TISR 2-2 (March 2012)

Actionable Intelligence for the Warfighter

U.S. Army PEO Aviation

Aviation Advocate Maj. Gen. William T. Crosby

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Program Executive Officer U.S. Army Program Executive Office, Aviation Electronic Warfare C4ISR Plug Fest

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March 2012

Volume 2, Issue 2

Manned ISR Systems

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Unmanned VTOL

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Tactical ISR Technology

March 2012 Volume 2 • Issue 2

Features

Cover / Q&A Unmanned Aircraft: Going Straight Up Vertical take and landing UAS offer key operational advantages.

Vertical take-off systems require less equipment and groundbased infrastructure for launch and recovery—so that alone is a huge benefit.

By Hank Hogan

6

C4ISR Plug Fest

10

A plug fest is an industry best practice for demonstrating IT interoperability across a particular enterprise—in this case, ISR. A community of practice defines its plug as the suite of open standards necessary to configure and interactively operate a particular offering within the target architecture.

By Chris Gunderson and Eric Westreich

17 Major General William T. Crosby Program Executive Officer U.S. Army Program Executive Office, Aviation

U.S. Army PEO Aviation

20

An illustrative look at the organization and structure of the U.S. Army Program Executive Officer, Aviation.

Departments 2 Editor’s Perspective

Manned Systems

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Unmanned intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance platforms have received a great deal of attention in recent years.

But the U.S. also operates a fleet of manned ISR platforms, which have performed missions every bit as important and significant as their unmanned cohorts.

By Peter Buxbaum

The Electronic Evolution Without bullets and explosions, electronic warfare can still dominate a battlefield, but the technology chase is a never-ending circle of staying ahead of the adversary.

By J.B. Bissell

3 Army Unmanned

Aircraft Systems

4 All Int/People

14 ISR Kit 27 Calendar, Directory

Industry Interview

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28 William Kasting

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Vice President and General Manager ATK Defense Electronic Systems

Tactical ISR Technology

Volume 2, Issue 2

March 2012

Actionable Intelligence for the Warfighter Editorial Editor-in-Chief Jeff McKaughan jeffm@kmimediagroup.com Managing Editor Harrison Donnelly harrisond@kmimediagroup.com Online Editorial Manager Laura Davis laurad@kmimediagroup.com Copy Editor Laural Hobbes lauralh@kmimediagroup.com Correspondents Adam Baddeley • Peter Buxbaum • J.B. Bissell Henry Canaday • Hank Hogan

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Publisher Kirk Brown kirkb@kmimediagroup.com Chief Executive Officer Jack Kerrigan jack@kmimediagroup.com Chief Financial Officer Constance Kerrigan connik@kmimediagroup.com Executive Vice President David Leaf davidl@kmimediagroup.com Editor-In-Chief Jeff McKaughan jeffm@kmimediagroup.com Controller Gigi Castro gcastro@kmimediagroup.com Administrative Assistant Casandra Jones casandraj@kmimediagroup.com Trade Show Coordinator Holly Foster hollyf@kmimediagroup.com

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EDITOR’S PERSPECTIVE Admiral William H. McRaven, commander of U.S. Special Operations Command, recently testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee.

His 22 pages of opening remarks set a solid foundation of where the command is as one of the combatant commands—and lead in the global war on terror—but also addressed the command and how it is looking out for its own, not just on the battlefield but back at home and the transition periods in between.

Few commands have had their people deployed to harsh areas as frequently as those within the service’s special operations commands.

Jeffrey D. McKaughan As his remarks flowed from the mission and people, he turned to the Editor-IN-CHIEF equipment and gear that helps get special operations forces where they need to go, know what they need to know, fight the way they need to fight, and get done what must get done. In particular he mentioned the Distributed Common Ground/Surface System (DCGS-SOF), describing it as evolutionary while enabling SOF ISR data to be more discoverable and allowing external information to be more accessible. Funding for this particular project was around $5.2 million in fiscal year 2011. FY13 should see funding top $12.7 million, with the program peaking in FY14 at almost $18 million.

The DCGS-SOF program is a network-enabled, interoperable construct allowing continual, unimpeded sharing of intelligence data, information and services with and between the services, other national intelligence agencies, combatant commands and multi-national partners in support of a joint task force. It connects the SOF warfighter with essential intelligence information and provides situational awareness information to SOF leadership at all echelons. The FY13 funding should allow the acquisition of two capital equipment replacement Silent Dagger mission sets, full motion video infrastructure, DCGS-SOF Enterprise Infrastructure, 75 deployable DCGS-SOF all-source analyst kits and new equipment training.

McRaven also focused on the acquisition of a mix of manned and unmanned airborne ISR systems and—perhaps more importantly—the processing, exploitation and dissemination capabilities to turn the raw data into actionable intelligence for the warfighter.

As always, please feel free to contact me with any comments about TISR or the community.

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ARMY UNMANNED AIRCRAFT SYSTEMS

Army Ground Based Sense and Avoid Enables unmanned aircraft flight in the national airspace.

By Mary Ottman Current overseas contingency operations will eventually come to an end and the thousands of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) currently supporting combat operations will transition back home with the owning military units. This impending transition points to a colossal need for UAS access to the national airspace (NAS) in order for the operators to train and remain technically and tactically proficient. This point, along with the groundswell of interest among other government and non-government agencies to employ unmanned aircraft in the NAS creates the need for a hastened development of Army ground based sense and avoid (GBSAA) technology.

On April 27, 2011, the Army’s Unmanned Systems Airspace Integration Concepts Product Directorate, the Office of the Secretary of Defense lead for GBSAA, conducted the first-ever unmanned aircraft flight within the National Airspace System utilizing an FAA approved GBSAA prototype system. USAIC, a directorate within the Army’s Project Manager, Unmanned Aircraft Systems (PM UAS) office, teamed with Gray Eagle operations to conduct the historic flights at El Mirage, Calif. In order to accelerate development and fielding timelines for GBSAA, the Army has relocated GBSAA test activities from El Mirage to Dugway Proving Ground (DPG), Utah.

The Army’s GBSAA testbed at DPG currently employs live feed radar systems, with plans to install two three-dimensional radars this summer. DPG provides the opportunity to test GBSAA system components during live as well as simulated flights, thus speeding the development of system hardware and software, as well as demonstrate and support development and interoperability of common GBSAA requirements across the services. Since DPG is located within restricted airspace, GBSAA testing will not require FAA oversight, although USAIC continues to coordinate GBSAA across the services and with the FAA. In addition to moving test efforts from El Mirage to DPG, the Army has improved capabilities from the GBSAA prototype system at El Mirage, which was called the “Phase 1” system.

Currently, the Army plans to field a “Phase 1 Lateral Transit” system to five stateside Gray Eagle installations in fiscal year 2013 through fiscal year 2015. The prototype system at El Mirage allowed the Gray Eagle to perform traffic pattern operations in the terminal area, whereas the Phase 1 Lateral Transit GBSAA system will allow the Gray Eagle to conduct these traffic pattern operations along with allowing for transit from a terminal area to restricted airspace through a designated tunnel www.TISR-kmi.com

in the NAS. Thus, the Phase 1 Lateral Transit GBSAA system allows for increased capability and NAS access over the Phase 1 system.

Army goals include ensuring that GBSAA systems can be made available in the near term and be built with open-systems architecture so that operational capability is easily expanded through engineering upgrades. Accelerating the fielding timeline for GBSAA enables a PM UAS priority of fielding Gray Eagle units to stateside Army installations. Gray Eagle unmanned aircraft will require access to the NAS to transit from Army airfields into restricted airspace for training operations.

In January 2012, the Army hosted the GBSAA Advisory Panel meeting, at which time invitation was extended to all other services to participate in a technology engineering demonstration scheduled for the summer of 2012. The DPG testbed plug-and-play open architecture will be utilized to connect GBSAA components from the Army, Marine Corps and the Air Force, calling for each respective service to provide respective GBSAA prototype system components. This would allow these tri-service pieces to be tested simultaneously in this engineering-level demonstration.

An Army priority includes the qualification of sense and avoid (SAA) systems. Currently, there are no standards or regulations in place to support the qualification of an SAA system.

The Army is working with the FAA and the Aviation Engineering Directorate that serves as the Army Airworthiness Authority, as well as the other services, to determine a robust, repeatable process for qualifying GBSAA systems and associated software.

PM UAS is currently in the early planning stages for the 2014 Manned Unmanned System Integration Capability II exercise and early plans include the GBSAA Phase 1 Lateral Transit capability using the target platforms Gray Eagle, Hunter and Shadow. The intent of exercising GBSAA with multiple platforms is to demonstrate the cross-platform potential of the GBSAA system as currently implemented.

Through GBSAA system development and testing along with overarching process development and tri-service coordination for qualification of SAA systems, the Army continues to lean forward to provide a near-term GBSAA capability allowing for increased testing, training and mission readiness for all our servicemembers. O Mary Ottman is the deputy director, Army Unmanned Systems Airspace Integration Concepts Directorate.

TISR 2.2 | 3

ALL INT

Compiled by KMI Media Group staff

Acquiring UAS Capabilities Lockheed Martin has announced the acquisition of Procerus Technologies, a company specializing in autopilot and other avionics for micro unmanned aerial systems.

“This acquisition is consistent with our focus on acquiring capabilities that enhance our product portfolio and align with our customers’ strategic priorities,” said Bob Stevens, Lockheed Martin chairman and CEO. “Small unmanned aerial vehicles are low-cost, highly effective tools for our military, and the expertise Procerus brings will enhance the value we offer to our customers.”

Among Procerus’ key technologies is the Kestrel autopilot system, the smallest and lightest full-featured micro autopilot system on the market—ideal for surveillance and reconnaissance applications.

“Our purpose is to bring innovative and meaningful technologies to this critical capability for the military and future customers,” said Todd Titensor, chief executive officer, Procerus Technologies. “Becoming a part of Lockheed Martin will allow us to advance these goals and accelerate our ability to reach them more quickly.”

Lockheed Martin Mission Systems and Sensors (MS2) will manage the Procerus business. MS2, based in Washington, D.C., is part of the corporation’s Electronic Systems business area and has experience within this area with its Desert Hawk, Persistent Threat Detection System aerostats, K-MAX unmanned helicopter system and high altitude airship programs.

Improving Situational Awareness Intelligent Software Solutions (ISS) has been awarded three task orders totaling nearly $120 million by the U.S. Air Force Research Labs to support a number of U.S. government customers with data integration, analysis and reporting software aimed at improving situational awareness.

These projects will provide the software tools and services that allow users to aggregate, process, analyze and visualize large amounts of intelligence information from multiple and often disconnected sources.

“The appetite for enterprisewide analytical tools continues to grow. More and more organizations have unwieldy amounts of data and are in desperate need of software and services to process and analyze that

data,” said Carl Houghton, vice president, strategic initiatives, ISS. “Through the use of our WebTAS software, we provide the Air Force with a low-cost, highly effective data analysis solution that can be used across multiple organizations, providing a critical cost savings during a time of severe budget constraints.”

