TISR 2-4 (August 2012)

Actionable Intelligence for the Warfighter

Intel Deliverer Lt. Gen. Larry D. James

www.TISR-kmi.com

July/August 2012

Deputy Chief of Staff for ISR U.S. Air Force

Embedded Computing O Full Motion Video O Airborne Radar Unmanned Systems O Hunter-Killer UAVs

Volume 2, Issue 4

Giving you the tactical advantage you need.

Whatever your mission, our range of UAS, sensors and mission systems expertise provide responsive, persistent real-time situational awareness, disseminating intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance giving you the tactical advantage you need.

Always adapting to your ISR needs. We build your strength from within. selexgalileo.com

Tactical ISR Technology

July/August 2012 Volume 2 • Issue 4

Features

Cover / Q&A Hunter Killer UAVs

8

More options available will mean fewer missed opportunities.

Combining a surveillance platform with a weapon platform capable of reaching out when necessary puts the action in actionable intelligence.

By Peter Buxbaum

For ISR, A View of Full Motion Video

14

Full motion video brings clarity and situational awareness to the tactical environment and can do so in an in-the-moment timeframe. Information must be actionable to be valuable.

On the battlefield, the more time that elapses, the more difficult action becomes.

By Hank Hogan

21 Lieutenant General Larry D. James

Digital Evolution

25

Computers embedded within military systems have followed the same trajectory as commercial cell phones. Today, they are smaller, faster and more powerful than ever before, and they are changing the way the U.S. fights and wins on the battlefield.

By Heather Baldwin

Drones Grow Up

29

Unmanned systems created a paradigm shift in ISR data collection. Emphases now include improving payload capabilities, increasing endurance, seeking more common operation, interpreting data and making future enhancements easier and more affordable.

By Henry Canaday

Radar Advancements

33

Radar set the early stages for distance detection and is still a technology on the cutting edge. Capability improvements and miniaturization are allowing better systems to fit in more places.

By Leslie Shaver

Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance U.S. Air Force

Departments 2 Editor’s Perspective 3 Army Unmanned

Aircraft Systems

4 All Int 6 People 18 ISR Kit 35 Resource Center

Industry Interview

36 Alfred Lumpkin Founder and CEO ISR Group

Tactical ISR Technology Volume 2, Issue 4 • July/August 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 • Heather Baldwin Peter Buxbaum • Henry Canaday • Hank Hogan Leslie Shaver

Art & Design Art Director Jennifer Owers jennifero@kmimediagroup.com Senior Graphic Designer Jittima Saiwongnuan jittimas@kmimediagroup.com Graphic Designers Amanda Kirsch amandak@kmimediagroup.com Scott Morris scottm@kmimediagroup.com Kailey Waring kaileyw@kmimediagroup.com

Advertising Account Executive Dimitri Furman dimitrif@kmimediagroup.com

KMI Media Group 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 Operations Assistant Casandra Jones casandraj@kmimediagroup.com Trade Show Coordinator Holly Foster hollyf@kmimediagroup.com

EDITOR’S PERSPECTIVE The value that unmanned aerial systems bring to the battlefield as force multipliers of information gathering and dissemination is without question.

Being able to fly platforms that range in size from insect-tiny to larger than a 737 opens up the tactical environment and, honestly, brings in more information than sometimes can be managed into actionable intelligence. There are concerns that the airspace could become saturated with unmanned platforms, especially when that airspace is also shared with manned aircraft.

To date, there have been few instances of actual collisions between manned and unmanned systems, but the funnel points of the airspace are crowded Jeffrey D. McKaughan and likely to remain so in Afghanistan.

Editor-IN-CHIEF Is there a way to harness the cost efficiencies and capabilities of the UAS in the domestic environment, flying in the United States for federal state and even local governments? Currently, the use of unmanned systems is limited to law enforcement, monitoring forest fires, border security, and weather and scientific research and data collection.

In the past, the major concerns have centered on safety issues. See and avoid has been a challenge from a technology and size perspective; the smaller platforms are unable to perform that task, and their small size makes it difficult for larger aircraft to see and/or detect them. There are also concerns about command and control of the UAS, especially if interference—either accidentally or through a deliberate actions (jamming and spooking)—caused operators to lose control over the vehicle in a crowded airspace.

These are real and valid concerns, the outcomes of which can be determined by technology. Decisions can be made, based on data and analysis, as to the safety offered by future sense and avoid systems and the likelihood that system control could be compromised. Privacy is—and probably always will be—a point of contention as UAS users find new and improved ways to utilize the technologies at their disposal. Where the line is that shouldn’t be crossed is unclear.

While far from settled, the issue continues to be studied and metrics are being established that will help determine the real and perceived challenges and risks to operating unmanned systems domestically. The military is taking a strong lead in looking at sense and avoid technologies, which will go a long way to establishing the baseline for operations.

Operations, Circulation & Production Circulation & Marketing Administrator Duane Ebanks duanee@kmimediagroup.com Data Specialists Arielle Hill arielleh@kmimediagroup.com Tuesday Johnson tuesdayj@kmimediagroup.com Summer Walker summerw@kmimediagroup.com Raymer Villanueva raymerv@kmimediagroup.com Donisha Winston donishaw@kmimediagroup.com

KMI Media Group Magazines and Websites Border & CBRNE Defense

Ground Combat Technology

Geospatial Intelligence Forum

Military Advanced Education

Military Information Technology

www.GCT-kmi.com

www.GIF-kmi.com

www.MAE-kmi.com

www.MIT-kmi.com

Border Threat Prevention and CBRNE Response

SPECIAL SECTION:

Integrated Fixed Towers

A Proud Member of: Subscription Information

Tactical ISR Technology

ISSN 2160-8237 is published six times a year by KMI Media Group. All Rights Reserved.

Reproduction without permission is strictly forbidden. © Copyright 2012.

Tactical ISR Technology is free to qualified members of the U.S. military, employees of the U.S. government and non-U.S. foreign service based in the U.S. All others: $65 per year.

Foreign: $149 per year.

Border Protector

www.BCD-kmi.com

Michael J. Fisher Chief U.S. Border Patrol U.S. Customs and Border Protection

June 2012 Volume 1, Issue 1

Leadership Insight: Robert S. Bray Assistant Administrator for Law Enforcement/Director of the Federal Air Marshal Service

Wide Area Aerial Surveillance O Hazmat Disaster Response Tactical Communications O P-3 Program

www.BCD-kmi.com

Medical Military Training Military Logistics Military & Veterans Technology Forum Affairs Forum

Special Operations Technology

Tactical ISR Technology

U.S. Coast Guard Forum

www.SOTECH-kmi.com

www.TISR-kmi.com

www.USCGF-kmi.com

Corporate Offices KMI Media Group 15800 Crabbs Branch Way, Suite 300 Rockville, MD 20855-2604 USA Telephone: (301) 670-5700 Fax: (301) 670-5701 Web: www.TISR-kmi.com

www.MLF-kmi.com

www.M2VA-kmi.com

www.MT2-kmi.com

ARMY UNMANNED AIRCRAFT SYSTEMS

Sense and Avoid U.S. Army conducts successful ground based sense and avoid demonstration.

By John Innes and Marty Shelton On June 20, 2012, the Army’s Unmanned Systems Airspace Integration Product Directorate, one of eight offices within the Unmanned Aircraft Systems Project Office, conducted a demonstration of current ground based sense and avoid (GBSAA) capabilities at Dugway Proving Grounds. The demonstration was successful beyond expectations, and cleared a major hurdle for testing the capability before certification process begins. The Army will begin fielding these systems to Gray Eagle training sites in early 2014.

In 2008 the Army, designated as the lead service by the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense UAS Task Force, began developing technology allowing for UAS access to the National Airspace System (NAS). The GBSAA system uses ground based sensors (existing air traffic control and supplemental 3-D radar) and associated technology to fuse, classify and track air traffic for maneuver algorithms that calculate and evaluate threats, before sending information back to a display that provides the information needed to safely separate the UAS from other traffic. Many years of research and technology development have been dedicated to developing a system that provides the much needed operational capability with a system that has the pedigree associated with safety critical hardware and software.

The Army first demonstrated a system in 2011 at El Mirage, Calif. Development efforts were then moved to restricted airspace in Utah, which allowed focus to be shifted to developing a more operationally capable system. The June 20 demonstration followed two weeks of intense testing on the system and subsystems. Specific objectives of the demonstration included: demonstrate technology out of the laboratory in actual flight operations; demonstrate the functionality/adaptability of the GBSAA system by conducting operations targeting multiple service sites; highlight open architecture/plug and play functionality of the GBSAA system; demonstrate the ability to fuse data from 3-D radar and ATC radar (ASR-9) in real time; and early validation of common (across services) GBSAA requirements.

Seven vignettes were used to achieve the objectives. Three vignettes used live flights with unmanned systems, and four included synthetic aircraft and terrain. Sister service locations and flights against live traffic in Salt Lake City and recorded traffic from Boston were used to demonstrate the capability of the system. To show versatility of the GBSAA system, two different www.TISR-kmi.com

types of radar were fused and three different UASs (Sky Warrior-A, Hunter and Shadow) were utilized for the live flights. In the third vignette, two Shadow UASs were flown toward one another. One was participating as a non-cooperative aircraft and was unaware of the traffic situation, while the other Shadow was using the GBSAA System to recommend maneuvers to safely separate.

In every case, the GBSAA System exceeded expectations. The system proved to be capable of providing safe separation and collision avoidance to all aircraft in every vignette. Although some technology growth and improvements remain, this demonstration provided many lessons learned that can lead to advancing GBSAA technologies. For instance, these tests enlightened users to possible human factor nuances that will be considered when designing the GBSAA display. For example, a mathematically correct maneuver from the algorithm advises the most efficient and safe maneuver, but in some cases may seem to go directly against mitigating actions an operator might take. In those cases, additional research will be done to explore how the algorithm can be tuned to take into account common convention without affecting the safety of the system.

The results of the GBSAA demonstration have significant implications toward opening the NAS to UASs. Large numbers of unmanned aircraft are returning from overseas contingency operational support and need to continue operating and training to maintain proficiency. First responders, Department of Defense, Coast Guard and DHS are providing critical support to the nation at home through utilization of unmanned systems. This system will complement those missions while ensuring that the airspace remains safe to other users.

Several years of research and development have culminated in a successful demonstration of GBSAA capabilities, leaving observers and developers excited about the way ahead.

The system certification effort is underway and on track to be operational at Fort Hood, Texas, in early 2014, with continued fielding to the next Gray Eagle locations. It’s an ambitious goal but achievable in the hands of an ambitious GBSAA team. O John Innes is a contractor with SAIC, at the Army Intelligence Center and Marty Shelton is a contractor with Wyle/CAS, at PM UAS. TISR 2.4 | 3

ALL INT

Compiled by KMI Media Group staff

Fire Scout Training Center and Regional Joint Intelligence Training Facility Northrop Grumman Corporation has established a new training facility for Fire Scout unmanned helicopter operators that offers improved flight simulators, hands-on aircraft maintenance and classroom instruction. The Fire Scout Training Center, which opened July 10 at Naval Air Station Jacksonville, Fla., will meet increasing demands for trained operators as the system is used more during deployments.

