STANAG 7023 air reconnaissance imagery data standard

What it is

STANAG 7023 is the NATO Standardization Agreement covering the air reconnaissance primary imagery data standard: the interoperable data format and transport architecture that lets collection systems and exploitation systems exchange Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) imagery and its auxiliary data. This is Edition 5, promulgated 27 July 2022, superseding Edition 4 of 16 June 2016.

A STANAG is not the specification

A STANAG is the agreement by which NATO nations commit to implement a standard, not the technical specification itself. STANAG 7023's own text is short and administrative: an aim, the agreement to implement AEDP-7023, and the ratification and reporting machinery. The data format and transport architecture that give the STANAG its name are specified in a separate publication, AEDP-7023 Edition A, which the STANAG names as the standard participating nations "agree to implement". Anyone actually building a system to generate or read that format needs AEDP-7023's own text, not this cover agreement.

What AEDP-7023 covers

Primary imagery is normally "raw unexploited imagery, which typically includes lots of low level information about the sensor and the platform", and it "is not normally shared beyond the first exploitation system to receive it, instead being converted into alternative formats for further distribution" - so the standard governs the collection-to-first-exploitation leg, not whatever a system does with the imagery afterward. Within that scope, AEDP-7023 "defines a flexible, self-describing format which includes specification of the data format methodology, the data content, the logical data encoding, the transport architecture and the structure of the data packets". It "can support mixed live streaming of up to 64 different and varied sensors as well as the auxiliary data needed to describe those sensors, the format of the data coming off them, and the properties of the collection platform itself", and it can also "wrap" (encapsulate) other formats within the NATO ISR Interoperability Architecture.

Who it binds, and how

STANAG 7023 binds nations, not suppliers. It is effective "upon receipt for use by the participating nations and NATO bodies", and it becomes binding on a given nation through ratification, which NATO records in the NATO Standardization Document Database (NSDD). Nations implement it "by providing collection systems which generate this format, or by providing exploitation systems which can read and exploit this format" - either half of the interoperability pairing satisfies the agreement. Allied nations and NATO bodies are then obliged to report implementation details through NATO's electronic reporting tool; partner nations are only invited to do the same. A supplier meets STANAG 7023, or the AEDP-7023 format it covers, only where a contract or tender says so - the document itself sets no obligation reaching a supplier directly, and it names no NATO-wide effective date (its own "NATO Effective Date (NED)" field reads "Not applicable").

How it's evaluated

STANAG 7023 describes no certification scheme and no audit. What it describes is nations reporting their ratification and implementation status to NATO for the record; nobody is "STANAG 7023 certified", and the document never uses that language. Whether a fielded collection or exploitation system actually generates or reads conformant AEDP-7023 packets is an interoperability question that a programme, an exercise, or a contract's own quality clause would surface, not something this STANAG assesses.

Standards it references

STANAG 7023 covers AEDP-7023, the Allied publication that carries the actual data format and transport architecture requirements. Its "Other Related Documents" also name STANREC 4777, the NATO Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance Interoperability Architecture, which nations are advised to consider "to support broader interoperability" but which does not bind through this agreement. Reviews of STANAG 7023 itself run under AAP-03.

Standards it references

• STANREC 4777Background