The WebTAS-TK contract encompasses over 100 projects for 70 different user communities. Associated projects range from efforts supporting advanced research and the development of machine learning and complex event processing to the development and deployment of state-of-the-art command and control applications, as well as intelligence analysis tools.

FOB Protection The U.S. Army has precisely engaged targets using the Raytheon Griffin B missile as part of a test to protect forward operating bases (FOBs) and small combat outposts.

“Griffin enables ground forces to protect their locations by precisely engaging targets in a 360-degree radius,” said Harry Schulte, vice president of Raytheon Missile Systems’ air warfare systems product line.

“Griffin gives warfighters a combat-proven capability that is ready today, fully developed and in production.”

During the test, warfighters fired a Griffin missile from a launcher at a static target more than 2.5 miles away. Using GPS coordinates generated by a tethered aerostat, the missile directly impacted the target, achieving all test objectives.

PEOPLE Air Force Brigadier General Thomas W. Bergeson has been nominated for appointment to the rank of major general. Bergeson is currently serving as the senior defense official and defense attache, United Kingdom, Defense Intelligence Agency, London, England.

Air Force Brigadier General Dwyer L. Dennis has been nominated for appointment to the rank of major general. Dennis is currently serving as the director, intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and requirements, Headquarters Air Force Materiel

4 | TISR 2.2

Compiled by KMI Media Group staff

Command, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio.

Brigadier General Jeffrey R. McDaniels, deputy director of operations, deputy chief of staff for operations, plans and requirements, Headquarters U.S. Air Force, Pentagon, Washington, D.C., has been assigned to deputy director for operations, National Joint Operations and Intelligence Center, Operations Team One, J-3, Joint Staff, Pentagon, Washington, D.C. Air Force Brigadier General Robert M. Haire has been

nominated to the rank of major general and for assignment as mobilization assistant to the deputy chief of staff for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, Headquarters U.S. Air Force, Pentagon, Washington, D.C. Rear Admiral (lower half) Michael W. Hewitt will be assigned as deputy director, Special Programs Cross Functional Team, Joint Staff, Washington, D.C. Hewitt is currently serving as commander, Patrol and Reconnaissance Group, Norfolk, Va.

Army Brigadier General Robert P. Ashley Jr. has been nominated for appointment to the rank of major general. Ashley is currently serving as deputy chief of staff, intelligence, International Security Assistance Force, Operation Enduring Freedom, Afghanistan.

Army Brigadier General Harold J. Greene has been nominated for appointment to the rank of major general. Greene is currently serving as program executive officer, intelligence, electronic warfare, and sensors, Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md.

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MetaVR’s customers use its real-time visual systems to create tactical ISR training scenarios that tie together JTAC, UAV, and ground attack simulations.

Use MetaVR’s visual systems and geospecific terrain for your next distributed full mission exercise.

With MetaVR visuals used for JTAC, F-16 and A-10 FMTs, and UAV camera payload simulations, users can achieve full terrain correlation during their distributed training exercises. JTAC trainees and UAV operators can use the simulated sensor payload imagery in existing ISR assets.

Real-time scenes from MetaVR’s visualization system and 3D terrain are unedited except as required for printing.

The real-time rendering of the 3D virtual world in all images is generated by MetaVR Virtual Reality Scene Generator™ (VRSG™). 3D models and animations are from MetaVR’s 3D content libraries. © 2012 MetaVR, Inc. All rights reserved.

MetaVR, Virtual Reality Scene Generator, VRSG, the phrase “Geospecific simulation with game quality graphics”, and the MetaVR logo are trademarks of MetaVR, Inc.

http://www.metavr.com sales@metavr.com US 617-739-2667

Unmanned Aircraft: Going Straight Up

By Hank Hogan TISR Correspondent For Captain Patrick Smith, the U.S. Navy’s program manager for the Fire Scout, bigger may be better. It’s not that he has seen any issues during the system design and development of the unmanned vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) Fire Scout, or MQ-8B. Instead, the need to go bigger is rooted in the nature of tactical ISR. Collecting information, performing surveillance and doing reconnaissance require an aircraft to be on station, which is easier with a larger airframe for a variety of reasons.

“We’re able to put on a larger load of jet fuel and stay on station longer, which means that from a single small deck platform, whether it be a frigate, a littoral combat ship or anything like that, we’re not having to impose as huge of a burden on our flight deck crews. On top of that, we’re also providing a much more continuous ISR capability,” Smith said.

As this example illustrates, unmanned VTOLs face a number of demands. The goal is for the platforms to stay on station 6 | TISR 2.2

longer and interoperate with and extend the capabilities of manned craft or ground-based units. Vendors are responding to these needs by going bigger, going smaller, or embracing new technologies.

Going Big In the case of the Fire Scout, the Navy is looking for a heftier successor to MQ-8B, which is based on the Schweitzer 333 light commercial helicopter. The current Fire Scout has performed well while accumulating more than 4,000 flight hours (some 2,500 hours accrued during deployments), some of it on three frigates and some during a year-long expeditionary deployment in Afghanistan.

It has a lift capacity of 600 pounds, up to eight hours of continuous station coverage, carries both visible and infrared sensors, and its software allows it to take off and land on the www.TISR-kmi.com

deck of any air-capable ship at sea.

The Fire Scout also has narrowband and wideband communication. The latter enables data rates of more than 10 megabits per second down a common data link, said Mike Fuqua, business development director for the unmanned systems program at Fire Scout prime contractor Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems of San Mike Fuqua Diego.

Northrop Grumman has already created a demonstrator of an upgraded aircraft. It’s based on the Bell Helicopter 407, which is much closer to a full-sized light naval utility helicopter and has the advantage of over 3 million hours of flight time. Leveraging an existing airframe made economic sense and allowed the company to relatively quickly produce the new platform.

“We could take our architecture and port it in to this aircraft and create a much more capable—twice the endurance, three times the payload—kind of aircraft,” Fuqua said.

Meanwhile, the Army is studying capabilities and developing concepts for potential future VTOLs. Retired Lieutenant Colonel Glenn Rizzi, a senior adviser to TRADOC Capability Manager, Unmanned Aircraft Systems, noted that ideally this class of unmanned VTOLs would be able to carry outsize or otherwise heavy reconnaissance and surveillance payloads. This has implications for their size and capabilities.

“A VTOL UAS optimized to support intelligence operations should have long endurance, and for a helicopter we would like to see 12 hours at a minimum as well as up to 1,500 pounds of multiintelligence sensors,” Rizzi said.

One contender seeking to be the Army’s large unmanned sysPhil Hoole tem comes from Chicago-based Boeing. The company’s A160T has a max payload of 2,500 pounds and an endurance goal of more than 20 hours, having already flown continuously for 18.7 hours. With a rotor diameter of 36 feet, it’s not a small aircraft. It can tailor its blade speed to flight conditions to significantly improve engine efficiency, but this technique is not applicable to all aircraft.

“The optimum speed rotor is best suited for systems designed and built from the start as unmanned rotorcraft,” said Rick Lemaster, Boeing’s director of unmanned airborne systems.

If all goes as planned, the A160T will be evaluated this summer by the Army in an ISR capability in Afghanistan. Three of the aircraft will be deployed, each equipped to fly the ARGUS wide-area surveillance sensor suite.

Not all vendors think that going bigger is necessary. For example, Vienna-based Schiebel Group makes the Camcopter S-100. This unmanned aircraft can carry a payload a quarter of its weight, or 50 kilograms (110 pounds) and more than 120 are in the field, said Phil Hoole, sales and business www.TISR-kmi.com

Boeing hopes to have three of its A160Ts evaluated in Afghanistan this summer in an ISR role. Perhaps the heavyweight in the arena, the platform can stay aloft for more than 18 hours with a target of 20 hours in the works.

[Photo courtesy of Boeing]

Datron World Communications’ Scout quad-rotor is backpackable and stable in harsh weather conditions. [Photo courtesy of Datron World Communications]

development manager. The Camcopter has proven popular with the military worldwide, in part because extensive software development has made flying the system and integrating it into a tactical situation easier.

The unmanned VTOL can stay airborne for up to 10 hours with the use of an additional fuel tank. It can carry the normal complement of sensors, which is not surprising since it was designed and built as a platform for reconnaissance and monitoring. Hoole pointed to its flexible and modular payload design, lift capacity and data link capabilities as being important. They allow the aircraft’s mission to be extended through the incorporation of new sensors.

“We can go and integrate it and put it where you want it to get the information you need,” Hoole said.

And Small While larger VTOLs can increase endurance by getting bigger, that avenue isn’t open to small unmanned systems.

Therefore, many of them are solving the problem by not flying at all. Instead of hovering at a spot and consuming fuel or stored power, they land and then survey an area, a tactic known as perch-and-stare.

An example of this can be seen in the Shrike VTOL being developed by AeroVironment of Monrovia, Calif. The company says it supplies 85 percent of the Defense Department’s unmanned systems. Many of these are fixed wing aircraft that can be carried in a backpack and launched by soldiers in the field.

An advantage of the VTOL approach is that retrieving and reusing these systems is easier because they can operate safely in tight spaces, something that fixed wing aircraft may struggle with. By perching, unmanned VTOLs can extend mission time TISR 2.2 | 7

significantly, said Shrike VTOL program manager Jeff Rodrian.

While the exact increase depends on a number of factors, conserving energy in this way allows endurance to be much greater than the 40-minute flight time of the 5.5-pound Shrike VTOL. That airborne time, as well as the aircraft’s speed and payload, depends to a large degree on the batteries that power it. Here AeroVironment has an advantage, because the other part of its business is focused on electric vehicles, which also depend critically upon battery technology.

Christopher Barter Rodrian sees Shrike VTOL as being useful in urban environments, where ISR may be needed but it may not be possible to place a sensor where desired. “You could use Shrike VTOL to position that sensor, conduct your mission, and return the asset back and do that multiple times with a high degree of success,” he said.

Another small unmanned VTOL comes from Aurora Flight Sciences Wayne Morse of Manassas, Va. Its 2-pound Skate, which is on its second genera- wayne.morse@adflightsystems.com tion, transitions from vertical to horizontal flight by adjusting independent articulated motor pods. The company recently won an Air Force contract for further research and development of the aircraft, said Carl Schaefer Jr., director of small UAS programs.

In an urban setting, the Skate can attach itself to a wire and transmit video back. This particular type of perch will allow the aircraft to live off the land, electrically speaking.

“It has the ability to recharge its batteries using a parasitic recharging system. We’re looking at both conductive and inductive systems for this capability,” Schaefer said.

The Scout from Datron World Communications of Vista, Calif., weighs only 3 pounds, allowing it to be carried in a backpack. It can be assembled without tools in a few minutes by a trained operator, said Christopher Barter, program manager.

Like others in its class, it can perch and stare, enabling hours of surveillance.

One of the aircraft’s touted advantages is its ability to handle turbulent air, rain and other harsh flying environments.

That was evident during trials done in the United Kingdom during less than ideal conditions.

“We actually blew ourselves away when we flew in steady 65-kilometer winds and we actually had gusts of 85 kilometers,” Barter said.