New flight simulators were placed in the facility to improve the quality of training, incorporating lessons learned during the MQ-8B Fire Scout’s recent land- and sea-based deployments. Typical training lasts about six weeks because maintainers and pilots already gained technical training on manned helicopters such as the SH-60 Seahawk.

Vigilant Pursuit Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) was recently awarded a prime contract by the U.S. Army/Research Development and Engineering Command Intelligence and Information Warfare Directorate to provide Vigilant Pursuit (VP) system design, production, testing, delivery, spares, new equipment training and field service representative services in support of the U.S. Army Multi-functional Teams (MfT).

VP is the crew-served weapon of the MfT, who employ the system to provide multi-disciplined intelligence collection, exploitation and analysis to generate actionable intelligence as well as time-sensitive detection, tracking and locating of key targets. Under the contract, SAIC will provide VP system design, production, testing, delivery, spares, new equipment training and field service representative services in support of the MfT. SAIC’s work with VP will enable the MfT to deliver tactical commanders access to many theater and national intelligence capabilities through on-board sensors that provide precise, real-time data en route to an objective, while enabling pursuit and exploitation, precision maneuver and immediate triage/site exploitation during actions on the objective.

“We look forward to providing the U.S. Army a Vigilant Pursuit system that leverages a flexible, extensible and modular architecture, enabling multi-functional teams to execute their mission-essential tasks and support maneuver-element missions,” said John Thomas, SAIC senior vice president and business unit general manager.

4 | TISR 2.4

“This is a wonderful capability that bridges a significant gap in simulator availability,” said Captain Doug Ten Hoopen, commander, Helicopter Maritime Strike Wing, U.S. Atlantic Fleet. “As the Fire Scout program continues

to mature and becomes self-sustainable when the new Fire Scout Fleet Replacement Squadron is officially stood up, Atlantic Fleet operators’ immediate demand for simulation and training will be met through this stateof-the-art facility.”

In other news, the Virginia Contracting Activity has awarded Northrop Grumman a five-year contract to support the Regional Joint Intelligence Training Facility (RJITF).

The RJITF provides training and education opportunities to U.S., NATO and partner nation militaries throughout Europe and Africa. The $52 million contract consists of one base year and four one-year options with work performed throughout the United Kingdom, Europe and Africa.

Throwable Recon ReconRobotics Inc. has been awarded a $13.9 million contract by the U.S. Army’s Rapid Equipping Force for up to 1,000 miniature, throwable, mobile robots. The indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity contract will streamline the purchasing process for deploying Army and Marine Corps units and speed delivery on the company’s pre-priced micro-robot systems and accessories. The U.S. military is acquiring the micro-robots to provide four- and five-man fire teams with immediate tactical reconnaissance during urban warfare operations, surveillance missions and counter-IED efforts.

ReconRobotics has already received and begun delivering the first order under this contract for 84 robots.

ReconRobotics created an entirely new class of military robots in 2007 when it introduced the throwable 1.2 pounds Recon Scout micro-robot. Prior to that time, military robots weighed 30 to 80 pounds, were transported in vehicles, and were deployed as company- or battalion-level assets.

“For several years, our micro-robot systems have played a key role in protecting the lives of our soldiers and Marines as

they conduct operations in active combat theatres,” said Ernest Langdon, director of military programs for ReconRobotics.

On June 8, the company introduced the Throwbot XT, a new generation microrobot that provides both audio eavesdropping capabilities and video reconnaissance to U.S. troops. The micro-robot has an automatic, infrared optical system that gives the warfighter clear, crisp video even in total darkness.

www.TISR-kmi.com

MULTI-SPECTRAL TARGETING SYSTEMS

FOR EVERY PLATFORM,

ONE POWERFUL

ADVANTAGE.

Interchangeable. Survivable. Scalable. Raytheon Multi-Spectral Targeting Systems deliver superior multi-domain ISR and targeting capabilities that are as innovative as they are costeffective. Leveraging a trusted heritage of sensor development and production, they provide sensor commonality bred through common parts, reliable performance and dedicated support.

INNOVATION IN ALL DOMAINS www.raytheon.com | Keyword: MTS2 Follow us on:

© 2012 Raytheon Company. All rights reserved.

“Customer Success Is Our Mission” is a registered trademark of Raytheon Company.

ALL INT

Compiled by KMI Media Group staff

Gray Eagle at Company Strength General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc. (GAASI) has announced the recent deployment of the first full company of Gray Eagle UAS, F/227.

“Gray Eagle will provide F/227 with 24/7 RSTA [reconnaissance, surveillance and target acquisition], precision attack, and communications relay capabilities,” said Frank W. Pace, president, Aircraft Systems Group, GA-ASI. “This system fielding does not rely on a legacy Ground Control Station [GCS], showing our total commitment to the One System GCS/ Universal GCS combined with the Tactical Controlled Data Link [TCDL] architecture.”

Following training and internal Army evaluation exercises, F/227 is now deployed with 12 aircraft. Gray Eagle aircraft logged over 1,700 flight hours during a total of 238 flights over the initial seven-month training and evaluation period. In the meantime, a second Gray Eagle company is currently

Higher Data Rates and Extended Coverage Raytheon Company has received a $19 million contract to modify the Navy Multiband Terminal (NMT) to link it with the Air Force’s Enhanced Polar Satellite (EPS). The link will allow U.S. Navy and Air Force warfighters to overcome communications gaps in the remote polar region.

EPS will provide continuous coverage for secure, jam-resistant, strategic and tactical communications to support peacetime, contingency, homeland defense, humanitarian assistance and wartime missions.

“This increased capability will give the Navy more mission flexibility and significantly increased capacity to provide protected voice, data and video communications supporting strategic and tactical missions,” said Scott Whatmough, vice president of integrated communication systems for Raytheon’s network centric systems business.

Raytheon has started the software and systems engineering modifications to the existing NMT ship, submarine and shore terminals to enable seamless operation with EPS, which is replacing the existing Interim Polar System. EPS, using advanced XDR waveforms, will provide much higher data rates and extended high-gain coverage. It will be interoperable with next-generation advanced extremely high frequency-compatible sea-based, ground and airborne user terminals.

PEOPLE Colonel John D. Bansemer, who has been selected for the rank of brigadier general, assistant vice commander, Air Force Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Agency, Deputy Chief of Staff, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance, Headquarters U.S. Air Force, Joint Base San Antonio, Texas, has been

6 | TISR 2.4

staging its equipment in conjunction with readiness level operator and maintainer training.

“The Gray Eagle UAS is providing unprecedented value to the operators,” said Richard Kretzschmar, deputy project manager, PM UAS, U.S. Army. “The feedback we’re getting from the QRCs is that this is a game-changing capability.”

Gray Eagle supported the Apache Block III initial operational test and evaluation (IOT&E) in April to demonstrate manned-unmanned teaming in support of commanders and soldiers. The Defense Acquisition Board review was conducted on June 1 and authorized the program to proceed with a third low-rate initial production purchase of 29 aircraft and supporting equipment, followed by IOT&E in August 2012. To date, GA-ASI has delivered 61 Gray Eagle aircraft to the Army, with another 44 aircraft currently on order.

Upgrading Shadow AAI Unmanned Aircraft Systems, an operating unit of Textron Systems, a Textron Inc. company, has received a $358 million award from the U.S. Army’s Program Manager-Unmanned Aircraft Systems for engineering support and system upgrades that will create a fleet of 45 upgraded RQ-7B Shadow tactical unmanned aircraft systems (TUAS). Deliveries of 43 systems for the Army and two for the Marine Corps are expected to begin in late 2013.

“The RQ-7B Shadow upgrade, dubbed V2 by the Army, includes enhancements to every part of the system, from the aircraft itself to the ground and support systems,” said Steven Reid, senior vice president and general manager of AAI Unmanned Aircraft Systems.

The new RQ-7B Shadow aircraft builds on the same architecture that has proven highly successful on the current Shadow aircraft throughout nearly 750,000 flight hours. It is multi-mission equipped with an integrated payload for day and night imagery, as well as communications relay and laser target designation capabilities. The aircraft also applies the Army’s interoperability profiles, while vastly increasing communications bandwidth and enabling digital data delivery.

In addition, the upgraded Shadow aircraft has: increased endurance, from six to nine hours; extended wing with hard points to carry external stores and payloads; an electronic fuel injection engine for greater reliability; integration of the tactical common data link for digital data dissemination and encryption; and new universal ground control station, universal ground data terminal, portable ground data terminal and portable ground control station.

Maritime Surveillance Aircraft Compiled by KMI Media Group staff

assigned to director of intelligence, J2, Headquarters U.S. European Command, StuttgartVaihingen, Germany.

Dave Schmitz, has been named to the newly created position of chief operating officer of Cubic Defense Applications.

Boeing has announced that it is offering a medium-sized maritime surveillance aircraft (MSA) to the global market. MSA builds on technologies developed for Boeing’s larger intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) platforms to provide a highly capable, low-risk and cost-effective ISR solution.

“The Boeing maritime surveillance aircraft directly applies advanced, proven and fielded capabilities from our P-8, airborne warning and control system, and airborne early warning and control

programs to solve our international customers’ maritime surveillance challenges,” said Tim Peters, Boeing vice president and general manager, surveillance and engagement. “We’ve selected a preferred aircraft and are in discussions with a manufacturer about supplying and modifying their aircraft. We hope to have an announcement on that element by the end of this year.”

Boeing’s research indicates that the maritime surveillance market will be worth more than $10 billion over the next 10 years. www.TISR-kmi.com

LISTEN UP! Your robot just got better. The Throwbot® XT from ReconRobotics now has sophisticated listening capabilities that you have to hear to believe. Throw it over a compound wall or through a window and you’ll immediately obtain video and audio reconnaissance that protects your fire team from hidden threats and improves the success of your mission.

Throwable to 120 feet. Infrared equipped – and still just 1.2lbs.

The Throwbot XT – Saving Lives At The Tip Of The Spear TM Ernest Langdon Director of Military Programs - U.S. Ernest.Langdon@reconrobotics.com 703-217-6017

™ ®

W O R L D L E A D E R I N TA C T I C A L M I C R O - R O B O T S Y S T E M S

www.reconrobotics.com

K N O W

B E F O R E

Y O U

G O

®

The more options available will

mean fewer missed opportunities.

By Peter Buxbaum TISR Correspondent

8 | TISR 2.4

www.TISR-kmi.com

There was a time when the debate raged about whether unmanned aerial vehicles should carry weapons or remain pure to the reconnaissance type missions they had been envisioned for.

While the conversation may have gone on, it was clear that UAVs would carry weapons at some point in the future. Combining the surveillance platform with a weapon platform capable of reaching out when necessary, puts the action in actionable intelligence.

