Navy League 2025: US Navy weighs expanded CEC capabilities

Ships with the Ronald Reagan Carrier Strike Group and John C Stennis Carrier Strike Group transit the Philippine Sea during dual-carrier operations. (US Navy)

US Navy (USN) officials are currently working with industry partners to develop a slate of advanced capabilities to integrate into future variants of the sea service's Cooperative Engagement Capability (CEC) system over the next five years.

In January navy officials agreed to a five-year, USD904 million indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity (ID/IQ) deal with Collins Aerospace, locking in the company as the design authority for the next iterations of the CEC.

Integration of active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar systems, as well as advancement of overall sensor and communications capabilities represent “two areas of capability that are in the realm of possible, for future expansion” of the CEC programme, according to Ryan Bunge, vice-president for Global Strategy Mission Systems at Collins Aerospace.

These areas “are not official parts of the programme [but] those are ideas that we would like to explore” in future CEC systems, he told Janes ahead of the Navy League Sea-Air-Space 2025 conference, which started on 7 April.

“As the threat evolves, we [will] continuously evolve the system,” Bunge said, noting that “we do not [yet] have a precise road map from the navy on what [capabilities] that we will look at over the next five years”.

The CEC is the sea service's main sensor networking and data fusion system, designed to funnel targeting data to warships across the USN fleet. Targeting data collected from ship-based radars, identification friend-or-foe (IFF) sensors are then assembled into a common operating picture (COP) for navy combat commanders at the operational and tactical level.