Acronyms & Abbreviations

The following is a list of alphabetical acronyms & abbreviations common to the unmanned systems field.

A

AASLS: Autonomous Analytical Scientific Laboratory at Sea.
ACCS: Army Command and Control System (US)/Air Command and Control System (NATO)
Accel: Acceleration
ACK: Acknowledge
ACM: Airspace Control Means
ACO: Airspace Control Order
ADatP-3: Allied Data Publication – 3
ADS: Automatic Dependent Surveillance
ADT: Air Data Terminal
ADU: Air Defense Unit
AGL: Above Ground Level
AGVT: Advanced Ground Vehicle Technology
AMHC: Autonomous Marine Handling Craft
AMHS: Autonomous Marine Handling System
AMRS: Autonomous Marine Refueling System
AMDN: Autonomous Mine Detection and Neutralization
AMPS: Aviation Mission Planning System
AMPN: Amplification
ANSI: American National Standards Institute
AOA: Angle Of Attack
AOI: Area Of Interest
AP: Allied Publication/Alliance Publication
API: Application Program(ming) Interface
ASCII: American Standard Code for Information Interchange
ASM: Air Space Management
ASV: Advanced Surface Vehicles
ASW: Anti-Submarine Warfare
ATC: Air Traffic Control
ATP: Allied Tactical Publication
ATR: Automatic Target Recognition
ATS: Air Traffic Services
AHRS: Attitude & Heading Reference System
AUB: Autonomous Unmanned Boat
AUV: Autonomous Unmanned Vehicles

B

BDA: Battle Damage Assessment
BER: Bit Error Rate
BIT: Built-in-Test
BITE: Built-in-Test Equipment
BLOS: Beyond Line of Sight
BOM: Bit-Oriented Message

C

C2/C & C: Command and Control
CBIT: Continuous Built-in-Test
CCI: Command & Control Interface
CCISM: Command and Control Interface Specific Module
CDL: Common Data Link
CEN: European Standardization Organization
CEP: Circular Error Probability
CFOV: Centre Field of View
CG: Centre of Gravity
CGS: Common Ground Segment/Common Ground Station/Common Ground System
CIRC: Circular
CJTF: Combined Joint Task Force
COA: Certificate of Authorization. A FAA approval for a UAV flight
COE: Common Operating Environment
CONOPS: Concept of Operations
COP: Common Operational Picture
COTS: Commercial-Off-The-Shelf
CR: Communications Relay
CRD: Common Route Definition
CRT: Cathode Ray Tube
CUCS: Core UAV Control System

D

DC: Direct Current
DCE: Distributed Computing Environment
DCM: Data Link Control Module
DIGEST: Digital Geographic Information Exchange Standard
DII: Defense Information Infrastructure
DII/COE: Defense Information Infrastructure/Common Operating Environment
DL: Data Link
DLI: Data Link Interface
DoD: Department of Defense
DTED: Digital Terrain Elevation Data

E

ECM: Electronic Counter Measures
EFI: Electronic Fuel Injection
EIA: Electronic Industries Association
EIA/IS: EIA Interim Standard
EKF: Extended Kalman Filter
ELINT: Electronic Intelligence
EMCON: Emission Control
EMP: Electromagnetic Pulse
EO: Electro-Optical
EO/IR: Electro Optical/Infrared
EP: External pilot
ERF: Ego-Referenced Frame
ERS: Emergency Recovery System
ESM: Electronic Support Measures
ETA: Estimated Time of Arrival
ETSI: European Telecommunications Standards Institute
EW: Electronic Warfare

F

FASST: Futaba Advanced Spread Spectrum Technology
FHSS: Frequency-Hopping Spread Spectrum
FLIR: Forward Looking Infrared
FOB: Forward Operations Base
FOV: Field of View
FTP File Transfer Protocol

G

GCS: Ground Control Station
GDT: Ground Data Terminal
GMT: Greenwich Mean Time
GMTI: Ground Moving Target Indicator
GNC: Guidance Navigation System
GNSS: Global Navigation Satellite System
GOTS: Government Off-The-Shelf
GPS: Global Positioning System
GUI: Graphical User Interface

H

HALE: High Altitude, Long Endurance
HCI: Human Computer Interface
HF: High Frequency
HIS: Hyperspectral Imagery
HL: Hand Launched
Hz: Hertz, cycles per second

I

I/O: Input/Output
ICAO: International Civil Aviation Organization
ID: Identification
IDD: Interface Design Description/Interface Definition Document
IEA: Information Exchange Agreements
IEC: International Enterprise Committee/International Electro technical Commission
IEEE: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
IER: Information Exchange Requirements
IES: Imagery Exploitation System
IETF: Internet Engineering Task Force
IFF: Identification Friend or Foe
IL: Image Library
iMOC: Integrated Mobile Operational Command
INS: Inertial Navigation System
IP: Internet Protocol/Internal Pilot
IR: Infrared
IRS: Interface Requirements Specifications
ISAR: Inverse Synthetic Aperture Radar
ISDN: Integrated Services Digital Network
ISG: Industry Support Group
ISO: International Organization for Standardization
ISO/CD: Committee Draft of ISO
ISO/DIS: Draft International Standard of ISO
ISR: Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance
ISTAR: Intelligence, Surveillance, Target Acquisition and Reconnaissance
ITAR: International Traffic in Arms Regulations
ITDP: International Technology Demonstration Program
ITU: International Telecommunication Union
ITU-T(SB): International Telecommunications Union – Telecommunications (Standardization Bureau)

J

JAUS: Joint Architecture for Unmanned Systems
JFACC: Joint Force Air Component Commander
JFC: Joint Force Commander
JPEG: Joint Photographic Experts Group
JSH: JASA Standards Handbook
JSWG: JASA Standards Working Group
JTA: Joint Technical Architecture
JTF: Joint Task Force
JTFC: Joint Task Force Commander