Textron’s Shadow unmanned aerial vehicle is not weaponized, but it is in the process of undergoing that transformation. Once the process is completed, the UAV will have morphed from an intelligence platform to what is now being referred to as a hunter/killer aircraft.

“During one year in Southwest Asia,” related Vance King, the company’s vice president for TUAS programs, “there were 70 occurrences in Vance King which the Shadow identified insurgents planting improvised explosive devices. Had the Shadow been weaponized, it would have been able to take care of those insurgents, but due to the lag in getting a weapon to the location, there were missed opportunities in all but one case.” For this reason, the Marine Corps submitted an urgent need for the capability, and it is being contracted through the Army.

www.TISR-kmi.com

TISR 2.4 | 9

2.75-inch diameter, 27-inch long drop-glide weapon, terminally UAVs like the Shadow were developed to provide warfighters guided by a semi-active laser seeker. with imagery, video and other sensor data that would help them The Shadow was first flown in 1991 and is in prosecute their missions. Its utility was limited service with the U.S. Army, U.S. Navy and the U.S. to intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance.

Marine Corps, along with several foreign militarBut for some years now, the Air Force’s Predator ies. The aircraft typically carries an optical payload and the Army’s Gray Eagle—both manufactured consisting of a laser pointer, a video camera and an

by General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc. infrared camera.

(GA-ASI)—have been flying not only with payloads During a recent test conducted by the Army, of sensors, but with Hellfire missiles as well. The the Shadow Hawk was released from an altitude reason is illustrated by the Shadow case: to reduce of 5,100 feet and impacted the target at a speed the sensor-to-shooter timeline in order to more of 460 feet per second and 8 inches off the laser effectively and efficiently prosecute war fighting spot center. For this initial demonstration, the missions.

Rich Kretzschmar target was designated with a ground location laser At this point, several UAV platforms are already designator. equipped with weapons, and several others (the “The test was part of an 18-month demonstraShadow among them) are beginning to be outfittion program to weaponize the Shadow,” said King. ted with weapons. Even some very small UAVs have Smaller unmanned systems have also been shown demonstrated a weaponization capability. to be weaponized. Prioria Robotics makes the Mav“The term ‘hunter/killer’ refers to any weaponeric, a small UAV that weighs 2.5 pounds and has ized unmanned system,” said Rich Kretzschmar, a 28-inch wingspan. “The Maveric was developed deputy project manager for unmanned aircraft systo provide capabilities to the smallest squad at the tems at the U.S. Army’s unmanned aviation systems platoon level,” said Derek Lyons, the company’s project office. “It refers to an organic capability on vice president for sales and marketing. It is handa single platform to detect and prosecute a lethal launched and operable by a single person. interaction with a target. Once the Air Force armed Chris Pehrson In 2010, Prioria worked with Textron to intePredator, it broke the paradigm and showed the grate a warhead onto the Maveric. This weaponized military utility of weaponizing unmanned systems.” version was called T-RAM, or tactical remote area At this point, Gray Eagle is the sole hunter/killer munition. In 2011 Prioria performed a demonstraUAV flown by the Army. tion for U.S. Special Operations Command, along “Ninety-nine percent of the time, Gray Eagle is with two other companies making small UAVs. collecting intelligence,” said Chris Pehrson, direc“We were the only UAV that hit the target on both tor of strategic development for GA-ASI. “It detects attempts,” said Lyons. the movements of people and objects and develops ArcturusUAV, the maker of the 110-pound T-20 an idea of the pattern of life for a particular area. unmanned vehicle, recently unveiled the integraThe exception comes when something pops up and tion of a small munition made by Raytheon on its we can get a positive identification on a target. If platform. “It was a guided drop bomb carried under the operators on the ground indicate that it is a the starboard wing,” said Steve Smith, a senior legitimate target and that it satisfies the rules of Derek Lyons application engineer at Arcturus. “We are workengagement, they can guide a weapon in within a derek.lyons@prioria.com ing on a number of different munitions, as well short period of time. That’s the advantage of having as a variety of COMINT, SIGINT, hyperspectral and other types a sensor and a weapon on the same bird.” of payloads. It’s very unusual for a 110-pound UAV to be able to To date, all operational hunter/killer UAVs have been ISR platcarry 75 pounds of payload, so we’re being asked to do a lot of forms on which a weapons capability was integrated. Equipping integration work.”

UAVs with Hellfire missiles involved some challenges. The effort The Navy is also in the process of weaponizing its UAVs. The on Gray Eagle benefited from the Air Force’s prior experience UAV systems that the Navy operates, the Fire Scout, BAMS-D weaponizing Predator. There is an unmanned aerial platform on and Scan Eagle are currently used only for ISR tasks and are the horizon which has been built as a weapons system from its not weaponized, noted Joe Gradisher, a Navy public affairs inception. officer. The Marine Corps’ K-Max/Cargo UAS is used for cargo “The Hellfire was designed to be fired from helicopters at low movements. altitudes and to glide for several kilometers before engaging a tar“Initial plans are underway to weaponize the Fire Scout get,” said Kretzschmar. “Now we were putting it on a UAV flying and the unmanned carrier launched surveillance and swtrike at 15-20,000 feet. This had an impact on the battery life and on [UCLASS] system to be aircraft carrier-based, but we are not there system controls. Weapons systems software had to be integrated yet,” said Gradisher. The UCLASS system is still in development. into the platform. It was much more than bolting a missile onto Meanwhile, the GA-ASI Predator B, also known as MQ-9 a UAV. It was probably a nine-month process.”

Reaper, is the first UAV to have been developed as a weapons Last May, a Shadow 200 unmanned aircraft system successsystem from the ground up, according to Pehrson. The system fully launched a Shadow Hawk munition during a test at Dugway has been sold to the British and Italian militaries, pending export Proving Ground, Utah, and achieved a direct hit on the target. The approvals by the U.S. government.

Shadow Hawk, developed by Lockheed Martin, is an 11-pound, 10 | TISR 2.4

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

FLIR Thermal Sensor

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

www.dtwc.com sales@dtwc.com

managing the nEUROn project and Dassault Aviation is the prime “Right now the MQ-9 drops Hellfire missiles or 500-pound contractor. laser bombs,” said Pehrson. “We are now researching the inte“The nEUROn is being designed as an autonomous stealth gration of a JDAM [Joint Direct Attack Munition], which is a fighter,” said Johan Hansson, vice president for aeronautics marGPS bomb, and we expect to see the expansion of capabilities for keting and sales at Saab Group, one of the companies involved smaller weapons as well as larger penetrating weapons.” in the project. “The participating countries have In order to continue to shrink the sensorinvested several hundreds of millions of euros in to-shooter decision chain and provide greater the project. It is a fairly sophisticated product with flexibility to unmanned operations, the Army has a 40-foot wingspan. This project goes far beyond the embarked on developing manned-unmanned teamtheoretical studies that have been conducted until ing (MUMT) operations. This involves UAV ground now. The project contemplates the building and the controllers and Apache Block III helicopter pilots flight demonstration of an unmanned aircraft.” The sharing control of Gray Eagle UAVs. The Apache plan is to equip the nEUROn with guided bombs, Block III is the latest evolution of the Army’s foreaccording to Hansson. most attack helicopter.

Future hunter/killer UAVs will likely be equipped “The weapons piece will be fielded in early fiscal jamming capabilities and active countermeasures year 2013,” said Michelle Vigo, an interoperability Johan Hansson to allow them to operate in environments less systems engineer at the Army’s unmanned aviation systems project office. “The Apache pilots will have johan.hansson@saabgroup.com permissive than Afghanistan and Iraq. “In Iraq and Afghanistan we had the ideal operating environlimited control of the unmanned aircraft and will ment,” said Pehrson. “The weather was no threat, be able to take control of the laser designator and nor was the likelihood that adversaries could shoot the weapons system on the unmanned platform.” down coalition UAVs. If they are to stay relevant, The duo can also work as a hunter/killer team UAVs will have to be able to operate in less permisin which the UAV bird-dogs the target while the sive environments. There is now early work being Apache delivers the lethal blow. done on equipping UAVs with electronic jamming Benefits of MUMT, according to Vigo, include capabilities as well active countermeasures.” increased operational tempos; increased lethalPehrson also foresees a greater emphasis on ity; and increased survivability by reducing the equipping UAVs with smaller weapons. The Air unknown about enemy force disposition. “Better Force is considering equipping Predators with the situational awareness of the target environment for Michelle Vigo small diameter bomb (SDB). “The SDB has wingthe Apache pilot,” explained Kretzschmar, “means lets,” he noted, “and can glide significant distances much less decision making for the pilot and that of 40 to 50 miles. That is a tremendous standoff distance in conreduces lag time.” tested air space.”

“In the event of the loss of a communications link, the ground Raytheon’s Griffin mini-missile is also under consideration controllers can take control of the UAV,” said Vigo. “When the for UAVs. The Griffin is a 33-pound, 42-inch long weapon with a Apache pilot is controlling the UAV, the ground controllers are 13-pound blast-fragmentation warhead that uses a combination monitoring everything.” of GPS and a semi-active laser seeker for guidance. The GrifMUMT operations are made possible by the introduction of a fin’s range is around 12.5 miles if fired at altitude from an aerial standardized interoperability protocol supporting video and data platform. transmissions among ground stations and manned and unmanned The virtue of the Griffin is its small size, allowing unmanned aerial platforms. MUMT is also enabled by the advanced computer platforms to carry more of the weapons than the heavier Hellfires. processing system called the Future Networked Force with which “They are also more precise, which is important when targeting the Apache Block III is equipped. The Block III’s open system smaller targets like vehicles,” said Pehrson. “When going after a architecture enables the Apache Block III to perform at Level 4 vehicle, the Griffins can be targeted to a specific window. They interoperability with an unmanned aircraft system, allowing the also cause a lot less collateral damage.” Developing a smaller, Apache pilot to control the flight path, weapons systems and senlighter and less expensive next generation weapon for the Gray sors on a UAV. Eagle and other smaller unmanned platforms is also on the Greater levels of interoperability are also coming to UAV Army’s agenda, according to Kretzschmar. ground stations. “Standardizing messages and handover proceAnother key project for Army aviation is the development of dures allow a single type of ground control station to operate a universal armaments interface for unmanned platforms. “The more than one kind of UAV,” said Vigo. “We are also developing idea here is to promote the commonality and interoperability of standard interfaces for weapons. This is going to be important payloads,” said Kretzschmar. “Once requirements for payloads are once the weaponized Shadow gets fielded.” established, third-party providers can more easily integrate them Several European countries are now also working on a new onto the aircraft.” O weaponized UAV. The project, known as nEUROn, had its genesis in 2003 when the French government initiated a technological demonstrator project of an unmanned combat air vehicle. NEUROn is currently funded by cooperating European governFor more information, contact Editor-in-Chief Jeff McKaughan ments, including the Italian, Swedish, Spanish, Greek, Swiss and at jeffm@kmimediagroup.com or search our online archives for related stories at www.tisr-kmi.com.