Innovations Finally, there are some unmanned VTOLs that take a significantly different tack in attempting to meet desired performance goals. One comes from a small five-employee startup, American Dynamics Flight Systems of Jessup, Md. 8 | TISR 2.2

Schiebel Group has more than 120 of its Camcopter S-100 in the field.

Carrying a payload of about 110 pounds and an endurance of about 10 hours, the platform is designed for extended surveillance.

[Photo courtesy of Schiebel Group]

President and CEO Wayne Morse said that the company’s 2,800-pound AD-150 could be designed by a small firm because of the advent of powerful computers and computational fluid dynamics software. The two allowed the company to dramatically reduce the hours of expensive wind tunnel time needed while designing a tilt-duct propulsion system that enables vertical takeoff and landing. For high speed flight, the ducts can be rotated horizontally.

With scale model wind tunnel work done, the next step is to build a full-scale propulsion system, followed by a prototype and full scale testing. Flight testing should come in the summer of 2013 and then the benefits of the approach will be clear, Morse predicted.

“We feel that the AD-150 brings the best of the helicopter, the vertical takeoff, and combines it with the high speed of an aircraft,” he said.

He added that he expects to team up with a prime contractor for mass manufacturing of the unmanned platform. That production will take place in a few years.

Similar ducted fan technology, but on a smaller scale, is at the heart of the vaguely insect-looking T-Hawk from Honeywell Aerospace of Phoenix. The 17.5-pound craft can stay aloft for 50 minutes. Its unusual design was driven by a need to meet lift and operator safety requirements in a tactical environment, said Prabha Gopinath, director of unmanned aerial systems.

Calculations showed that hitting the lift targets using a standard helicopter would have led to a 9-foot rotor, far too large for field use. Going to a ducted fan improved efficiency and eliminated that problem. It also had the benefit of enclosing rotating parts, making everything safer for warfighters deploying the system.

The platform has flown extensively in both Iraq and Afghanistan. It was also used near Fukushima after the tsunami and subsequent nuclear disaster. The outcome was so successful that Honeywell now has a contract to equip the T-Hawk with radiological sensors. However, Gopinath noted that getting to that point required some quick thinking and on-the-spot action, much as others might do when confronted with an ISR challenge.

As he said, “We got there and realized that just looking at stuff wasn’t going to help. We really needed to monitor radiation levels. This is field expediency. We just duct taped and zip tied a bunch of stuff onto the platform.” O For more information, contact Editor-in-Chief Jeff McKaughan at jeffm@kmimediagroup.com or search our online archives for related stories at www.tisr-kmi.com.

www.TISR-kmi.com

DATRON SCOUT

altitude = 500m max op-time= 20+ minutes

max range = 3km weight = 1.3kg

payloads: 5MP Camera 10X Optical Zoom FLIR thermal sensor

tip-to-tip = 80cm

height = 20cm

10X Optical Zoom

base width = 45cm

BY ALL MEASURES, THIS COULD BE YOUR GUARDIAN ANGEL. time of day with the Datron Scout. Vertical take-off, THE DATRON SCOUT is a lightweight, quad-rotor Micro Air Vehicle designed to provide on-demand “hover and stare”, and silent operation ensure that intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. Effectively your team will never again enter a situation blind.

See the Datron Scout in action at www.dtwc.com. enhance the ISR element of any mission, anywhere, at any

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Agile ISR system acquisition as an asymmetric weapon.

By Chris Gunderson and Eric Westreich

A plug fest is an industry best practice for demonstrating IT interoperability across a particular enterprise. A community of practice defines its plug as the suite of open standards necessary to configure and interactively operate a particular offering within the target architecture. Event sponsors provide use cases, software development kits, incentives and terms of competition. Participants gather in the same live or virtual lab and tweak their offerings against the plug and the use cases. The objective is to demonstrate how the offering interoperates with other components in the enterprise to clearly add value. Typically, judges from the customer community choose the winner of a competition. However, the real value to the participants is expanding the art of the possible (and market share along with it) within the chosen enterprise.

The defense community has pursued the vision of netcentric enterprise for a decade and a half. From an operational perspective, the objective is to excel at brokering and processing data across globally distributed nodes and thereby achieve information dominance. From an engineering and acquisition perspective, the supporting objective is to continuously harvest rapidly evolving commercial IT. The net-centric concept is inherently horizontal; that is, various distinct, semiautonomous domains of an enterprise invest in and share the same distributed, interoperable information infrastructure. In this case, interoperable applies to both build time and run time. In build time, new shrinkwrapped IT components simply plug in out of the box. In run time, the IT components function effectively with each other to create, discover and deliver valued information in time to support critical decisions.

The defense technical community has pursued this netcentric vision via attempts to adopt commercial best practices; that is, open, modular COTS IT paradigms such as enterprise architecture, service-oriented architecture, open source software, Agile apps stores, and, recently, the cloud. After all, these paradigms appear to be central to the success of innumerable commercial enterprises that excel at both horizontal networkenabled information management and the rapid, adaptive evolution of technology. Yet the defense IT acquisition process has famously failed to realize the potential of those approaches (as in the National Defense Authorization Act [NDAA] section 804 for fiscal year 2010).

A growing school of thought concludes that the reason for the lack of defense enterprise success is a lack of appreciation for the underlying business pragmatics that allow horizontal approaches to succeed in industry. The inherit nobility of the cause for national defense does not exempt the business of national defense from the basic truth that you get what you pay for.

Modular open enterprises, such as Amazon, Travelocity and the Apple App Store, don’t succeed simply because someone 10 | TISR 2.2

dictates compliance with policy and standard sets. Rather, ITenabled enterprises scale up successfully because a clear value proposition, supported by a credible business model, makes it obvious to all the members of the ecosystem why complying with enterprise standards and policies is worth the cost.

Namely, interoperable enterprise infrastructure offers a channel to profitably sell and consume interoperable products and services.

Defense enterprise business models (i.e., acquisition strategies) do not generally account for the value propositions associated with the desired net-centric outcomes. Indeed, defense acquisition strategies remain overwhelmingly vertical. That is, defense procurement budgets and associated solicitations are tightly coupled to stovepipe system solutions. Acquisitions of so-called enterprise services are managed within these budget stovepipes.

Further, the defense acquisition process makes compliance with standards and policies an objective in and of itself. Defense acquisition practice includes the serial delivery of multiple expensive static compliance documents and certifications, each of which takes a contractor many months to prepare. All these documents are delivered before the first increment of capability is delivered to the customer. In successful commercial enterprises, standards compliance is only a boundary condition. For example, the best practice is to use workflow management tools to automatically generate Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 compliance documents as a by-product of commerce.

Commercial certifications come in the form of logos; that is, seals of approval, which make goods and services more marketable. In IT markets, these logos typically describe compliance with effective processes (e.g., e-file, App Store, Amazon) rather than evaluation of a specific offering.

Issues with acquisition strategy notwithstanding, commercial enterprises, like Apple et al., do not need to address requirements like those posed by the most demanding military use cases. Mainstream COTS IT client/server paradigms common to a web-enabled industry are no doubt widely applicable across the defense enterprise. However, the latencies, bandwidth requirements and security issues associated with COTS client/server technology stacks have not been shown to satisfy the most stringent net-centric tactical edge applications. In particular, managing real-time, sensor-to-shooter information processing and decision support across disconnected, interrupted and low-bandwidth networks requires levels of assurance not yet available from COTS client/server paradigms.

The headquarters Marine Corps Marine Corps ISR Enterprise (MCISR-E) initiative is pragmatically addressing the gaps between the defense IT acquisition goals and achievements described above. As stated, some gaps are technical, such as the lack of a high-assurance, data-centric, distributed IT infrastructure. Other gaps exist in military acquisition process and www.TISR-kmi.com

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culture, such as the lack of acquisition strategies appropriate for harnessing rapidly evolving commercial IT. Accordingly, MCISR-E will work with like-minded government organizations and COTS industry to design modular open system approaches (MOSA). In this case MOSA includes not only well-specified open standards, but also value propositions and business models (i.e., acquisition strategies) that will align the COTS industry with defense netcentric objectives.

With that in mind, MCISR-E aims to lower barriers to entry for COTS vendors by: • Working continuously with COTS vendors—as peers rather than at arm’s length—to capture evolving COTS standards and successful processes and translate them pragmatically into up-to-date, enforceable specifications for C4ISR common computing environments (CCE) • Providing SDKs for high-assurance, pre-approved, lightweight, real-time, virtual security components • Providing open access to military operational subject matter experts and use cases • Developing methods to certify and offer IT products and services as easily procured, pre-approved components of a particular C4ISR CCE • Streamlining solicitation and source selection by objectively and succinctly specifying desired outcomes, budgets, and short timelines The Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association government industry Plug Fest Consortium (PFC) is an informal, good-faith effort to begin this work. In this case, the conceptual plug is the reference architecture for the MCISR-E CCE described above. This reference architecture will comply with, and inform the evolution of, Defense Intelligence Information Enterprise (DI2E), unmanned aerial vehicle common segment (UCS), and Multiple Independent Layer of Security standards.

Members of the PFC will use their COTS offerings to instantiate the MCISR-E CCE stack. The plug fest stack will include network transport, data-centric publish-subscribe software infrastructure, enterprise SOA middleware, and a geospatially enabled application development framework. It will include government-furnished components for security and information interoperability. Vendors will team with operational SMEs to demonstrate the interoperability and added value by their off-the-shelf offerings or ability to mash up those offerings on the fly.

Demonstrations will occur within a richly instrumented Open Standard Test Framework (OSTF). The OSTF includes plug-andplay test tools and simulations services to thoroughly and flexibly evaluate components and systems under test against test cases of interest.

Plug Fest demonstrations use cases are developed through close collaboration between military experts and systems engineers. Use cases include the following elements: • Scenarios: vignettes that describe military objectives within context of geopolitical factors and force structures • Mission threads: detailed sequences of events associated with particular missions and desired outcomes • Legacy architecture: technical descriptions of relevant existing communications transport, computer hardware and software, sensors and vehicles 12 | TISR 2.2

• Target architecture: Reference models (per model driven architecture) of modular open system approaches such as DI2E, UCS, and HAP. • Test cases: Objective measures of effectiveness, provided by operational customers, mathematically coupled to critical system-level and process-level measures of performance; live, virtual and constructive simulations of scenarios, mission threads and architectures • Software development kits: Government off the shelf (GOTS) software and documentation designed to assist developers to configure their offerings in the plug fest environment Beyond merely demonstrating capability, the plug fest process will mature to actually certify COTS and GOTS offerings. Approved products lists (APL) are a well-established means to reduce bureaucracy and accelerate deployment of COTS products, including some IT hardware. For example, the Unified Cross Domain Management Office and the National Institute of Standard Technology provide lists of pre-certified security devices. Likewise, the Defense Information System Agency maintains an APL of radios that are pre-certified for interoperability. Streamlined contract vehicles (such as indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity) reduce bureaucratic overhead for providers and consumers of pre-approved products.

By design, plug fest offerings must demonstrate their ability to inherit security and interoperability from the baseline GFE embedded, real-time, infrastructure. A rigorous test and documentation of that ability to inherit security and interoperability—agreed by appropriate authorities—will constitute “certification.” Hence, the reward for successfully demonstrated OTS offerings is the direct channel to market offered by inclusion in government APL and associated low barrier contract vehicles.