L

L&R: Launch and Recovery
L-16: Link-16 (TADIL-J message standard)
LIDAR: Light Detection and Ranging
LAN: Local Area Network
LAS: Laboratory at Sea
LB: Land-Based
LCD: Liquid Crystal Display
LCS: Littoral Combat Ship
LOI: Level of Interoperability
LOS: Line of Sight
LRF: Laser Range Finder

M

MAC: Medium Access Control
MAV: Micro Air Vehicle
MGRS: Military Grid Reference System
MHC: Marine Handling Craft
MHS: Marine Handling System
MIJI: Meaconing, Intrusion, Jamming, and Interference
MIL: Military
MIL-STD: Military Standard
MIME: Multipurpose Internet Mail Extension
MIN: Minimum
MIO: Maritime Interdiction Operations Support
MMP: Modular Mission Payload
MMS: Manufacturing Messaging Specification
MOA: Memorandum of Agreement
MOC: Mobile Operational Command
MOTS: Military Off-The-Shelf
MOU: Memorandum of Understanding
MP: Mission Planning/Mission Planner
MPO: Mission Planning Operator/Mission /Payload Operator
MPS: Meters per second
MR: Marine Robotics
MSE: Mobile Subscriber Equipment
MSI: Multi-Spectral Imagery
MSK: Minimum Shift Keying
MSL: Mean Sea Level
MTF: Message Text Formats
MTI: Moving Target Indicator

N

NATO: North Atlantic Treaty Organization
NBC: Nuclear, Biological and Chemical
NIR: Near Infrared
NITF: National Imagery Transmission Format
NITF: National Imagery Transmission Format Standard
NIST: National Institute of Standards and Technology
NNAG: NATO Naval Armaments Group
NOSIP: NATO Open System Interconnection Profile
NOTS: NATO Off-The-Shelf
NRT: Non-Real Time
NSA: NATO Standardization Agency
NSE: Non Standard Equipment
NSIF: NATO Secondary Imagery Format
NSIL: NATO Standard Image Library
NSILI: NATO Standard Image Library Interface
NSR: NATO Staff Requirements
NSW: Naval Special Warfare
NTF: Network File Server
NTIS: NATO Technical Interoperability Standards
NTSC: National Transmission Standards Committee
NUMS: Network of Unmanned Systems

O

OARS: Operator-Aided Autonomous Recovery Systems
OAS: Obstacle Avoidance Software
OCU: Operator Control Unit
OPFOR: Opposing Force
OPS: Operations
OSE: Open System Environment
OSI: Open System Interconnection (model)
OTH: Over The Horizon
OTH-T: Over The Horizon – Targeting

P

PDU: Power Distribution Unit
PG/35: Project Group 35
PTO: Power Take-Off
PMU: Power Management Unit
PO: Payload Operator
Pyld: Payload

R

Rad: Radians
RAID: Redundant Array of Inexpensive/Independent Disks
RECCEXRE: Reconnaissance Exploitation Report
RF: Radio Frequency
RFC: Request for Comment
RMMV: Remote Multi-Mission Vehicle
ROS: Relief on Station/Rules of Safety
RP: Route Plan
RPAS: Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems
Rpt: Report
RT: Real Time
RTP: Real Time Protocol/ Real Time Processor
Rx: Receive

S

SA: Situational Awareness
SALUTE: Size, Activity, Location, Unit, Time, Equipment
SAR: Synthetic Aperture Radar/Search And Rescue
SATCOM: Satellite Communications
SB: Sea-based
SEC: Seconds
SED: Signal External Descriptor
SIGINT: Signals Intelligence
SINCGARS: Single Channel Ground and Airborne Radio System
SMPTE: Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers
SMTP: Simple Mail Transfer Protocol
SNR: Signal to Noise Ratio
SOF: Special Operations Forces Support
ST: Specialist Team
STANAG: (NATO) Standardization Agreement
SUW: Surface Warfare

T

TBD: To Be Defined
TCDL: Tactical Common Data Link
TCP/IP: Transfer Control Protocol/Internet Protocol
TCU: Tactical Control Unit
Tgt: Target
TX: Transmit

U

UAASLS: Unmanned Autonomous Analytical Scientific Laboratory at Sea
UAS: Unmanned Aircraft Systems
UAV: Unmanned Aerial Vehicle/Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle
UB: Unified Build
UCAV: Unmanned/ Uninhabited Combat Aerial Vehicle
UDP: User Datagram Protocol
UES: UAV Exploitation System
UGV: Unmanned Ground Vehicle
USV: Unmanned Surface Vehicles
USSV: Unmanned Sea Surface Vehicles
UHF: Ultra High Frequency
UI: User Interface
UJTL: Universal Joint Task List
UPS: Uninterruptible Power Supply
URL: Uniform Resource Locator
USIS: United States Imagery Standards
USMTF: United States Message Text Formatting
UTC: Universal Time Coordinated
UTM: Universal Transverse Mercator
UUV: Unmanned Underwater Vehicle

V

VCR: Video Cassette Recorder
VDL: VHF Data Link
VDU: Visual Display Unit
VHF: Very High Frequency
VISP: Video Imagery Standards Profile
VMAP: Vector Map
VMF: Variable Message Format
VNIR: Visible Near Infrared
VSM: Vehicle Specific Module
VTOL: Vertical Take-Off and Landing

W

WAN: Wide Area Network
WAS: Wide Area Subsystem
WGS-84: World Geodetic System – 84
WIMP: Windows, Icons, Mouse and Pull-down/pop-up (menus)
WP: Waypoint
WRF: World-Referenced Frame

X

XML: Extended Mark-up Language