French governments. The French Defense Procurement Agency is 12 | TISR 2.4

www.TISR-kmi.com

BECAUSE IT’S NOT JUST YOUR JOB, IT’S YOUR LIFE. Enhanced perception & awareness can save lives. FLIR continues to pioneer innovative laser designation systems that allow you to engage hostile targets from longer ranges than ever before.

When lives are at stake you need clear, accurate information you can trust.

www.FLIR.com/gs

© 2012 FLIR Systems. Inc.

For ISR, A View of

Full Motion Video

Bringing clarity and situational awareness to the battlefield.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then what are thousands of pictures worth? “A lot” is one possible answer, particularly when it comes to ISR. Intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance in either combat operations or humanitarian missions can benefit from full motion video, which typically consists of images collected 24 or more times per second. That video value is enhanced when the pictures are sharp.

“The clearer we can see, the better we can make the call whether the target is an enemy target. Does the individual have a gun or is the individual carrying a shovel? So, clarity is very important,” said Don Hudson, technical director of the Air Force’s 480th ISR Wing.

Clarity in an ISR context involves more than the images themselves. The geolocation of a scene and all the elements in it are also important.

14 | TISR 2.4

By Hank Hogan TISR Correspondent

Another vital part of the puzzle is the metadata. This data about the data can consist of descriptions of objects, input from analysts, or other information. Finally, in the case of tactical ISR, the speed with which an analyst gets imagery, is able to examine it and then can disseminate results in a suitable format is also critically important.

A look at solutions being offered by industry shows progress on the clarity, speed and analysis fronts. There also are problems to overcome, such as handling the large volumes of data produced.

Hudson touched on the latter in a recent presentation he gave on full motion video challenges. In it, he noted that WAMI, or wide area motion imagery, and WAAS, or wide area aerial surveillance, can produce massive amounts of data. This data crush will become more of a burden with the coming www.TISR-kmi.com

implementation of high definition video systems, which offer drone banks or encounters air turbulence. Furthermore, such images of up to 1920-by-1080 pixels. By comparison, standard stabilization can reduce location errors, which grow more prodefinition digital video is 720-by-480 pixels, or a sixth the size nounced the further away an element is in a scene. The best of HD. Older analog video technology is even lower resolution way to handle all of this is to act immediately as the video is and less data. being captured, rather than waiting to clean things up in postThe change to high definition and its ISR usefulness is best processing, Mork said. illustrated by analogy. “When you and I were watching basket“We’ll do things like removing volume turbulence that ball with the old TV sets, it looked pretty good. As soon as we might be in the way of the camera resolution up at the camgot HD, I could see the lines in the floor,” Hudson said. era to make the picture coming off of it clearer. Having that High definition video comes at a price. One is the more control loop between the algorithm and the camera itself than six-fold increase in the amount of generated makes it easier to get those enhanced pictures,” data, which requires similarly-sized increases in he said. bandwidth and storage. Another is that because of The implication is that the camera system its greater clarity, higher definition also makes it must have its own processor, and the more powmore important to precisely know where a sensor erful the available computing horsepower the is and what it is pointed at. Otherwise, the greater better, all things being equal. On the horizon clarity can be negated. For the same reason, it’s are pixel level search algorithms. Software based important to more completely eliminate camera on this can automatically find and track items jitter, as these tiny movements may limit image of a particular shape and color, such as a brown quality. delivery truck. When and if perfected, these Those requirements are being worked on by algorithms will eventually go into the camera Jay Mork Fairfax, Va.-based General Dynamics Advanced itself. That would help automate the process of Information Systems. Jay Mork, senior director of discovering items of interest in a video, which advanced programs, noted that the company makes products Mork said currently consumes about 80 percent of an ISR for the entire imagery value chain, from the sensors that cap- analyst’s time. ture video to the analysis and archiving of the data.

Having greater local intelligence brings other benefits. For With regard to image clarity, stabilization of the sensor can instance, the data can be compressed for transmission using minimize the effects of movement, such as might arise when a the widely supported H.264 or another appropriate standard. www.TISR-kmi.com

TISR 2.4 | 15

Whatever standard is used, the compression can be adjusted on-the-fly as needed. An aerial drone, for example, may have access to varying data pipes as it travels. With onboard processing, the degree of compression can be adjusted to accommodate these changing bandwidth conditions. The ability to adapt is important because compression is not lossless and so using it leads to a degradation of video quality. Since the goal is to get the clearest possible video to analysts, generally it’s best to use the most minimal possible compression.

Those involved in what might be called strategic ISR may be able to wait for a vehicle to land and then gain access to the raw, uncompressed video. In the case of tactical ISR, analysis has to begin immediately and proceed as close to real-time as possible.

General Dynamics Multi-INT Analysis and Archive System (MAAS), allows analysts to screen, review, manage and tag intelligence events, including full motion video. There’s a version, TAC-MAAS, suitable for tactical situations. Working in pairs, analysts can use the software to exploit video, creating metadata such as notes about particular aspects of a scene.

Another video processing and exploitation suite comes from SRI International of Menlo Park, Calif. The company’s TerraSight sofware, which has been deployed by all branches of the U.S. military, utilizes image processing to show multiple full motion video feeds in the cotext of other sensors, such as data from radar and from unattended ground stations.

SRI’s focus on video isn’t surprising, given the company’s historic connection to RCA’s research labs. Video is in SRI’s blood, said Mark Clifton, vice president of the products and services division.

The company’s software stabilizes and geolocates video as it comes in, ensuring that what an analyst sees is not distorted by one feed being particularly clear or murky. Analysts can set up exclusion zones, such as the tops of trees that might be swaying in the breeze. Likewise, the software can be set so that background movement of only a few pixels from frame to frame is ignored and only greater foreground motion is highlighted.

For analysts and those operating full motion video cameras, one of the benefits of the suite is that everything is pulled into a central view and the sensors are unified into one system. That eases the training and analysis burden, Clifton said. The software also offers something for warfighters, thanks to the ability to manipulate full motion video.

“We fundamentally change where we spend our bit in the scene, either in an automatic or user-selected fashion. If something’s moving or has an IR signature, we keep that item pristine. If there’s a certain area that you want to highlight, we keep that pristine. The rest of the area we transmit at a much lower bit rate, and it’s blurry,” Clifton said.

This capability allows analysts to push out useful information at higher resolution with lower-resolution backgrounds for context, thereby not overwhelming a low-bandwidth communication link. If necessary, useful data can travel over connections as slow as the 50 kilobit per second range, equivalent to what a 3G network and some standard military radios can support.

Thus, a warfighter can be alerted that likely benign animals or possibly dangerous people are approaching, receiving the communication and associated imagery in a format suitable for a handheld device.

16 | TISR 2.4

TerraSight immersive 3-D situational understanding currently deployed for DoD force protection. [Photo courtesy of SRI]

The SRI software runs in near real time and on standard commercial off-the-shelf hardware, according to Clifton. In the future, it is likely to implement HEVC, a high efficiency video compression standard that should be finalized within a year. The new standard will yield better compression of video streams.

Another future development to watch is a push in the broadcast industry to go beyond high definition, doubling pixels in both x and y, to what is called 4K resolution. If successful in the commercial realm, this higher resolution imaging should eventually end up in military full motion video.

Boston-based Digital Results Group has a sole product, Ageon ISR. The software overlays full motion video with relevant data, such as events, force positions and intelligence from data streams involving radar, maps, persistent surveillance and other sensors. Company President Logan Greenlee noted that incoming data is time stamped and stored for forensic retrieval.

The key to tying all the different intelligence assets together is geolocated full motion video.

“It allows you to qualify a potential target very quickly,” Greenlee said.

A single system can process two full HD streams, requiring no more than standard hardware. It is important to have a video capture card with the appropriate bandwidth, however.

What goes out to the warfighter is extracted from this, Greenlee said. For instance, all that may need to be communicated is a still from the video stream, anointed with some text or graphics to highlight key elements. Quite a bit can be done with a still and perhaps a snippet of video. The software can isolate and pull out an image or recording instantly, Greenlee said.

Digital Results Group has worked with and integrated some of the capabilities offered by Irvine, Calif.-based 2d3 Sensing, a company whose products provide modular software based image stabilization, super-resolution, spectrum optimization and georeferenced motion imagery. The architecture of the Digital Results Group software allowed this to be done fairly easily, Greenlee said.

The future promises even greater demands from full motion video and associated intelligence products, he added. For one thing, there is the move toward higher resolution visible video. For another, there is the steady upward trend in data density from other sources, such as the growing resolution of www.TISR-kmi.com

TerraSight 3-D video draping and video-based tracking keep multiple items of interest in view across an area of regard. [Photo courtesy of SRI]

infrared sensors. Both developments will require some thought about how to handle the data load, given bandwidth constraints and the need to complete tactical analysis in near real-time.

For his part, the 480th ISR Wing’s Hudson would like to see analysis be more automated. He noted that commercial ventures, like large casinos in Las Vegas, may offer lessons in this area. After all, they have a large number of people coming and going, with an undetermined number of card counters, scam artists and other known troublemakers sprinkled among the crowd. The task of identifying such individuals in the mass of innocents is somewhat similar to the ISR challenge of detecting suspect cars, trucks, motorcycles and people among the general traffic and populace.

This recognition of objects is successfully done today in factories and other situations where the lighting can be controlled, the distance to objects falls within a specified range, and the objects themselves come from a constrained group. In more free form situations, however, current automated analysis creates too many false positives, cases where a target is spotted but none exists. There also are too many false negatives, instances where an object of interest is undetected.

Better algorithms, more computing power and sharper video, however, may solve this problem and reduce the number of both false negatives and positives. Even if these improved future systems are not capable of identification with a high enough degree of certainty for complete automation, they could winnow out relevant video from the larger mass of unimportant imagery. Analysts could then concentrate on a smaller amount of data, thereby helping to solve manpower shortages.

Another commercial technology could also prove useful.

Just as the military is implementing HD imaging, movies and television are moving toward 3-D video. Generating these more realistic scenes requires two sensors and will therefore double the image data burden. Viewing the images currently requires special viewing glasses, although there is research and development underway aimed at eliminating these spectacles.

What the technology provides is depth, which could be an important piece of information. Currently, 3-D is not being deployed because the technology is not mature enough and HD is just being implemented. But, this is a state of affairs that may not last. www.TISR-kmi.com

In describing what may be the thought process in the future, Hudson said, “At some point, the technology will have evolved to the point where we say HD is good but now, maybe, we need 3-D.” 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.

2013 Defense Security+ Sensing Sensing and imaging technologies for defense, security, industrial applications, and the environment

Call for Papers spie.org/aboutdss

Conferences & Courses 29 April to 3 May 2013

Location Baltimore Convention Center Baltimore, Maryland, USA

Exhibition 30 April to 2 May 2013

TISR 2.4 | 17

ISR KIT Radar Pods Raytheon Company has been awarded a contract to produce four radar pods with ground moving target indication and synthetic aperture radar technology for the U.S. Air Force.