Eventually the plug fest process will evolve into a persistent, distributed, online development, test and certification (DT&C) capability. Research sponsors, program managers and prime contractors can use the persistent DT&C capability to transition evolving technology directly to the field—and simultaneously to the systems under development—via certified useful, secure and sustainable components.

In other words, the PFC finally addresses the fundamental gap between the government’s stated desires ands its ability to actually achieve its netcentric vision. Namely, the PFC provides a venue for evolving the value propositions and credible business models necessary to harvest rapidly evolving COTS IT within the boundary conditions of the Federal Acquisition Regulations.

At this writing, the PFC includes commercial companies AT&T, BAE Systems, Booz Allen Hamilton, Esri, ETCorp, IBM, ManTech, Raytheon and Teledyne Solutions. On the government side, Headquarters Marine Corps Intelligence Department, Joint Interoperability Test Command, Naval Postgraduate School, Multi-agency Collaborative Environment and the Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence are participating or providing guidance. O Chris Gunderson is a member of the research faculty of the Naval Postgraduate School Cebrowski Institute on a special project sponsored by the Joint Interoperability Test Command to help the DoD improve its IT acquisition processes.

For more information, contact Editor-in-Chief Jeff McKaughan at jeffm@kmimediagroup.com or search our online archives for related stories at www.tisr-kmi.com.

www.TISR-kmi.com

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ISR KIT JLENS Raytheon Company’s Joint Land Attack Cruise Missile Defense Elevated Netted Sensor System ( JLENS) recently completed Demonstration Test 1 (DT-1), proving its ability to track targets and integrate with fire control and tactical data link systems.

A series of demonstration tests were conducted at the Utah Training and Test Range from early November to mid-December 2011. The test included tracking moving ground and surface water targets.

“The month-long DT-1 demonstrated JLENS’ maturity to track low-flying cruise missile surrogates, unmanned aerial vehicles, fighter aircraft and moving surface targets, and to integrate with air and missile defense systems,” said David Gulla, vice president of global integrated sensors at Raytheon’s Integrated Defense Systems business.

“In addition to detecting and tracking targets, the system demonstrated its ability to communicate targeting data over command and control systems, such as Link-16, and interface with combat identification support systems, such as IFF [Identify Friend or Foe], to discriminate between friendly and hostile aircraft and missiles,” said Mark Rose, program director for JLENS with Raytheon Integrated Defense Systems.

Providing a joint service capability, the JLENS system consists of two tethered 74-meter aerostats. One aerostat elevates a surveillance radar to 10,000 feet, providing 360-degree coverage for hundreds of miles over land and sea. The other aerostat elevates a fire-control radar. Each of the aerostat platforms has the capability to integrate other communications and sensor systems.

Visualization for Situational Awareness Luciad, a developer of high-performance visualization for situational awareness applications, has introduced its latest offering, LuciadLightspeed. LuciadLightspeed brings situational awareness into a new era and opens opportunities for a whole new spectrum of advanced situational awareness applications.

The application provides software components and functionalities that enable data fusion, visualization and analysis of geospatial information. This can include static and moving data, maps, satellite imagery and terrain elevation in many different formats and references. LuciadLightspeed enables the development of sustainable applications—applications that are easier, and thus lower cost, to maintain, and applications that can be evolved in a cost-effective manner.

“The performance combined with the clean design of LuciadLightspeed enables us to build applications that meet our current and future requirements,” commented Tim Wagner, head of intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance at Cassidian Germany. “The focus on relevant domains, the fast development and the re-usability of components across multiple projects and applications, are a major asset for any project team.”

EO/IR Sustainment The Army Product Manager Robotic and Unmanned Sensors has issued a request for information and is conducting market research to determine the status of sustainment capabilities for electro-optic/infrared (EO/IR) sensors to support airborne platforms, including aerostats, unmanned aerial systems and manned aircraft. In particular, they are interested in maintenance, repair, transportation and training capabilities for EO/IR sensors, to include L-3 Wescam sensor systems in the MX series (e.g., MX-15 and MX-20 sensor systems). They are interested in approaches, facilities, resources, contractual relationships and other capabilities that may contribute to improved value to the government in the sustainment of EO/IR sensor systems.

The support shall include the sustainment and repair of systems at

14 | TISR 2.2

the depot level and the forward deployed intermediate level. Depot level capabilities must also include rebuild/refurbishment of sensors damaged during shipment, crashes or battle damage.

Support capabilities must be tailorable to a range of system operational availability levels. Approaches must also address a flexible capability supporting an expanding fleet of EO/IR sensors with multiple sensor or platform configurations and in locations around the world.

Through the RFI, the PM is also interested in the capability to produce EO/IR sensors, in either of two classes (mid-size or large-size), with minimum performance as outlined below, in support of either replacing sensors at end-of-life or new operational requirements.

Tossable ISR ReconRobotics Inc. has been awarded a $13.9 million contract for 1,100 Recon Scout XT micro-robot kits from the U.S. Army Contracting Command on behalf of the U.S. Army Rapid Equipping Force. This is the largest order in the company’s history and, in terms of the number of units, it is also the largest microrobot order ever issued by the U.S. Army. In addition, the company announced two accessory orders totaling nearly $1 million from the Rapid Equipping Force.

“We are honored that the U.S. Army has once again chosen our Recon Scout XT system for their dismounted troops,” said Ernest Langdon, director of military programs for ReconRobotics. “Although these 1.2-pound robots are exceptionally small, they will play a big role in providing our warfighters with increased situational awareness and standoff distance as they conduct operations in active combat theaters.”

Over the last six months, the company has received U.S. military orders for 1,800 Recon Scout XT kits. In addition, more than 350 law enforcement agencies use the device.

www.TISR-kmi.com

Compiled by KMI Media Group staff

Unlimited Computational Relay Opportunities Naval Surface Warfare Center Panama City Division (NSWC PCD) scientists and engineers have designed and developed an Adaptive Force Package Mobile Test Bed (AFPMTB), complete with an aerostat, to reduce testing and training costs for expeditionary warfighters. The combined technologies of the AFPMTB meet the Secretary of Defense’s call to deliver rapidly deployable, agile, adaptable capabilities that are inexpensive, innovative and technologically advanced.

Presently located on the Gulf of Mexico in Panama City, Fla., the AFTBMP includes a rapidly elevated aerostat platform (REAP) XL B system, one of only three in the world, and NSWC PCD has the only one in the United States.

The REAP XL B system includes an expeditionary and modular aerostat that inflates quickly and offers an innovative means to deliver over-the-horizon command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities to warfighters.

The system also includes a small modular platform from which the aerostat and its payload is rapidly deployed, automatically inflated, and elevated to 500 feet in 10 minutes. Once deployed, the aerostat is capable of surviving wind gusts of 45 miles per hour due to the Kevlar tether with double Kevlar braid and 2,000-pound winch. Aerostat deflation and recovery time from 500 feet is only 12 minutes.

“Aerostat supports the future warfighter’s needs for platform independent warfare capability packages,” said Mike Grunden, MPIL Systems Engineer (Code A32), NSWC PCD. “AFPMTB allows emerging war fighting capabilities to be tested in a mobile laboratory-type environment.”

“The Army is using the REAP XL B now. NSWC PCD initially will use it to extend the communications range to unmanned vehicles to control them from shore.” said Jay Doane, C3 senior systems engineer, (Code A30M), NSWC PCD. “Operating unmanned vehicles from shore instead of loading two 20-foot containers with C4 equipment on a ship and operating from sea will reduce testing and training costs.”

Article by Jacqui Barker, Naval Surface Warfare Center Panama City Division.

STUAS to the Marines Insitu Inc. has delivered and flown one of two Integrator unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) that will provide the U.S. Marine Corps an early operational capability for the small tactical unmanned aircraft system (STUAS) program.

“The Integrator system delivery at Twentynine Palms, just less than a year-and-a-half post-contract award, is a reflection of our commitment to STUAS and our commitment to the U.S. Marine Corps,” said Insitu senior vice president of Integrator programs Bill Clark. “We continue to be grateful for the opportunity to support the warfighter with cost-effective and ever-increasing ISR capability.”

The Marines are acquiring the first system through a government-owned, contractor-operated business arrangement. The Marines will own the system at Twentynine Palms while Insitu field service representatives, who have accumulated more than

www.TISR-kmi.com

575,000 combat flight hours with the ScanEagle UAS, will operate and maintain it.

“The Marine Corps was in a position to take advantage of the Early Operational Capability [EOC] of the Insitu Integrator UAS that was demonstrated during our initial operational assessment at Yuma Proving Grounds in January and February 2011,” said Colonel James Rector, U.S. Marine Corps, PMA-263 program manager. “This EOC system at Twentynine Palms will optimize the pre-deployment training and exercises for the Marines prior to their arrival in OEF or any other AOR. We also have the additional benefit of being able to capture flight/system data, reliability, maintainability and availability data, feeding that knowledge quickly back into the development of RQ-21A small tactical unmanned aircraft system program of record. Along with providing our Marines the optimal training prior to deployment, this will reduce risk on the STUAS program.”

TISR 2.2 | 15

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Aviation Advocate

Q& A

Executing the Mission as Planned and Adapting to the New Budget Major General William T. Crosby Program Executive Officer U.S. Army Program Executive Office, Aviation Major General William T. (Tim) Crosby assumed duties as the Program Executive Officer, Aviation on December 12, 2008.

Crosby entered the Army as a field artillery officer after graduating from The Citadel in 1979 and was assigned to the 24th Infantry Division serving as fire support team chief, battalion fire direction officer, special weapons officer and battery executive officer.

Following this assignment, Crosby entered flight school at Fort Rucker, Ala., where he was awarded his aviator wings in May of 1982. Upon completion of flight school, he attended the CH-47 transition and was assigned to the 205th Aviation Company in Mainz Finthen, West Germany, where he served in successive positions as flight platoon leader, executive officer and operations officer.

Crosby then returned to Fort Rucker to attend the Aviation Officer Advanced Course, was awarded a research and development functional area, and was assigned to the U.S. Army Aviation Development Test Activity in January of 1986 conducting developmental flight testing on CH-47, UH-60 and fixed-wing aircraft.

In February of 1990, Crosby returned to Europe to command the VIIth Corps CH-47 unit and deployed his unit to Southwest Asia to participate in Operations Desert Shield and Storm. He commanded the unit for just under two years followed by an assignment as a battalion executive officer. Following staff college, Crosby was assigned to PMO Comanche in 1993, where he held the positions of logistics management officer, assistant program manager (APM) for training and simulation, APM for MANPRINT, and APM for test and evaluation.

Crosby left Comanche in June of 1996 to serve as a weapons system program evaluator in the J8 Directorate of the Office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. After a two year tour on the Joint Staff, he was assigned to serve as the first product manager for the Improved Cargo Helicopter Program, now known as the CH-47F. Crosby attended the Air War College at Maxwell Air Force Base and earned a Masters Degree in international and strategic studies. While at War College, he was selected for promotion to colonel and was selected to be the project manager for the Army’s Cargo Helicopter Program.

