS suite of software, enabling users to create, transmit, and receive APP-11 messages and import the data content into their command-and-control (C2) systems. 

However, the length of time it takes to develop and deliver a message can lead to delays in operations and planning. Additionally, manual entry of information into a messaging system can lead to errors caused by incorrect values being entered, such as location coordinates. Realising an error has been made and correcting them costs additional time, which can be a major problem when dealing with life-threatening situations. So how can users work faster and more accurately?

A fully visual suite

SitaWare Maritime provides users with the means to automatically generate APP-11 messages based on the visual tools within the suite. With a fully graphical user interface, users can develop plans and orders using the geo-planning tools, and subsequently turn this into the correctly encoded APP-11 messages created in the correct formats for distribution at the click of a button.

This parsing from the graphical user interface directly into the correct APP-11 message also works the other way around: Users can receive an APP-11 message and directly import and display it in the SitaWare Maritime graphical user interface, without having to manually type in the data (e.g. coordinates, units, dates). This saves additional time and prevents errors.

Improved operational efficiency and awareness

Working in a visual environment also allows for the aggregation of additional data streams to ensure that nothing is left to chance. Synthesising a variety of maritime data, such as planned subsea cable repairs, can help with understanding the risks around surface and subsurface operations. It is in this subsurface space that efficient and accurate planning is essential – a task that SitaWare Maritime can support.

“Water Space Management (WSM) and Prevention of Mutual Interference (PMI) are critical capabilities for the safe coordination of the movements and operations of submarines and other vessels,” said Stig Meyer, Product Manager for SitaWare Maritime.

“That’s why we have paid particular attention to this aspect. Now operators can create a moving haven for the area in which a submarine will operate, and pin that to a pre-planned route. This will automatically calculate the position of the submarine as it travels by calculating the distance and speed.”
“This then becomes visible for all users of SitaWare, informing their situational awareness and allowing them to plan their own movements safely and effectively. It’s an important feature in the software and one that we think our customers will greatly benefit from as a result.”

In creating these movement operational plans for submarine operations, SitaWare Maritime creates the necessary APP-11 messages and adds them to the plan. Being in a recognised format for interoperability, the ability to disseminate the track information to coalition and alliance partners can help with developing a wider Recognised Maritime Picture (RMP), allowing for the smarter disposition of assets for sub-surface operations.