The radar will be mounted under the wings of MQ-9 Reaper aircraft.

The dismount detection radar will deliver accurate information in adverse weather, day and night, for U.S. Air Force intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions. Raytheon will also produce and deliver ground stations.

“Our dismount detection radar is an example of the innovative, scalable surveillance and targeting solutions we develop to meet our customers’ most complex needs,” said Mark Sims, director of strategy and business development for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance systems at Raytheon’s Space and Airborne Systems business.

“The dismount detection radar will help soldiers, intelligence analysts and commanders in the field make critical decisions,” said Colonel David Hiltz, then-chief Aerial Ground Surveillance Systems Division for the U.S. Air Force.

With increased resolution, range and coverage capabilities, the dismount detection radar offers persistent radar detection to find and track potential threats to warfighters, including vehicles and individuals in near real time, day and night.

SBIR Award for IED Detection Lattice Incorporated, a provider of advanced information and communications technology solutions to the corrections industry and key government agencies, announced that the company’s Government Services division has been awarded a small business innovative research project for IED (improvised explosive devices) detection with the Air Force. The fixed price contract is worth approximately $750,000 and continues for 18 months.

Lattice CEO Paul Burgess said, “The global market opportunity for counter-IED technologies is estimated to exceed $23 billion, according to Homeland Security Research Corporation. This market is expected to expand exponentially as greater numbers of sensor classes and sensors are added to the system, both for IED prediction applications and general decision support functions. We are hopeful this will provide us with a strong entry point into this large market segment.”

18 | TISR 2.4

First MQ-4C BAMS Unveiled Northrop Grumman Corporation recently unveiled the first U.S. Navy MQ-4C Triton broad area maritime surveillance unmanned aircraft system (BAMS UAS).

“Northrop Grumman is proud to provide our U.S. Navy customer with the MQ-4C Triton unmanned aircraft, a key element of the BAMS UAS program, representing the future of naval aviation and a strategic element of the U.S. Navy,” said Duke Dufresne, Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems sector vice president and general manager for unmanned systems.

“Today is a significant day for the BAMS team,” said Rear Admiral Bill Shannon, program executive officer, unmanned aviation and strike weapons. “The work they have done and will continue to do is critical to the future of naval aviation. Their efforts will enable the BAMS system to provide the fleet a game-changing persistent maritime and littoral intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capability.”

Designated the MQ-4C, the U.S. Navy released the aircraft name as Triton, keeping with the tradition of naming surveillance aircraft after Greek sea gods. Triton is the Greek messenger of the sea.

Currently, BAMS-D (demonstrator), a Block 10 RQ-4 equipped with maritime sensors, is being used by the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet. BAMS-D provides a glimpse of the full persistent capabilities that the Triton’s 360-degree Northrop Grumman multi-function active sensor radar will bring to the fleet.

Advanced Wide-Area Airborne Persistent Surveillance System Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC) and ITT Exelis have teamed to build Vigilant Stare, a manned aircraft-based wide-area airborne persistent surveillance system capability. This partnership will offer customers proven, advanced solutions in airborne widearea surveillance on an affordable, fee-for-service basis, saving upfront costs and risks. Hosted on a Twin Otter aircraft, the Vigilant Stare system is derived from an Air Force operationally-proven system.

Vigilant Stare will provide visible and infrared coverage of city-sized areas, providing real-time motion imagery directly to diversified users involved in domestic support missions.

Vigilant Stare motion imagery simultaneously covers three tiers: the full field of regard; multiple sub-views of the full field of view; and the best-resolution tactical chip-outs.

These products will be provided to users through an enterprise dissemination backend with best-resolution chipouts provided directly and in real time to users engaged in ground operations.

“This game-changing system will provide product in near real time for unprecedented, rapid exploitation and forensics analysis support. The entire mission data set is available postmission for live, long-term archiving, discovery and additional exploitation,” said Dave Bullock, vice president for persistent surveillance systems at SNC. “Exelis has a proven track record of delivering integrated sensing systems for space and airborne platforms, across a variety of markets and customers,” said S. Danny Rajan, director of emerging and airborne offerings at ITT Exelis Geospatial Systems.

www.TISR-kmi.com

Compiled by KMI Media Group staff

Driver’s Thermal Vision FLIR Systems has developed a lightweight driver’s thermal vision system (DTVS) driver’s camera designed to enhance driver safety and awareness through our state-of-the-art thermal imaging technology.

The FLIR DTVS system for enhanced driver’s vision in vehicles comprises two thermal cameras; a front camera with a 55 degree view, and a rear camera with a 90 degree horizontal field of view. The thermal cameras are based on an uncooled, high definition infrared (IR) detector designed to deliver sharp imagery in any conditions, including dust, smoke, rain, light fog and complete darkness. The rugged system housing incorporates integrated window heaters to eliminate fog and ice build-up. Connected to a specially designed display, DTVS will provide hands-free operation with optimum image

New ISR and Target Designation Turret L-3 Wescam announced the product launch of its MX-10D electro-optical/infrared (EO/IR) imaging and designating turret. The MX-10D will operate as a medium- to low-altitude tactical surveillance and target designating system for both fixed and rotary wing platforms, as well as tactical UAVs. “The MX-10D is ideal for mission profiles that require designation capability, where size, weight and power are limiting factors,” said Paul Jennison, L-3 Wescam vice president of government sales and business development. “The accuracy of the MX-10D’s designator and its overall range performance create a highly reliable solution for forces working with smaller tactical airborne platforms in need of targeting.”

In early June 2012, the system underwent flight testing at the U.S. Army’s Yuma Proving Ground. Testing was conducted from an armed MD500E helicopter and a C208 Cessna fixed wing aircraft. During the event, both aircraft and mission profiles yielded “exceptional” performance in all modes of flight throughout the Hellfire operational envelope.

The MX-10D can be configured with up to six payloads, including the laser target designator. The system’s consistent targeting accuracy is achieved via an internal isolator that minimizes vibration-induced boresight shifts. The system’s stabilization minimizes spot jitter, resulting in precise designation and consistent target location accuracy. Reliable GEO-referenced targeting is achieved with a GPS and an IMU embedded on the optical bench.

In addition, the MX-10D incorporates advanced image processing on all sensors to improve haze penetration, enhancing target identification and situational awareness via image fusion. www.TISR-kmi.com

quality under historically difficult driving situations for the driver.

Key camera features are easily controlled by the driver through large illuminated buttons on the display. Additionally, custom distance graphics, based on the needs of the user, are projected over the IR image on the display providing real-time feedback of the vehicles position for the driver.

“The Iraq and Afghan wars with the harsh driving conditions encountered and the requirement for 24/7 operations ushered in the need for driver vision enhancers,” said Ulf Kapborg, business development director land systems Europe FLIR Systems AB, Imaging, Sweden. “Until now, the cost of these systems has been prohibitive for an army to mount them on every vehicle, particularly lightweight 4x4 vehicles.”

Mobile Terrain Analysis Luciad, a provider of high performance visualization for situational awareness applications, announced its latest release of LuciadMobile: V2012.0. The system enables soldiers in the field and first responders to perform mobile terrain analysis using the data available on a mobile device, both in online and offline environments. Users can assess vulnerability in any situation, and as a result improve the command execution and security.

LuciadMobile V2012.0 offers the ability to access, update and send back information and intelligence in both online and offline environments. Capabilities include: full integration with Android to offer use of camera, compass and GPS; advanced terrain analysis capabilities, including line-of-sight and intervisibility; support for defense and security relevant symbologies such as MS2525C and APP6B; smooth transition from online to offline environments and vice versa. Capabilities remain available in disconnected mode; and fuse, visualize and share any Geospatial information, including KML and Microsoft Bing Maps data, to create optimal situational understanding.

“The LuciadMobile product is a clear winner for our mobile application developments,” commented Alain Gauthier, director of the JC2ISR Delivery Center at Thales Canada, Defence and Security Division. “LuciadMobile brings us rapid development, easy customization and reliable use in disconnected environments. This allows us to quickly meet our needs and those of our end users.”

TISR 2.4 | 19

The Next Generation of Multi-INT PED for

Platforms, Ground Stations & Ops Centers DRG is expanding its deployment of Ageon ISR in support of an even bolder mission – moving multi-INT data from the tactical edge to the global defense and intelligence community. Deployed as a compact 1u appliance or virtual machine, Ageon ISR scales easily from a single site to an enterprise-wide architecture. Strong emphasis on standards and interoperability make Ageon ISR quick to deploy and easy to modify.

Multi-INT Sensor Processing, Exploitation & Dissemination

Real-Time Federation Across the Network

FMV

GMTI

Observations/Tags

Cross-Domain Security Support

WAMI

SIGACTS

Annotations

SIGINT

UGS

Chat Dialog

Intelligence DIB / DCGS Interoperability

Currently Fielded /

Surveillance Reconnaissance Classifi ed Networks

DoD, NATO & MISB Compliant

A i rb orn e Wo r k s t a t i o n I G ro u n d S t at i o ns I Op erat i o ns Cent ers I I S R Ed g e So l ut i ons

Call or email today to discuss how Ageon ISR can support your mission.

Stephen St. Mary I 617-517-3210 I sstmary@drgISR.com

Intelligence Surveillance Reconnaissance

Demonstrations and range evaluations available for qualified inquires.

www.drgISR.com

Intel Deliverer

Q& A

Meeting the Challenge by Delivering Fully Integrated ISR Solutions Lieutenant General Larry D. James Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance U.S. Air Force Lieutenant General Larry D. James is the Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance, Headquarters U.S. Air Force, Washington, D.C. He is responsible to the Secretary and Chief of Staff of the Air Force for policy formulation, planning, evaluation, oversight and leadership of Air Force intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities. As the Air Force’s senior intelligence officer he is directly responsible to the Director of National Intelligence and the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence. He leads more than 20,000 ISR officers, enlisted and civilians across the Air Force ISR enterprise. This includes the Air Force Intelligence Analysis Agency as well as the Air Force ISR Agency which includes the 480th ISRW, 70th ISRW, National Air and Space Intelligence Center, and the Air Force Technical Applications Center.

James entered the Air Force as a distinguished graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy in 1978, and earned his master’s degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1983. His career has spanned a wide variety of operations, intelligence and acquisition assignments, including space shuttle payload specialist, Air Staff program element monitor, chief of operations, 14th Air Force and director of signals intelligence, National Reconnaissance Office.

He has commanded at the squadron, group, wing and numbered Air Force levels. He was vice commander of the Space and Missile Systems Center as well as vice commander, 5th Air Force, and deputy commander, 13th Air Force, Yokota Air Base, Japan. The general has served on the staffs of Headquarters U.S. Air Force, U.S. Space Command and Air Force Space Command. He also served as the senior space officer for Operation Iraqi Freedom at Prince Sultan Air Base, Saudi Arabia. Prior to his current assignment, the general was commander, 14th Air Force (Air Forces Strategic), Air Force Space Command; and commander, Joint Functional Component Command for Space, U.S. Strategic Command, Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif.