He completed his tour of duty as the Army’s cargo helicopter project manager and conducted a change of charter on August 24, 2006. He was immediately reassigned as the interim project manager for the newly formed Armed Scout Helicopter Program Office on August 25, 2006 and remained in that position until the command slated Armed Scout Helicopter Project Manager www.TISR-kmi.com

arrived on October 17, 2006. He then served as the PM Reset charged with integrating the effort to preset and reset the aircraft going to and returning from combat deployment. In May 2007, Crosby became the Deputy Program Executive Officer, Aviation.

He was promoted to the rank of major general in February 2011.

Q: Looking at your budget, what areas of your budget are most under stress, and do you expect that to be the same in FY13?

A: What I think about it and what I tell folks is that our nation’s in trouble financially, and there’s a lot of other things—I’m not a politician, I’m a soldier, but as a soldier we have to take part in and take responsibility for the bills we incur for our country.

We understand we have to take an appetite suppressant. What we won’t do is allow a soldier in combat to do without anything—we owe them that. No matter what sacrifice we have to make here, that warrior on the pointy end of the sword deserves everything that they need. So my focus and number one priority is taking care of them and making sure the ones that are deployed have everything they need.

Secondly, I’ve got to look at the business aspects. As part of my responsibilities as a PEO is the industrial base of this country, so I’m concerned about the budget cuts. We can almost TISR 2.2 | 17

spite ourselves here where we cut the budget back so much that it stops all procurement and guess what—all those things that we’re buying, now the industrial base that is active goes inactive because we stopped buying. What we’re seeking is a balance that makes things affordable but also keeps our technology base strong and our workforce strong, so that if we have to call them in the event of a national emergency, we still have a busy industrial base to call on.

Having said all that, you asked your specific question: Where are the areas that are most stressed? In order to maintain our production rights, we’re going to accept some risk with some of our modifications and obsolescence issues. We’re going to deal with those the best we can, working very diligently with my partners that do sustainment in Army Materiel Command [AMC] and Army Aviation and Missile Life Cycle Management Command, with Major General Jim Rogers—he’s my partner in this. In order to keep our production rates and our industrial base strong, we may have to slow down on some of the modifications that we had planned. So I think where you’ll see us focusing is in making those trades and trying to find that balance.

Q: In addition to ensuring that the warfighter has everything they need, what are your other high level priorities? What is your mission statement, what’s your commander’s guidance for the PEO during these next 12-14 months?

A: It sounds mundane, but [our priority is to] execute as planned.

We plan everything because everything we do has to have a milestone. Everything is based on technology readiness levels, so we’ve got everything planned out to a point.

What we’re doing now is adapting our current strategies, because we’re not getting all the resources we had planned for, which as I said is expected. We had a very strong modernization plan for Army aviation. We’re slowing some things down a little bit, but what we have to do as we adapt that is make sure that the impact to the soldier is minimal—if at all.

My simple answer is in the next 12 months execute as planned, adapt to the budget realignments the best we can, but again maintain that open line to the deployed soldier.

Q: Let’s talk about the Kiowa—it’s a mainstay of the rotary wing for the Army. What are the major elements of the upgrades, where do those upgrades and modifications stand, and how will you make that a better platform as a scout and data collection tool? Is there a timeline that goes with all that?

A: With the Kiowa, we almost shoot ourselves in the foot a little bit. That is such a great platform, and we’ve got it so maxed out as we’ve evolved it over the years. I’m trying to convince the leadership and Congress that I need to do something with this aircraft or I need a new aircraft, but at the same time, the Kiowa is flying the highest OPTEMPO of any aircraft we have and maintaining the highest readiness rate. So the guys across the street are saying, ‘What are you whining about?’ But what I try to explain to them is that it’s being done by our wonderful soldiers. They’re able to do that because they’re just that good. But you and I both know that you can have the best truck in the world, you can drive and drive it and you can maintain it, but at some point the old thing’s going to get tired and need some work.

18 | TISR 2.2

So what we’re immediately doing is what we call CASUP, the cockpit and sensor upgrade, and I call it a Band-Aid. All it does is deal with the obsolescence issues we are having, because the technology turns over so fast now, we have a hard time maintaining a supply base for a lot of the parts. So this CASUP is a cockpit and sensor upgrade—it does nothing to extend the service life of the aircraft. It upgrades the cockpit, it upgrades the sensor, and it takes the sensor off the mast and puts it down on the nose.

In that, you get some increased performance in some of these systems, but they’re not done as a performance upgrade, they’re done as an obsolescence upgrade. That’s what is planned in the immediate near term as we continue to standardize the fleet into one configuration, and CASUP will get us to the F model configuration.

I spent three years of my life in the Comanche program and have heard people say, ‘Oh yeah, Comanche, that was a waste of money.’ I’ve got to tell you, that was the most amazing helicopter ever built, but we kept adding stuff to it. We kept it on a budget rollercoaster where the cost just kept going up—for a lot of reasons, nobody to blame; I’m not pointing fingers at anybody, it was dealing with reality and trying to get the best thing for the soldier, but at some point, the Army finally stepped up and said, ‘We’ve taken risks in too many other areas for so long, we’ve got to let this go.’ That was a tough decision. I was the test guy on first flight, and it was amazing. I didn’t want to let it go, but I was also part of the people making the recommendation that it was time to cut her loose.

After that hard decision, the plan was to buy something quick, which led us to the armed reconnaissance helicopter. We were moving fast because we wanted to get something out there for the warfighter. We were moving fast, perhaps a little too fast, and the costs started to escalate. Again, one of our big jobs is that we’re stewards of the taxpayers’ dollars. We pay taxes just like everybody else and we decided that ‘We’re going to pay too much for this thing for what it’s worth; we need to stop.’ So we did, and that left us nothing but the CASUP. I tell you that as background information, just to baseline it and say what are we going to do? We looked to the future and decided to do an Analysis of Alternatives [AOA] and see how we would get to that next capability—the armed aerial scout [AAS] requirement. The AoA basically came back and said the only way to meet all of those requirements is to do a new-start helicopter.

With our vision of how old most of these systems are, you don’t see me buying anything new except UAS. Most of our systems are remanufactures. We’re trying to look out to the future and see our new capability.

In the budget environment we’re in, there’s no way we’re going to be able to look to a new capability for the future for the entire fleet, plus do a new-start armed aerial scout right now.

So in conjunction with our branch chief, Major General Tony Crutchfield, we’ve developed a strategy that says we’re going to take risk in the scout area and we’re going to focus on that new future vertical lift capability down the road, with an aimpoint of 2030.

Now that’s just the long-range version. What does that mean we do in the near term and in the scout that we’re accepting risk on today? Well, we looked out and determined we can’t get to the 100 percent requirement. There are a lot of capabilities out there, we have a lot of good vendors that have pumped out some good www.TISR-kmi.com

aircraft—and they tell us they can get pretty close. To look at that we have proposed a demonstration to see how close we can get to that Armed Aerial Scout requirement.

Our path forward with the AAS does not involve a fly-off, but rather a demonstration which will enable us to make an informed decision on a path ahead and to find a materiel solution to replace the current fleet of our aging OH-58D Kiowa Warrior helicopters.

The AAS demo will clearly define whether we execute a service life extension program [SLEP] of the OH-58 aircraft, consistent with what we have done to the other platforms, or if we pursue an alternative material solution option that represents a medium risk program with achievable and affordable requirements within the current and future fiscal environment.

The bottom line is that we’re going to do this demonstration which will allow us to make an informed decision as to whether we do a service life extension of the Kiowa or we try and get to that 80 percent solution of an off-the-shelf commercial airplane that we can qualify and put into the system. The funding is in place, awaiting approval to execute the demonstration from the Defense Acquisition Executive.

Q: You talked about an 80 percent solution—did the analysis of alternatives identify what that 100 percent level was, and now you know the 80 percent you would want? Has that been identified as well?

A: What we have told them, and nothing is official at this point as we haven’t put out the RFI to go that next step, is that the baseline would be a SLEP of the Kiowa. The armed aerial scout is the top. The AOA said there’s nothing out there today that will get there. We want to find out where we are in between there. If someone is going to come play in the demo, you need to be confident at least that you’re better than the current Kiowa, and we want to see how far we can get. It may be that we find out that a 50 percent solution. I can’t tell you what that 50 percent would be—is that more high hot or is that more endurance. It’s going to be a balance of those requirements—but that 50 percent, if that’s worth the investment, if we can do that for just a little bit more than what a service life extension program calls for, then my customer may come back and say that is worth the investment. Or they may say that’s not a lot better than what I’ve got right now and I need that other money and don’t want to disrupt these other programs, so SLEP is the way to go.

Q: Let’s talk about the Apache and interfacing with UASs right now. What are the next steps in progressing the MUSIC [Manned/Unmanned Systems Integration Capability] program?

Can those same processes and methods be applied to the Kiowa, the Blackhawk and the other platforms that you have?

A: We started out with a requirement for the Apache to have manned-unmanned teaming capabilities, the first version of which was called VUIT 2. This system evolved into what we now call MUMT-2. This modified system allows the Apache pilot not just the receipt of UAS video and other sensor information but also the ability to control the actual UAS flight path and the payload of the UAS from the cockpit of the Apache. Unbelievable capability when you start talking about how you’re going to employ that in theater. www.TISR-kmi.com

Now there’s a migration path to get that, [which we are implementing]. In parallel, we are putting manned-unmanned teaming capability into the Kiowa because again, that joint scout attack team with that reconnaissance asset there together is just a game changer.

To go into your next question about if we’re going to put it into the Blackhawk and the Chinook, we don’t have a requirement for that yet. I only spend money on things that I have documented requirements for. My customer has not said to go do that yet.

However, I will say that we all see benefit in having that kind of capability. Envision a UAS being out in front of a medevac that’s going out to pick up a wounded warrior and knowing and being able to see that landing zone before they get there. We see the potential benefit of this, but it’s kind of ‘crawl-walk-run.’

We want to be sure that our focus today is on RSTA—reconnaissance, surveillance, target and acquisition—and we will grow it to those other systems as we mature them. What I’m saying is, I can’t tell you the Army is going to tell me that, but I can tell you we all see the benefit and I would foresee a day where we would grow it into those other systems because of the potential benefits.

But I don’t have the tasker to go do it yet.

Q: From an ISR collection perspective and what rotary wing Army aviation has been able to provide to the warfighter, are there any lessons learned or any takeaways that you can share with us?

A: Well, I think the biggest thing is that I’ll pat my team on the back who have been on the UAS team, the Apache and scout team.

This manned/unmanned teaming originated from the guys in theater, from the concepts and ideas they were putting out. We matured them, tested them and put them back in their hands. The One System Remote Video Terminal [OSRVT] that we’ve fielded is a laptop that allows them to actually feed that video right into there.

ISR, when you speak from a collection perspective, is more focused on intelligence. So we’re a little bit more focused on the tactical. I think about that young platoon leader, that young infantryman sitting out there looking around the corner, trying to figure it out, and they have a UAS feed to them on an OSRVT that can look and see what’s around that corner, and it gives them the situational awareness they need to make those conscious decisions.