His awards and decorations include: Defense Superior Service Medal with oak leaf cluster; Legion of Merit with three oak leaf clusters; Bronze Star Medal; Meritorious Service Medal with three oak leaf clusters; and Air Force Commendation Medal.

Lieutenant General James was interviewed by KMI Media Group Editor-in-Chief Jeff McKaughan.

Q: It’s been said that the goal of Air Force ISR is to turn raw data into decision-quality information for combatant commanders and warfighters on the ground. Are you developing a way ahead to more effectively deliver the quality of the intelligence where and when it’s needed? www.TISR-kmi.com

A: We’re always improving our capabilities. In terms of delivering phase 0, phase 1 intelligence type data, that’s primarily done through our Distributed Common Ground System [DCGS]. We’re continuing to improve that with a refresh of the software tools and adding additional capabilities into the DCGS. We’re also in the middle of taking a long-term look into the future of DCGS and what that future system needs to look like. We’ll then develop the road map to get there to ensure we can handle all the data we’re processing and to meet the future demand signal. So absolutely, we constantly refresh DCGS as well as the rest of our ISR enterprise. We have a process to look at what tools we need, how we prioritize those, and what we invest in. As part of the overall effort we’re also developing that longer-range plan that will allow us to move to the future with multi-domain capabilities.

Q: You mentioned a road map; is there a formal road map for overall Air Force ISR? A: Yes, in the past we had the ISR flight plan, if you will, and now we’ve moved into what we call capabilities planning and analysis [CP&A], a process we use every couple of years to ask, ‘What are the requirements and how are we currently meeting those requirements?

And what are the gaps and shortfalls that we’re not meeting that we TISR 2.4 | 21

need to invest in?’ Then we identify those gaps in capability that need to be addressed and we make that available to the community, both the military community and the industrial community. We use this to guide us in where we need to invest and where we need to go. The CP&A is our end-to-end process to inform and guide the integration of ISR capabilities across all the Air Force core functions. We partner with Air Combat Command, the Global Integrated ISR CFLI [Core Function Lead Integrator] throughout the CP&A process. ISR’s role cuts across all Air Force core functions. Ultimately, we use the CP&A to inform a dialogue ensuring a balanced mix of ISR capabilities with all the CFLIs. Broadly, the CP&A process is intended to look across the ISR enterprise and identify those areas we need to invest in, and then develop road maps for specific areas.

This past year we also conducted a review of Air Force ISR writ large for the secretary of the Air Force. From this, we developed several tasks, approved by the secretary, to look at things like DCGS of the future. Also to look at the communications infrastructure that is needed to pass large volumes of information globally, and what that needs to look like; to look at the toolsets that we need within DCGS allowing us to handle all the information, and to look at things like nontraditional ISR and how you bring information from sensors not initially designed for ISR missions into the ISR architecture.

Q: How would you characterize the status and the performance of DCGS to date, and how do you envision it meeting challenges in the future?

A: Frankly, I think we set the gold standard in terms of the ability to do global, integrated ISR for the Department of Defense. We’re a worldwide system; we have five key nodes and multiple other nodes integrated into the enterprise. A great example of its ability and agility was last year, when we entered into March 2011: We were conducting operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, then we were asked to support Japan with the tsunami and earthquake assessment and relief, and then we seamlessly integrated with NATO to conduct combat operations in Libya. The flexibility and power of the DCGS system was evident, because we were able to support all of those operations simultaneously. We were able to provide the assessments for Japan in support of their civilian relief efforts. We were able to support the Libyan operations in a non-permissive environment—much different types of operations than those of Iraq and Afghanistan, which we’ve gotten very proficient at. In order to enable this flexibility, we quickly moved the processing, exploitation, analysis and dissemination responsibilities around that worldwide enterprise to support the combatant commanders with the integrated ISR they needed. I think that is a testament to the power of this network airmen have created.

Q: As far as the look forward, can you expand on how you intend to do that?

A: Broadly speaking, as you know, we’ve been operating in permissive environments for a while, and we are comfortable with our airborne capabilities—Predator, Reaper, MC-12 Liberty, Rivet Joint—all these platforms are important and will continue to be important, but a focus on platforms is not how we need to think about the future.

As we look ahead, we really have to think of those non-permissive environments—A2AD, anti-access area denial environments—we 22 | TISR 2.4

have to integrate a mix of sensors as well as the DCGS to handle the A2AD environment. That means you have to be able to look across all the domains that provide you information—not just the airborne layer but the space layer, the cyber layer—and how you bring all that information to bear on the intelligence problems that you’ve been given to ensure decision advantage while characterizing targets in all domains. So, the specific DCGS road map that we’re working on will start to flesh that out in terms of what are the milestones, what are the tools, what are the things we need to do.

Q: Let’s talk about the strategy to field more automated tools to speed storage, fusion, retrieval of collected ISR data. What’s the strategy to bring that all together?

A: Well the first piece, and I’ll refer back, is if you’re going to operate a global enterprise with the ability to send information down to the theater or send information back to the processing nodes, you need a robust communications infrastructure to do that. That’s part one; we have to sort out what the communication infrastructure will need to look like to facilitate the movement of potentially massive quantities of information around the enterprise. This is a task out of the ISR review that Air Force Space Command has the lead on.

Then you get into other aspects, such as how much data we need to send down from a platform; how much can be processed onboard; how much should be stored onboard? Finally, how do we store the information when it’s terabytes of data, large quantities of information—big data as some refer to it, which a lot of organizations are dealing with—how do we handle all of it?

Once you get the data where it needs to be, now what are the toolsets needed to handle full motion video without a human staring at it 24/7, so that automated tools can do the work in identifying when changes occur? Or what are the toolsets needed to take a piece of overhead data from space and fuse that with a piece of airborne data or fuse that with cyber analysis? Those are the types of things we’re looking at that will drive us to identify the future toolsets needed to bring all of this together.

Q: Talking about these toolsets and these pieces of you need, every industry partner is going to tell you that they have a solution for you. How do you cut through to find the solutions that will integrate with what you have and will fit into the architecture for the future?

A: To be honest, what we’ve tried to do when you talk about ‘Hey, here’s my great idea,’ is to make the Air Force Research Lab our storefront, if you will. The research lab can work with the CFLIs and they can asses all those good ideas because they understand future sensor capabilities, the DCGS, and the specific ISR needs. Then they can say, ‘OK, we think this is worthy of looking at or worthy of investment.’

They’re also developing a capability called PCPAD-X, which is essentially a test bed that mimics DCGS—a venue where we can experiment a little bit. We bring analysts in, so you get the human cognitive piece of all that, and try new things. We’re trying to build that “storefront,” if you will, that allows folks who have a good idea to then bounce that against the realities of the platform. From that we can assess and determine how we invest in this, or do we say, ‘No you’re not ready yet,’ or ‘It’s not really what we need. It doesn’t answer the question.’ www.TISR-kmi.com

Q: There are more than 20,000 airmen in the Air Force ISR enterprise. Given the increasing demand on ISR amongst the geographic commands, do you think this is the right amount of folks to meet that demand? Do you need to grow that in personnel, or do you need to grow capabilities with technologies?

A: First of all, we’ve grown our ISR analyst workforce by about 20 percent over the last 10 years. Even in an era of the declining numbers for the Air Force, the Air Force is seeing that we need to invest in this arena—so we have. So, in terms of numbers, I think we’re where we need to be, but our ability to characterize targets in all domains requires that we develop automated tools that allow us to handle the increasing quantities of information. We’re not going to get more people in large quantities, so our view is that the machines and tools have to continue to help us become more efficient, more effective and more productive. For instance, an analyst today may spend 60 percent of their time going to databases pulling in data that’s relevant to their problem. Well, automated tools ought to be able to do that, so that an analyst can spend 5 percent of their time just saying, ‘Automated tool, find what I need on this particular problem set,’ and then the data will come to them. Those are the kinds of things that we must develop to make our analysts more productive and effective.

That’s the path we’re heading towards.

Q: You mentioned earlier a lot of unmanned platforms, some manned platforms, and some other intel capabilities. Do you feel

the Air Force has the right mix of ISR capabilities to meet the battlefield demands of today?

A: As you know, there will always be an insatiable appetite for ISR. That being said, I think we are postured pretty well. For example, I was in Afghanistan a couple months ago, and the feedback I got from the deployed forces was that the Air Force has done well in terms of giving them the ISR capabilities they need to drive operations.

Specific to the current fight, we’re flying 57 CAPs [combat air patrols] of Predators and Reapers. Additionally, we fly the MC-12s almost continuously in Afghanistan—in fact, they have the highest operations tempo of any manned aircraft in the Air Force today. The U-2s are also operating and doing their part. In support of the current fight, we feel good about our capability.

Broadly speaking, we feel good about the current mix of manned and unmanned aircraft we have. We’re going to continue to grow the Predators and Reapers to 65 CAPs from 57. It’s in our budget and that’s where we’re going so we’ll have adequate capacity as we move to the future. As we see drawdowns in Afghanistan, I think you’ll see a shift to other combatant commanders for their needs.

As we rebalance for the future, we will also have to continue preparing to operate in that anti-access area denial environment.

That starts to drive thinking about how to use nontraditional ISR in operations. How do we take advantage of what the F-35 and F-22 have on board, as they have a penetrating capability into an A2AD environment? How do we look at better standoff sensors for our high

Command and Control Data Link

Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV)

Ground Control Station (GCS)

Secure Radio Solutions for Command and Control of Unmanned Systems Future proof, the FIPS 140-2 Certified Product Family utilizes an embeddable cryptosystem for high-performance security. The integrated security module is fully programmable and can evolve without hardware changes to meet more robust security requirements.

• Embedded cryptosystem that leverages COTS-based technologies • ‘Suite B’ family of certified algorithms • FIPS 140-2* with AES 256 encryption • Reduced SWaP

• Available frequencies: 1.3 GHz, 2.4 GHz 225-400 MHz Coming Soon!

• Links in excess of 60 miles • Temperature range: -40˚ C to +85˚ C

Visit us at AUVSI, booth 4057 Call us at +1 866.730.1466 or visit us at www.freewave.com/unmannedsystems.aspx

*NIST certification expected in August 2012

Use of U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) image does not constitute or imply DoD endorsement.

www.TISR-kmi.com

TISR 2.4 | 23

altitude platforms like the U-2 so we can see further into a denied area? And then how do we ensure we’re making full use of the space capabilities that we have, bringing those into the DCGS platform in an even more cohesive fashion? There are cyber pieces of information that will be crucial to the problem set that we have, especially in an A2AD environment. In a nutshell, these are areas we still need to improve on, but we certainly have the vision to do that.

Q: Almost all of our operations these days are coalition involved. To what extent is Air Force ISR committed to intelligence sharing with the coalition partners? Are you pursuing the integration of coalition partners into the PED [processing exploitation dissemination] construct?

A: Absolutely. We recognize that in general we don’t fight unless we’re in a coalition, so that will always be important. To that end, we have great relationships with our coalition partners. Specifically, we’ve done some very important things with some of them to improve our integrated capabilities. We’ve partnered with the United Kingdom to improve our combined DCGS functions with the program called Crossbow that we stood up. They’re using that program to bring PED capabilities into the fight today. The RAF has also become a full partner in the Rivet Joint program. In fact, I was just down in Greenville, Texas, a few weeks ago to see their first aircraft getting modified and built. The program is moving forward. In fact, the RAF is flying RAF crews on our Rivet Joint aircraft today.

The Australians are great partners too. They’re tightly integrated into our MC-12 program. I was recently in Australia and saw how they are also in the middle of working the development of their equivalent of DCGS. They’ve put several folks through training within our dcgs system. They have some folks already co-located within one of our DCGS nodes to monitor our processes and eventually intend to stand up a similar capability of their own in Australia.

As we look at NATO capabilities, we’ve improved what we call Unicorn, which is an ability to pass information back and forth with NATO partners. So, coalition and collaboration is extremely important to us, and we want to continue developing those capabilities with our key partners.

Q: How do you prioritize the acquisition of capabilities needed in the near term for today’s fight versus what you think you’ll need for the future fight?

A: We don’t have as many dollars as we used to, so we’ll have to rely more heavily on the broad capabilities planning and analysis process.

That really enables us to get the entire community sitting down, looking at the broad set of requirements and then prioritizing them.

That process helps us to answer, ‘What are the things we need to go invest in to fill the gaps?’ That can be a short-term gap or that can be a long-term gap. But the CP&A allows a rigorous process to review and prioritize those gaps and ultimately recommend new capabilities to the three-star level and we decide, ‘Here are the things that are important, here are the things that we’ll invest in.’ Whether short term or long term, we are primarily looking at the FYDP [Future Years Defense Plan] and into the out years.

So, I think from that perspective it’s a good process, but we’re trying to further improve on that with some better modeling and better tools. We asked the Air Force Studies Board to go look at that for us, in terms of how we can improve and how we can bring better tools 24 | TISR 2.4

that allow us to do better trades—for example, between a space-based SIGINT asset versus an airborne SIGINT asset. Improved modeling and tools should help us answer, ‘What are the trades, what are the cost benefits, and where do we invest?’ The Studies Board should report out here in another month or so with their results and we’re looking forward to further improving our acquisition process.

Q: To expand on that a little bit, within the Air Force is there a system that allows you to talk to the other services to make sure you’re not spending precious dollars doing something another service has already done that you can utilize?

A: Well, a couple things: number one, just the dialogue with and amongst my counterparts in the other services—so the G2, the N2, the Marine Corps’ head of intel—we definitely dialogue. In fact, we have some ongoing efforts right now with [Lieutenant] General [Mary] Legere, the Army G2, looking at things for PED and working together. For instance, we’re looking at potential future sensors and we want to do that in a collaborative fashion. A high priority for us is that type of collaboration across the joint domain.

On another level, we work closely with USDI [U.S. director of intelligence]. We have a lot of dialogue with them, and as we get into the issue cycle on the FY14 budget those discussions will be important. For example, LiDAR [light detection and ranging] is a very important capability we were using in Afghanistan to do 3-D mapping. But the question remains, ‘Should that be an enduring capability beyond Afghanistan, and if so, who should take ownership of that? Should it be the Army, should it be the Air Force, should it be NGA?’ I think that will be something that we discuss during the issue cycle in the fall. I think it’s a pretty good process and USDI certainly plays a key role as you look across the services and the other DoD intel components.

Q: Is there anything you’d like to add about Air Force ISR, the mission and the men and women that perform it?

A: As you look at integrated ISR, I think we have a truly global approach. We are setting the standard for the ability to take all of this information in and create useful knowledge and decision advantage for the warfighter and for our national decision makers. Frankly, we pride ourselves on that capability.

But, what we must always remember is that at the end of the day nothing happens without the people doing this. The ability of our men and women to execute this mission is pretty phenomenal. If you look back just a little over 20 years ago, we were worried about overhead imagery and looking at the Soviet Union and how many tanks there were—a relatively static intel problem. Now we live in a very dynamic world, which drives very complex intel problems, and yet the men and women executing Air Force ISR are absolutely phenomenal in terms of their ability to respond to these changing requirements. They consistently meet the demands of the warfighter in situations that we never even thought of five years ago, and just get the job done. I tell the story of flying a Liberty mission in Afghanistan and seeing these young 20-, 21-year-olds in the back doing electro-optical support or SIGINT support, to ground forces in harm’s way and executing that day in and day out flawlessly. These are folks that are maybe two or three years out of high school; every day they impress me. It makes you pretty proud to see them execute the mission like that. O www.TISR-kmi.com

How today’s smaller, lighter, faster embedded computers are revolutionizing war.

By Heather Baldwin TISR Correspondent

extend and retract control lines to the parafoil, steering the To understand the evolution of embedded computing in the suspended payload to its planned impact point,” said Anastacio U.S. military, look no further than your cell phone. Ten years Lambaria, Air Mobility Command Plans, Requirements and ago, most cell phones were rather clunky affairs that could Programs. do no more than place and receive calls. Today, in a smaller, Embedded computing often begins with a single board comsleeker size, they are powerful computing devices, able to perputer, similar to the motherboard in a home PC. “Oftentimes, form all the functions of yesterday’s desktop computers while to deal with the most demanding applications, fielding communications around the world. these single board computers will have more than Computers embedded within military systems one processor and those processors may have up have followed the same trajectory. Today, they to hundreds of cores, enabling them to process are smaller, faster and more powerful than ever far more information far more quickly,” explained before, and they are changing the way the U.S. Swenson. The latter form the basis of what is fights and wins on the battlefield. called high performance embedded computing “Knowledge is power—and military-embed(HPEC)—essentially, the industry’s response to ded computing today is allowing warfighters to the technology challenges of increasing efficiency have far more knowledge at their disposal than and capacity of embedded computers as military was the case only a few years ago,” said Jay Swensystems become smaller, more complex and more son, director, business development, military and Jay Swenson powerful. aerospace at GE Intelligent Platforms. “The numIn the military/aerospace field, GE Intelligent ber of sensors from which data can be acquired jay.swenson@ge.com Platforms provides computing solutions to major is now far greater. The processing applied to that prime contractors such as Boeing, General Dynamics and othdata—to make it meaningful and the basis for the quickest posers as well as a multitude of smaller companies that serve those sible response—can now be far greater. And that meaningful, primes. “Of rapidly growing importance to the military is the actionable information can be transmitted to where it’s needed acquisition of information from sensors,” said Swenson. “Those faster, and at higher quality, than was possible before.” sensors may be video cameras or radar or sonar sensors. GE’s Embedded computers, put simply, are computing devices solutions help to capture that information, process it and transwithin a larger system such as those on the new Joint Precimit it to where it’s needed. We can take the input from multiple sion Airdrop System (JPADS), a joint Army-Air Force system cameras and ‘stitch’ it together to give the warfighter inside the that uses embedded computing to control its flight path to vehicle an all-around view of the battlefield.” the intended point of impact. “JPADS 2K uses its performance “Embedded computing has revolutionized the way solcharacteristics, current GPS location, planned impact point, diers operate in the field,” said Richard Audette, Program winds aloft, terrain data, payload weight and other elements to Executive Office, Intelligence, Electronic Warfare and Sensors perform calculations and send commands to servo motors that www.TISR-kmi.com

TISR 2.4 | 25

technology and information technology into the (PEO IEW&S) acting director, system of systems battlefield, enabling soldiers and commanders to engineering. “Advances in computing technology share information about where friends and foes have given our warfighters unrivaled battlefield are,” said Michael Macpherson, vice president information.” strategic planning for Curtiss-Wright Controls A great example of this is the U.S. Army’s Base Defense Solutions (CWCDS), one of the largExpeditionary Targeting Surveillance Systems– est suppliers of open architecture-based rugged Combined, or BETSS-C. BETSS-C combines deployed embedded computing for the defense numerous separate systems into a single soluand aerospace industries. “Today, platforms on tion providing force protection, reconnaissance the battlefield are nodes on a network. Through surveillance, target acquisition, counter-IED and wireless satellite connections, information colcounter-insurgent capabilities. By integrating all Mike Macpherson lected from all over the battlefield can be shared.” these formerly separate systems, BETSS-C creates a networked source of complete, actionable information. For instance, the architecture can crossSmaller, More Powerful Solutions cue weapon systems and other sensors, bringing in artillery fire on an enemy position without a “Advances in military-embedded computing soldier ever needing to approach that position. have been driven by advances in the commercial “Technology is a force multiplier,” said market, particularly with new processors from Audette. “You don’t have as many guys sitting in Intel such as the Core i7 and new graphics proguard towers or out collecting information. It’s cessing technology from AMD and NVIDIA,” said all automated.”

Andy Mason, military/aerospace business unit Systems like BETSS-C are being enabled not manager for Kontron, a global leader in embedjust by advances in computing hardware but by an ded computing technology.

Andy Mason evolution in networks as well, added Jim Maziarz, Recently, there has been a move to using PEO IEW&S director of logistics. Five years ago, graphics processing units (GPUs), which render video gathered from the battlefield would be stored in a central high quality graphics at high frame rates in close to real time. location due its file size. “Today, we have the ability to move For instance, the latest generation of GPUs from NVIDIA feathat full-motion video or data across the network to someone ture no fewer than 384 cores, each of which is, in effect, capable who can put it together with other data and get a much better, of acting as a processor in its own right. The potential of such more accurate picture of what’s out in front,” said Maziarz. devices spawned the concept of the GPGPU, or general purpose In today’s asymmetric battlefields, where the enemy is often computing using a GPU, said GE’s Swenson. Increasingly, interspersed within friendly lines, this 360-degree view has they are being used to solve computing problems other than never been more critical. That’s why, despite shrinking budgets graphics—a potent solution for military embedded computing in many areas of defense, investments in intelligence, surveilas it enables a significant amount of computing performance to lance and reconnaissance (ISR) technology are growing. be delivered in a very small, very lightweight solution.

“One of the biggest areas we are seeing evolve is the adopThe move to pack increased computing power into smaller tion of more electronics to support C4ISR, bringing networking and smaller spaces is part of what those who develop embedded

26 | TISR 2.4

www.TISR-kmi.com

for Mercury Computer Systems, a longtime supcomputing solutions for the military call SWaP, or plier of embedded computing systems and softsize, weight and power. Those three elements— ware. “Today’s processors, depending on what you smaller size, lighter weight and lower power pick, are probably more than 10 times as fast as consumption—form the holy grail of military they were five years ago.” Highly specialized proembedded computing. Products like Kontron’s cessors, he added, can do specialized activities, like Cobalt are called a “reduced SWaP solution,” said certain kinds of math, more than 100 times faster.