We’ve been focusing on being very adaptive throughout this war, including how we go after new systems, the way we team these systems and the way they interoperate with each. I think there are some great lessons learned. We’ve adapted TTPs—our tactics, techniques and procedures—on the fly. We’ve documented and captured those, and I’ve been fortunate to have watched them do it based on the things they’ve asked us for technologically, that we’ve provided back in their hands and watched them adapt and use them. It’s been mind-boggling to see how responsive and how adaptive these kids are.

Q: I’d like to turn to a fixed wing asset right now and talk about the EMARSS [Enhanced Medium Altitude Reconnaissance and Surveillance System] program. First of all, if and when this program comes to be, will it come to Army PEO Aviation? Will it be one of the platforms that you are responsible for?

TISR 2.2 | 19

headquarters

Maj. Gen. Tim Crosby PEO

AVIATION SYSTEMS PROJECT OFFICE

Col. Anthony Potts Project Manager

Mr. Rod Bellows DPM (Acting)

Lt. Col. Steve Ansley Product Manager Aviation Ground Support Equipment

Col. Shane Openshaw Project Manager

Lt. Col. Mike Rutkowski Product Manager Air Traffic Control

Lt. Col. James Kennedy Product Manager Common Systems Integration

Lt. Col. Jeff Johnson Product Manager Longbow Apache

Lt. Col. Dan Bailey Product Manager Apache Block III

ARMED SCOUT HELICOPTER PROJECT MANAGEMENT OFFICE

Lt. Col. Scott Anderson Product Manager Ground Maneuver

Lt. Col. Kevin Messer Product Manager Medium Altitude Endurance

Mr. Rich Tyler Deputy Project Manager

Lt. Col. Steve Van Riper Product Manager Apache Sensors

Lt. Col. James Bamburg Product Manager Aviation Mission Equipment

Mr. Richard Kretzschmar Deputy Project Manager

Mr. Randy Harkins Chief of Staff

APACHE PROJECT OFFICE

UAS PROJECT OFFICE

Col. Tim Baxter Project Manager

Mr. Rusty Weiger DPEO

Lt. Col. Matthew Munster Product Manager UAS Modernization

Mr. Cliff Brandt Product Manager SUAS

Col. Robert Grigsby Project Manager Armed Scout Helicopter

Mr. Mike Herbst Deputy Project Manager Armed Scout Helicopter

Lt. Col. Courtney Cote Product Manager Armed Recon Helicopter

Lt. Col. Matt Hannah Product Manager Kiowa Warrior

Ms. Marsha Jeffers APEO, Administration

Mr. Layne Merritt APEO, Engr & Tech

Mr. John Mull APEO, Business Management

Mr. Terry Carlson APEO, IMO

Mr. John Beck APEO, Life Cycle Management

NSRWA PROJECT OFFICE

CARGO HELICOPTERS

Col. Bert Vergez Project Manager

Mr. Kelvin Nunn Deputy Project Manager

Col. Bob Marion Project Manager

Mr. David Pinckley Product Director Mi-17

Lt. Col. Shawn Powell Product Director Scout/Attack & Cargo/ Utility

Lt. Col. J. Hoecherl Product Manager CH-47 Modernization

Mr. Brian Sabourin Deputy Project Manager Fixed Wing

Lt. Col. Jong Lee Product Manager Fixed Wing

Mr. Jeff Langhout Deputy Project Manager

Mr. S. Thompson Fleet Management

Lt. Col. B. Killen Product Manager CH-47F

Mr. T. Neupert Sustainment

UTILITY HELICOPTERS PROJECT OFFICE

FIXED WING AIRCRAFT

Col. Brian Tachias Project Manager Fixed Wing

Mr. Dennis Williamson APEO, Operations

Col. Thomas Todd III Project Manager Utility Helicopters

Mr. Greg Gore Deputy Project Manager Utility Helicopters

Lt. Col. William D. Jackson Product Manager UH-60 Modernization

Lt. Col. Dave Bristol Product Manager LUH

Lt. Col. Heyward Wright Product Manager, H-60 A/L/M

Mr. Bob Sheibley Product Director Common Engine

A: It will, and as you say, the big question is: Will it survive? I don’t know.

If it does, there was recently a memorandum that Ms. Shyu [Heidi Shyu, Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics and Technology] signed where she aligned programs, and we try to parallel our warfighters and our customers that we support. This alignment of the Fixed Wing under PEO Aviation, some are seeing as a land grab or a power grab, and that is certainly not what it was ever intended to be. What we were trying to do is consolidate the magnitude of work required to acquire, field, sustain, and modernize the Army’s fixed wing aircraft. It is necessary to ensure that all Army aircraft operate under the same standards of airworthiness and standardize all of the components on those aircraft.

That’s not a criticism of any of the other PMs that have been managing and doing these things; they’re all doing great things trying to support the warfighter. But Ms. Shyu and our current Vice Chief of Staff of the Army looked at it and said, ‘Those are all sensors and systems that are plugged on an aircraft. Who is the guru for aircraft?’ and that happens to be PEO Aviation. So while we will manage the platform, Brigadier General Harry Greene, the PEO for IEW&S, is the guru for sensors. I don’t want to develop his sensors; he’s going to develop them and provide them to us to integrate them, and then together we’re jointly going to sustain that system and support the warfighter.

But, the sensor he develops has got to support that ISR collection we talked about earlier. So the consolidation of those systems was not trying to re-establish or duplicate what someone else is doing. It was mainly to provide a one-stop shop and a focal point, if you will, for the airworthiness of the systems; because no matter what system elements you change and add to that platform, someone’s got to make sure that airworthiness is there.

I do that in conjunction with my partner Major General Jim Rogers, who is the airworthiness authority for the Army, and I’m the material developer and safety/risk assessment guy.

That memo went a little further than a lot of folks expected.

It wasn’t just fixed wing, it was anything not tethered to the

ground will eventually migrate to us. So if LEMV [long endurance multi-intelligence vehicle] ever comes to a program, it will do the same, and we’re poised to do that and prepared to accept this. We’ve had a couple guys in their office for some time, working with them.

It’s the right thing to do, and leadership has decided it and we’ll salute and move out. Our challenge now is to make sure the customers on both sides of the street, the warfighter and the concept developer, are both satisfied with the support that we’re giving.

Q: Any closing thoughts about the people and the mission and the equipment that you all work on, and all of PEO Aviation?

A: I have the best job in the Army. The workforce that we have here—the team that we have, our partners from AMC and our partners in industry—is a soldier-focused team that is just unparalleled. We’ve got folks from different organizations and industry living inside of our PM shops, helping us manage these programs and all focused on taking care of that soldier, with the secondary priorities of the industrial base and sustainment and all of those things. It is a great organization and I’m just pleased to be here.

We’ve got some challenges with resources as they come to the future here; what we’ve got to do as things slow down is to make sure that we apply lessons learned from both Iraq and Afghanistan. We didn’t do that as well when we came out of Desert Shield and Desert Storm. The Army had a program back then that called STIR [special technical inspection and repair], which was basically what we call reset now, but we need to make sure we take that reset and apply the lessons learned of what we saw in theater back to our fleets here at home. Those are kind of the challenges and the tasks that we look at, but we’ve got a team here that’s unbelievable. We butt heads from time to time— everybody does—but I would call that little bit of friction healthy, because one of my mottos is ‘If everybody’s thinking alike, ain’t nobody thinking.’ O

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Manned Systems T . here are good reasons to have a man in the loop

By Peter Buxbaum, TISR Correspondent missions, according to Hirschman. “Teaming up manned and Unmanned intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance platunmanned system works well in theater,” he said. “But there will forms have received a great deal of attention in recent years, thanks always be a need for a man in the loop, in my opinion.” to the explosion of their usage by the U.S. military in “Until someone comes up with a processor as quick Southwest Asia. But the U.S. also operates a fleet of as the human brain, there will always be a need for manned ISR platforms, which have performed mismanned systems,” said Steve Koenig, the Washington sions every bit as important and significant as their field representative of Commuter Air Technology Inc. unmanned cohorts. and a retired Army colonel. “The situational awareness Despite advances in unmanned aerial technology, of a man in a cockpit, his communications connections the importance of the manned platforms remains with ground forces, the view of the terrain with his undiminished and will likely remain so for some time own eyes, his recollections of previous missions and to come. Manned platforms have a number of advanoperations, his ability to synthesize all that data in an tages over unmanned vehicles. Perhaps surprisingly, instant, and his ability to respond to a request to change they can be less extensive to operate. Having a man in Patrick Sullivan the mission can’t be replicated by a machine. A human the loop provides operational advantages as well as a human perspective on situational awareness. Manned pnmisullivan@cessna.textron.com in the loop provides flexibility and adaptiveness that a machine cannot provide.” platforms are also better at carrying multi-intelligence Manned aircraft can also move from one target to payloads. the next with greater rate. “The man-machine interface In many scenarios, manned and unmanned ISR allows the mission to be performed in a thinking manplatforms are teamed up on missions in places like ner,” said Koenig. “If a guy on the ground asks to look Afghanistan. That approach is likely to persist in future at something in a certain way, a crewmember may sugmissions and conflicts. gest a better way based on his prior experience.”

There is a common misconception about the cost Task Force ODIN (observe, detect, identify and advantages of unmanned systems because of their lack neutralize) is a successful manned ISR program that of an onboard crew. “Crewmembers are expensive,” was activated in both the Iraq and Afghanistan theaters. acknowledged Colonel Keith Hirschman, project manCommuter Air, which provides aircraft modification ager for the Airborne Reconnaissance and Exploitation Col. Keith Hirschman and systems integration services for ISR platforms, Systems (ARES). “But with unmanned systems, you among other things, also provides civilian contract still have a guy sitting hundreds or thousands of miles personnel and aircraft to support Task Force ODIN-A. away flying the vehicle and another guy operating the The task force was inaugurated in Iraq in 2007 with the payload.” Looking at total system costs equalizes the mission of providing ISR to U.S. Army commanders to playing field between the manned and unmanned sysbetter detect and act against insurgent forces. It has tems. “You can’t just compare air frame to air frame,” also been used in conjunction with Project Liberty, an said Hirschman. “A Shadow UAV platoon has four Air Force effort begun in 2009. aircraft plus a watcher and a ground control station.

“Task Force ODIN-I provided the Army with a full When you do the math you start to realize that the cost motion video capability in support of tactical operaof flight time is relatively the same.” tions,” said Koenig. “As the threat changed, the Army “It’s actually cheaper to go with manned than needed more than just a camera, so they came with a unmanned systems for comparable capability,” accordWaldo Carmona new requirement for a multi-int aircraft.” ing to Patrick Sullivan, vice president for government Developing multi-int capabilities is, to a large sales at Cessna Aircraft Company. Unmanned systems waldo.f.carmona@boeing.com extent, the focus of Hirschman’s work at ARES. “ARES are called for when there is danger to the crew from is a more a basket or a portfolio than a program,” he hostile fire or a toxic environment, or if the mission is said. “It is a bunch of stuff that includes everything too long for human endurance. “Otherwise it’s always from legacy systems to quick reaction capabilities to less expensive to go with manned aircraft than with a future programs of record. What ties it all together is UAV with all of its infrastructure,” he said. a single face to the customer and the ability to take “The unmanned system provides the advantage of multi-int feeds and give them to the customer directly longer endurance and the ability to loiter over an area and coherently.” and monitor activity,” said Waldo Carmona, director, ARES customers include Army exploitation battalnetworked tactical ISR at the Boeing Company. “But ions as well as the troops on the ground. “We consider we have always looked at manned and unmanned both to be in our distribution chain,” said Hirschman. platforms as synergistic capabilities for the warfighter.”

Steve Koenig The ISR systems that come under the ARES In fact, the teaming of manned and unmanned ISR systems is often how the platforms are used on steve.koenig@commuterair.com umbrella include specialized systems designed to www.TISR-kmi.com

TISR 2.2 | 23

provide point solutions to specific warfighter needs to more integrated multi-int platforms. Developmental systems that ARES is working on focus on integrated, modular multi-int platforms standardized on a limited number of air frames for the easy swap-out of payloads.

ARES legacy systems include programs of record like Guardrail, a signals intelligence platform, and Airborne Reconnaissance Low (ARL), the Army’s first foray into airborne multi-int. “Guardrail is a fantastic sigint system that has been in the inventory for a long time,” said Hirschman. “ARL is a small fleet of eight aircraft that provides sigint, as well as full motion video and radar images.” ARL has been used since the 1980s when it had its genesis during counterterror and counter narcotics operations in Central and South America.

ARES’ quick reaction capabilities (QRCs) include niche capabilities such as the Constant Hawk wide-area surveillance system and light detection and radar (LiDAR) gathering capabilities, as well as integrated systems such as the Medium Altitude Reconnaissance Surveillance System (MARSS), which combines signal intelligence and full motion video. MARSS was used in Task Force ODIN-A. QRCs are not programs of record but represent limited time investments that respond to niche requirements in theater, and are often fielded within weeks or months. ARES is working to support Army decisions on which QRCs will eventually transition to permanent programs of record.

Constant Hawk is an Army QRC that delivers persistent wide-area surveillance high resolution day and night imagery. It also provides ground commanders with the ability for forensic back-tracking of areas of interests to trace the origin of a threat to its source.

“Constant Hawk has done a lot of flying over areas building products that support pattern of life analyses,” said Hirschman.

The LiDAR QRC conducts overflights by the U.S. Army in Afghanistan and, previously, Iraq, to collect LiDAR data. LiDAR uses 1.064-nanometer wavelength laser light pulses to gauge distances by measuring the time delay between transmission of the pulse and detection of the reflected signal. LiDAR has an advantage over some other technologies in that it provides accurate elevation data.

In Afghanistan, U.S. forces use BuckEye, a system developed by the Army Geospatial Center and the jungle advance under dense vegetation imaging technology developed in collaboration with the SOF community. These LiDAR systems combine technology with digital color camera imagery to provide pictures to commanders and planners on the lay of the land. LiDAR elevation data supports improved battlefield visualization, line-of-sight analysis and urban warfare planning.

“LiDAR is also a niche capability that has been very useful to the warfighter,” said Hirschman. “It is often used with Highlighter, a change detection payload. It automatically identifies changes to the terrain based on multiple passes of the sensor. It allows us to track changes over time.”

The King Air 300 and King Air 350 have emerged as the air frames of choice for many manned ISR applications. The different programs are distinguished by their payloads and not by the aircraft they are flying.

The same holds true for ARES’ development systems, such as the Enhanced Medium Altitude Reconnaissance and Surveillance System (EMARSS). The program will load payloads on a King Air 350 ER. “The payloads accommodated on EMARSS today include electrooptical and infrared sensors as well as other sensors that detect a wide variety of signal sets,” said Boeing’s Carmona. “The payloads cover the full gamut of conventional and modern signals. We have also devel24 | TISR 2.2

oped a standards-based architecture which allows other sensors, such as hyperspectral sensors, to be integrated easily.”

Boeing is the principal integrator on EMARSS and also provides some of its key components. The company was awarded the contract in June 2011. The contract calls for the delivery of four EMARSS aircraft to the Army by December 2012.

The system is being designed to include a significant level of data storage and computing power onboard, allowing crewmembers to perform the initial analysis of the data and reducing the level of bandwidth required to transmit data to the ground.

There are alternatives to the King Air 350, some of which are provided by Cessna. Although Cessna has not provided ISR platforms for direct use by the U.S. military, it has done such work for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, international military services and law enforcement agencies. Interestingly, several Cessna ISR aircraft are used as surrogate UAVs to provide lower cost training platforms and for test and evaluation.

“We can provide a turnkey solution,” said Sullivan, which would include the aircraft plus any necessary modifications to accommodate its payloads and other specialized equipment, such as digital cameras, multispectral sensors, satellite links and special radios. “But we also have customers that just buy the aircraft from Cessna and then go elsewhere for the ISR platform solutions.”

Hirschman expects the future of the manned ISR fleet to include a mix of capabilities. Whereas the U.S. owned the skies in recent conflicts, that may not necessarily hold true for future missions, and that means that some manned ISR platforms will need standoff capabilities.

“In Iraq and Afghanistan, we could afford multi-int systems that flew directly overhead,” he said. “The crux of Army analysis as we go forward will be what type of fight we will be facing and what types of platforms we need to invest in.”

ARES’ developmental programs stress the theme of reconfigurable platforms. “We want platforms to be more plug and play rather than one-trick ponies,” said Hirschman. “[Having] too many niche capabilities really puts you in a pickle getting everything covered. A reconfigurable aircraft will have interfaces that enable the swapping out of payloads and will be able to accommodate a federation of different payloads and combinations so that we can serve the Army in the future.”

Koenig foresees ISR payloads becoming smaller and lighter, allowing the manned aircraft to carry more fuel and improve their endurance. “Cameras and other sensors will have higher processing speeds of better resolution,” he added, “which means that they are going to be pushing out larger volumes of data. As images become higher resolution the greater data pipes are going to need to grow to accommodate that.”

Better space, weight and power characteristics can also mean that more sensors can be crammed onto smaller ISR platforms. Such a development could favor future manned, as opposed to unmanned, ISR systems, according to Hirschman.

“Unmanned vehicles become difficult when you start adding multiint capabilities,” he said. “They are good for getting pictures down back to a commander, but they become exponentially harder when you start adding other things and you don’t have a man on board to support the video, sigint and other feeds.”

In any event, “there is plenty of room for both manned and unmanned systems,” Hirschman added. “I think there will always be a need for pilots to provide their situational awareness and there will always be a need for a guy in the back of the aircraft supporting the ground commander with his analysis of the intelligence feeds.” O www.TISR-kmi.com

Without bullets and explosions, EW can still dominate a battlefield.

By J.B. Bissell TISR Correspondent These significant electronic warfare benefits, along with the ease As technology marches forward, the equipment and weapons of use—and ease of installation—is a combination that Zätterqvist made available to modern-day warfighters improve as well. In fact, the believes is “truly a bright idea that will cut integration time and cost.” advancements—from Internet-ready, “battleproof” communication devices to thermal imaging targeting systems and more-realistic-thanever simulators on which to train with all the new gear—can be simply Working Together astounding.

There is a flip side to all this new and improved technology, though.

While technology receives the majority of attention, creating this “Advances in consumer electronics allow for the simple creation of sort of efficiency, both in terms of cost and time, is equally crucial.

IEDs as well as their airborne equivalents, thus sub“In a world of increasing risk and difficult economies, jecting friendly forces to danger,” explained Christer militaries are learning to do more with less,” said Bill Zätterqvist, a product manager in Saab’s business area Kasting, vice president and general manager of ATK’s Electronic Defence Systems. “Technological advances Defense Electronics Systems division. “Our focus is on are good … as long as they are not used against you.” affordable, innovative platform solutions [that] provide It might seem counterintuitive, but simplifying cost-effective, high-performance answers for our custhings can be an extremely effective way of dealing tomers.” with these sorts of threats. One of Saab’s latest entries To that end, one of ATK’s latest products, the joint in the defense and security arena is the BOH family of and allied threat awareness system (JATAS), is designed electronic warfare (EW) equipment for missile detection to work with existing electronic warfare components as and protection. For this system, “we’ve integrated misopposed to requiring an entirely new set of hardware to Christer Zätterqvist sile approach warning and countermeasures dispensfunction. ing capabilities,” said Zätterqvist. “We reuse existing But that doesn’t mean performance is sacrificed. technology, products, modules and building blocks to According to Kasting, “JATAS is a next-generation warnminimize the development cost, lead time and perforing system designed to enhance aircraft survivability mance risks. And we also incorporate mature technoloagainst man-portable air-defense systems, small-caliber gies: BOL electromechanical dispensers, forward firing weapons, and rocket-propelled grenades by providing [pyrotechnical] dispensers, and UV missile approach advanced missile warning capability; aircrew warning warning, as well as use the same electrical and hardware of laser-based weapon systems such as range finders, interfaces that common missiles utilize.” illuminators and beam riders; and hostile fire indication The end result, according to Zätterqvist, is that “it’s threat detection capabilities, providing accurate, timely about the leanest possible way to provide additional warning of small arms, rocket-propelled grenades, and advanced countermeasures capability in a fixed wing other ground fire in all flight regimes, light conditions, aircraft.” The BOH can dispense in both pre-emptive clutter backgrounds and weather conditions.”

Bill Kasting and reactive modes, and features a missile approach Perhaps its finest feature, though, is that new users warning (MAW) system that recognizes and reports on incoming won’t necessarily have to scrap what they already have in order to threats. It can easily be installed on a mission-to-mission basis onto begin taking advantage of JATAS. It “will interface with existing AN/ virtually any platform that is capable of carrying AIM-9 missiles, in ALE-47 countermeasures dispensing systems (CMDS),” explained Kastplace of one of the rockets, and can interface with the aircraft via the ing. “Upon determination by the JATAS processor, in accordance with MIL-STD-1553 weapons bus. Within the slim profile, the BOH consists predetermined and preprogrammed criteria, a cue can be issued to the of a number of functional modules that can be mixed and matched CMDS for flare dispensing. as needed. “One configuration is MAW, a forward firing pyrotechnical “Additionally, the JATAS will interface with the Department of the dispenser, and an electromechanical BOL dispenser in the aft end,” Navy large aircraft infrared countermeasures system, the common explained Zätterqvist. “In this configuration, the MAW can automatiinfrared countermeasure system, and other compatible directed infracally trigger the protection cycle to the BOH internal dispensers while red countermeasures as part of the integrated electronic countermeaproviding missile warnings to the aircrew.” sures response to attacking infrared missiles,” Kasting said. www.TISR-kmi.com

TISR 2.2 | 25

He’s not kidding. They’re currently pursuing the U.S. Navy’s Next Generation Jammer (NGJ) program, an initiative tasked with creating and introducing ultra-modernized jamming technology to various military aircraft. The jamming, however, is just the beginning; the NGJ will actually be an electronic attack system.

“It’s being completely redesigned, from concept to production,” Carlson said. “Airborne electronic attack capability is unique to U.S. forces; it enables an offensive force to jam all enemy signals, from air defense to communications, controlling the airspace and taking a decisive advantage in any conflict. As part of that, we are developing technology to completely refresh the system, taking advantage of new technologies and capabilities.”

Other ITT Exelis projects include enhancing and installing the integrated defensive electronic countermeasures system for the U.S. Navy’s frontline fighter; building the modular and scalable advanced integrated Upgradable Applications defensive electronic warfare system for five nations’ international F-16s; and actively developing infrared Agilent Technologies is another company that is countermeasures technology with the same modular, addressing the future of electronic warfare by upgrading Chris Carlson scalable approach in order to take advantage of future their current product line. “Agilent’s Signal Studio for improvements and upgrades at a minimal cost.

Pulse Building software is probably our best contribuIt’s a lot to keep track of, but Carlson believes contion to airborne EW,” said Walter Schulte, an aerospace tinuous progression—whether building a brand-new and defense applications engineer at Agilent. “Though it system from the ground up or refurbishing one to is not new, we continue to improve it, and for the capaensure it meets the military’s 21st-century needs—is bilities it offers to re-programmers and test engineers, it the only way to stay ahead of the bad guys. is really a powerful product with great value.”

“The most important challenge in electronic warfare Signal Studio is a tool that helps designers of radar is that the adversaries are using available technologies detection paraphernalia test—or reprogram—their or developing new ones to get the edge—offensive sysequipment to ensure it can handle the latest in enemy tems over defensive systems, or more effective attacking locating systems, a task that becomes more difficult systems,” he said. “It’s like a game of one-upmanship every day as technology evolves. “EW engineers must Walter Schulte that has become more challenging in today’s complex now design systems that can handle low probability of world. As a result, we are continually watching our systems perform, intercept threats that radiate in multiple modes, in multiple frequenand analyzing those used by adversaries, to ensure our equipment has cies and in wide bandwidths,” explained Schulte. the technical edge to protect our warfighters.”

So, Agilent’s software applications allow those engineers to mimic The game of one-upmanship might be more challenging than virtually any radar signal at both radio and microwave frequencies, ever, but the men and women at ITT Exelis—and the other companies as well as “create pulses with almost any modulation-on-pulse, such mentioned here—are certainly able and more than willing to play, and as linear FM chirps, nonlinear FM, Barker codes, M-sequences, etc.,” ultimately, they’re in possession of the most important pieces: state-ofSchulte added. “These pulses can then be used in patterns to emulate the-art industrial innovations. different radar modes of operation. We’ve added the ability to use “We have digital technology now that allows us more precision in bursted, linear, and staggered PRI patterns and antenna scans.” generating signals to jam attackers … greatly increased processing Even with all these updates, Schulte and his colleagues underpower and improved software that enables our systems to perform their stand that there is more work to do. “A variety of hybrid receivers are tasks with greater accuracy and speed … and smaller packaging, our being developed to handle threats of wide frequency diversity and lownewer systems are considerably lighter, even though they must still perprobability of intercept,” he said. “No single device will give you the form in much greater temperature and environmental extremes than instantaneous bandwidth, sensitivity and dynamic range to detect all of we would ever expect from consumer electronics,” explained Carlson. the potential threats in existence, so some EW systems engineers can It’s true that technology marches forward, and some of it might fall find ways of using a variety of analog and digital technologies to give into the wrong hands, but according to Carlson, as long as that’s hapthem the coverage they need.” pening, companies such as his will continue to “develop more efficient, yet more precise, jamming and counter-jamming technology to ensure What’s New? our systems can perform their mission effectively, thus supporting our warfighters’ mission success.” O ITT Exelis also is working to provide that coverage, but they’re approaching it from a different perspective: focusing on new technology and new electronic warfare tools. Simply put, “there is a lot going on at ITT Exelis,” said Chris Carlson, director of business development For more information, contact Editor-in-Chief Jeff McKaughan at jeffm@kmimediagroup.com or search our online archives for related stories for the company’s integrated electronic warfare systems and airborne at www.tisr-kmi.com. electronic attack businesses.

That might seem like a lot of moving pieces and a vast, challenging communications network with which to coordinate, but that’s how ATK makes it possible for the armed forces to do more with less. “Our strategy of optimizing performance by adapting existing equipment with new technology creates better value and improvements in safety and performance across a wide variety of platforms, from missile warning systems to missiles and special mission aircraft,” said Kasting.

ATK also is ensuring that their strategy of utilizing existing equipment with new technology can continue in the years ahead.

“The JATAS features an open architecture design,” Kasting continued, “which enables easy upgrades in the future with other self-protection functions. As an example, the current expendable infrared countermeasure can be upgraded to a directional infrared countermeasure using existing interfaces.”

26 | TISR 2.2

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AAI Unmanned Aircraft Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 www.aaicorp.com ATK Defense Electronic Systems. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C3 www.atk.com Datron World Communications. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 www.dtwc.com Digital Results Group. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C4 www.drgisr.com Goodrich ISR Systems. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 www.sensorsinc.com L-3 Wescam. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 www.wescam.com MetaVR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 www.metavr.com Raytheon. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 www.raytheon.com Selex Galileo Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C2 www.selexgalileo.com

March 27-29, 2012 U.S. Intelligence Community, Who and What Fairfax, Va. www.afcea.org April 1-4, 2012 AAAA Annual Forum & Exposition Nashville, Tenn. www.quad-a.org April 23-27, 2012 SPIE Defense, Security & Sensing Baltimore, Md. www.spie.org

NextIssue

April 28-19, 2012 Spring Intelligence Symposium Springfield, Va. www.afcea.org April 30-May 4, 2012 C4ISR Symposium San Diego, Calif.

June 4-8, 2012 GEOINT Community Week Washington, D.C. area www.usgif.org

April 2012 Volume 2, Issue 3

Cover and In-Depth Interview with:

Capt. Robert Rupp Commander Office of Naval Intelligence

Special Section EO/IR

Features Seafaring ISR Smartphone ISR Maritime Unmanned Systems Sonar

Bonus Distribution:

SPIE Defense, Security & Sensing Special Operations Industry Conference

Insertion Deadline: March 30, 2012 • Ad Materials Deadline: April 6, 2012 www.TISR-kmi.com

TISR 2.2 | 27

INDUSTRY INTERVIEW

Tactical ISR Technology

William Kasting Vice President and General Manager ATK Defense Electronic Systems William “Bill” Kasting is vice president and general manager for ATK’s Defense Electronic Systems, a division within ATK’s Defense Group. Kasting joined ATK in early 2007, following more than 24 years working in the defense and commercial markets.

Q: Briefly describe ATK and Defense Electronic Systems’ history with the military.

A: ATK is an aerospace, defense and commercial products company with operations in 22 states, Puerto Rico and internationally. The defense group is an industry leader in ammunition, precision and strike weapons, missile warning solutions, tactical rocket motors and develops advanced capabilities for missile defense interceptors, fuzing and warheads, weaponized special mission aircraft and propulsion/controls.

The Defense Electronic Systems [DES] division provides rapid response products that serve both the offensive and defensive sides of electronic warfare as well as weaponized airborne ISR capabilities. Major business areas include strike weapons, aircraft survivability, mission support equipment and special mission aircraft.

Q: Can you describe, more specifically, some of the products within these areas?

A: ATK’s DES division is the prime contractor for several programs, including the advanced anti-radiation guided missile, the multi-stage supersonic target and the joint allied threat awareness system, the next generation of aircraft survivability equipment. In addition, our special mission aircraft product portfolio provides affordable, responsive and advanced capabilities to customer-preferred platforms.

ATK’s expertise includes outfitting various aircraft—including Cessna Caravans, Lockheed Martin C-130s, Bombardier Dash8s, Hawker Beechcraft King Airs, Casas and others—with integrated intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance and weaponization capabilities. ATK’s weaponized special mission aircraft integrates ISR sensors, fire control equipment and air-to-ground weapons capability. This provides customers an enhanced 28 | TISR 2.2

capability to conduct responsive defense, counterinsurgency, and border/coastal surveillance and security missions.

ATK’s AC-208 Armed Caravan aircraft is a specially modified Cessna Grand Caravan that incorporates an electro-optical targeting system with integrated laser designator, Hellfire laser guided missiles, an air-to-ground and air-to-air data link and aircraft self-protection equipment. ATK’s STAR mission system provides both day and night reconnaissance and fire control capabilities for the mission crew.

The AC-208 aircraft is able to find, fix, identify, track, target and engage emerging and time-sensitive targets with its Hellfire missile payload providing a cost-effective reconnaissance and ground attack capability. Multiple versions of the Caravan include a trainer, an ISR version and an armed version with Hellfire missiles.

The light gunship package is the latest addition to ATK’s special mission aircraft portfolio. It integrates intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance sensors, fire control equipment, air-to-ground missiles and rockets, as well as a LW30 mm link-fed gun system. These capabilities are controlled by ATK’s proven mission system, which provides both day and night reconnaissance and fire control capabilities, and the ability to acquire, monitor and track items of interest. The gunship is exportable within U.S. government regulations.

Q: What unique capabilities does your company provide its customers.

A: Weaponized aircraft is an emerging international opportunity specifically tailored to ATK’s unique capabilities. Our expertise in mission systems architecture and design, and

aircraft integration and certification of complex subsystems positions us well for growth in this area. We leverage mature technology and non-developmental item subsystems to support rapid fielding to military operators.

ATK is not tied to any specific platform or mission sub-systems allowing us to tailor our offerings to specific customer requirements.

We utilize all aspects of our experience from requirements development, implementation, training and contractor logistics support, to develop complete weaponized solutions to meet our customers’ needs. Our baseline solution provides a fully mission-capable platform—meeting all recognized requirements with a flexible growth path to address future needs of potential customers.

The Armed Caravan is the only armed Cessna 208 Grand Caravan that holds an FAA supplemental type certificate [STC #SA00025MC] for the full system [ISR and attack]. The aircraft also holds a military certification.

ATK’s other SMA expertise includes outfitting various aircraft, as I mentioned, with integrated ISR capabilities, fire control equipment and air-to-ground capability for conducting responsive defense, counterinsurgency, and border surveillance and security missions.

Q: Does ATK participate in the international market with its product lines?

A: ATK was selected by King Abdullah II Design and Development Bureau of the Kingdom of Jordan to modify two of the country’s CASA-235 transport aircraft into highly-capable and cost-effective special mission aircraft.

As the prime, we are responsible for the development, systems integration, aircraft modification, and testing of the aircraft.

ATK’s special mission aircraft team was awarded a foreign military sales contract to provide the Lebanese Air Force with one modified Caravan Cessna 208B. The modifications will include adding ISR capability, in addition to providing contractor logistics support and a spares package.

We are also currently installing aircraft protection systems on aircraft for the Department of State. O www.TISR-kmi.com

Innovation ‌ Delivered.

ATK’s affordable, rapid-response systems are the best choice for the most time-critical missions. The AGM-88E Advanced Anti-Radiation Guided Missile (AARGM) and the Joint and Allied Threat Awareness System (JATAS) provide critical, game-changing capabilities for military aircrews.

www.atk.com

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