Richard Pugnier, Kontron’s director of global mar“That’s been a big change,” Roberts said. “It means keting communications. Rolled out in 2011, Cobalt that on the Patriot you can track more targets is a highly scalable rugged embedded computer faster. Or you can shrink something that was the system with a footprint smaller than a standard size of a refrigerator down to something that will laptop. It offers Intel Core i7, Core2Duo and GPU Richard Pugnier fit in the palm of your hand and put it in a UAV.” processor options. Most recently, it was installed Shrinking computer size has spawned the bigin the tail section of Apache helicopters to deliver gest challenge the defense embedded computing more robust situational awareness to flight crews industry faces today: heat. As more computing using less power, less space and less weight than its power is packed into a smaller space, that space predecessor. heats up exponentially. This is compounded in Another example of SWaP is the Profiler sysmilitary systems as computer housing is sealed to tem, which collects meteorological information for protect against the elements. “Imagine the heat artillery units. In 2005, Maziarz said, the system generated by a laptop computer and multiply it consisted of three vehicles, three computers, six by 100,” said Roberts. “That’s the heat we have to soldiers and a weather balloon. Over the last seven get rid of.” years, it has shrunk to a single vehicle. Next year, it There are several ways to manage heat. Merwill shrink further with the entire capability fitting Tom Roberts cury’s PowerBlock 15 uses conduction cooling: onto a laptop computer. troberts@mc.com small plates in the computer boards conduct heat “Years ago, it took a whole board to do what’s on from the electronic chip out to the wall of the block. Heat is then one chip today,” said Tom Roberts, solutions marketing manager

www.TISR-kmi.com

TISR 2.4 | 27

dissipated either by air moving over the block or through a connection to another piece of metal that then takes the heat to the outside of a UAV. Curtiss-Wright Controls Defense Solutions has a number of patents to address the challenge of cooling a sealed chassis.

In April 2012, it also licensed Northrop Grumman’s air flow through (AFT) technology, which improves the air cooling of advanced electronic modules through use of a compact core style heat exchanger design.

AFT provides a thermal path to the cooling air with the least possible resistance.

Each AFT card is provided with a heat frame through which the cooling air is passed. On both the inlet and the exhaust sides of the card a gasket mounted inside the chassis seals the card’s internal air passage to the chassis side walls. These seals prevent air from being blown into the chassis and protect the internal electronics from the harsh Two paratroopers assigned to 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division assemble the Cerberus system, which is part of the Base Expeditionary Targeting Surveillance Systems-Combined. The Cerberus is an unmanned, self-contained, remotely external environment. operated system that provides surveillance in a deployed environment. [Photo courtesy of DoD.] “Thermal management is probably the most challenging thing we have to deal with,” avionics systems. Separately, the Army’s Vehicle said CWCDS’s Macpherson. “The challenge is that Integration for C4ISR/EW (VICTORY) is a stanyou are often in a very harsh environment where dardization initiative to correct problems created there’s a lot of dust and dirt and sand and rain. by the “bolt on” approach to fielding equipment You have to have a completely sealed chassis to on U.S. Army vehicles. protect against that but still get the heat removed Vita, the trade association for standard comfrom the electronics.” puting architectures serving critical embedded systems industries, is currently working on specifications for small sized rugged computers.

Into the Future Currently, many companies have proprietary solutions that lock defense buyers into a proprietary The challenge of heat removal will only conJerry Gipper source for rugged smaller form factor computers, tinue as tomorrow’s embedded computers keep jerry@vita.com said Jerry Gipper, Vita director of marketing. Vita shrinking in size and growing in power. Those 75 will define box size and connectivity so technology upgrades evolutions, however, will drive some interesting trends. First, are simply a matter of unplugging the old box and plugging in smaller, more powerful computers will accelerate adoption of a new one. “Right now, an upgrade means the military might UAVs, agreed industry experts. The future eventually will see have to go to another size or shape box, which means redesignUAVs capable of self-determination, predicted GE’s Swenson. ing the whole inside of the UAV,” Gipper said. The specification “We’ll see them making their own decisions about the direction could be finalized by late 2012. and scope of a mission based on real-time information rather Last, experts said cloud computing will be the next digital than being constantly guided by a ground-based operator,” frontier for the military. “The Army has just started getting into he said. “This places huge demands on on-board processing cloud computing,” said PEO IEW&S’s Audette. “As we go more capability.” and more in that direction, you get better information, faster, “UAV and drone technology is one of the biggest growth right at your fingertips. The question then becomes: How do areas for us,” added Kontron’s Mason. Continual reductions in you set up algorithms in your cloud so that when someone on SWaP, he said, may make it possible to one day launch swarms the edge asks for information, he gets exactly what he needs of micro-UAVs, which could collaborate with one another while right then rather than a huge data dump? There are mountains accomplishing the mission. and mountains of data and you need to not only have the data Another trend going forward will be continued standardizasoldiers need, but train soldiers where and how to ask and tion of computing software and hardware, enabling quicker, define their queries.” O more cost-effective upgrades. Earlier this year, the Future Airborne Capability Environment (FACE) Consortium, a collaboration of 39 member organizations including NAVAIR and U.S. Army PEO Aviation, released the FACE Technical Standard, For more information, contact Editor-in-Chief Jeff McKaughan at jeffm@kmimediagroup.com or search our online archives for related stories which provides guidelines for creating a common operating at www.tisr-kmi.com. environment to support applications across multiple DoD 28 | TISR 2.4

www.TISR-kmi.com

Unmanned systems created a paradigm shift in ISR-data collection.

By Henry Canaday, TISR Correspondent Unmanned vehicles, in the air, on the ground and both under and on the surface of the seas, play an increasingly important role in all aspects of U.S. defense. Myriad platforms have been developed and have proven their usefulness. Emphases now include improving payload capabilities, increasing endurance, seeking more common operation, interpreting data and making future enhancements more easy and affordable.

www.TISR-kmi.com

TISR  2.4 | 29

Army unmanned aerial systems (UASs) primarily provide tactical reconnaissance, surveillance and target acquisition, according to the Program Executive Office, Aviation, Unmanned Aircraft Systems Project Office.

UAS Project Manager Colonel Timothy Baxter said UASs also do intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, battle-damage assessment, persistent stare, and protection against ambushes and improvised explosive devices.

The RQ-11B Raven small UAS supports companies and platoons. A fully gimbaled Raven payload with electro-optical (EO), infrared (IR) and illuminator will be fielded in 2012.

The hand-launched RQ-20A Puma all environment capable variant has a fully gimbaled payload with high-resolution color day, IR sensor and IR laser illuminator and supports lower echelon units.

The RQ-7B Shadow supports brigade combat team commanders with EO and IR camera, laser designator (LD) and IR illuminator. Future upgrades include tactical common data link, universal ground control station, universal ground data terminal and extended wing for over nine hours of endurance. Altitude, wind direction, speed, weather and terrain affect Shadow performance.

Planned improvements also include greater endurance and range and increased payloads.

The MQ-1C Gray Eagle is a medium altitude long endurance UAS, designed to fly up to 24 hours at altitudes of 25,000 feet at speeds up to 130 knots, and can deliver up to four AGM-114 Hellfire missiles.

Raytheon’s common sensor payload with EO, IR and LD can track multiple targets, search wide battlefield areas and fuse midwave IR pictures with daylight and imageintensified TV. Twenty Gray Eagles operate in Afghanistan, flown digitally by aircraft and payload operators and using an automatic takeoff and landing system.

Weather can severely affect Gray Eagle operations, and sharing bandwidth can be a problem as communications increase.

Planned improvements for the Gray Eagle include greater fuel efficiency, increased climb rate, faster dash speed, high definition/ target location accuracy sensor capability, signals intelligence (SIGINT) Electronic Attack sensors to detect and jam communication emitters, and migration to Ka-band satellite communication in fiscal year 2013.

Baxter said UAS training is a challenge.

Contractors assist, as so many UASs are fielded. Training and Doctrine Command alone has not been able to satisfy Army 30 | TISR 2.4

Also under analysis is the modular unmanned requirements for small UAS operators. The surface craft littoral, a man-portable USV Army will train new operators in their units deployable from riverine boats. with Master Trainers. A new simulator, VisuStrategically, the Navy intends to alization and Mission-Planning Integrated produce a family of capable, effective and Rehearsal Environment (VAMPIRE), will also interoperable unmanned systems that intehelp. VAMPIRE is the basis for a new institugrate with manned platforms and ships to tional training simulator (ITS). provide battlespace awareness and war fightThe Navy now operates the MQ-8B Fire ing advantage to commanders at all levels.

Scout vertical takeoff and landing unmanned Eventually, every platform will be a sensor aerial vehicle. and every sensor will be networked. Data The Navy’s RQ-4A broad area maritime will be discoverable and accessible by all. surveillance demonstrator (BAMS–D) colPayloads will be modular, scalable and pluglects lessons learned for Navy ISR. Based on and-play. There will be common unmanned Block 10 Global Hawks with sensors modisystems control stations, interfaces, data forfied for persistent maritime and littoral ISR, mats and standards. Further on the horizon, aircraft operate at altitudes up to 60,000 feet the Navy will field smart sensors that require for over 30 hours and are equipped with EO less man-in-the-loop sensor control during and IR cameras, synthetic aperture radar, missions. automatic identification system receivers Rob Hughes, principal marketing manand electronic support payloads. ager for airborne marketing at Rockwell The unmanned combat aircraft system Collins, said the government increasingly aircraft carrier demonstration (UCAS-D) wants interoperability among UASs that were is maturing technologies for carrier-suitdeployed individually and then ossified with able UASs. It will validate the feasibility of proprietary technologies. conducting unmanned system flight-deck The Air Force’s UAS operating philosolaunch and recovery operations. phy is hand on throttle and stick with a BAMS-D and UCAS-D efforts yield lescertified pilot for landing and takeoff. “They sons learned for the BAMS MQ-4C Triton would like to get close and just push a button and UCLASS programs. The BAMS MQ-4C to land,” Hughes explained.

Triton will provide persistent maritime ISR Army architecture is Windows Interface data collection and dissemination and airMouse Pointer. A warrant or non-commisborne communications relay capability to sioned officer touches the display with a combatant commanders. mouse and pulls down menus to control The Navy also manages a variety of aircraft or sensors. smaller UAS programs such as ScanEagle to The Office of Secretary of Defense has set provide capability to unit-level commanders up interoperability profiles to define comwho are operationally deployed. mon architecture that works with legacy The Navy currently operates a variety of systems while allowing third parties to do unmanned undersea vehicles (UUVs) to pertechnical insertions. form many missions, including mine counMore sensors on board will require robust termeasures, anti-submarine warfare and data links and better analytic capabilities.

ISR. Endurance and autonomy are the major Rockwell can improve autonomous ISR challenges for UUVs. Improvements in operation and reliability of lithium batteries and develaircraft. For example, the opments in hydrogen fuel ScanEagle, with a Rockwell cells will increase power mission computer, can operand endurance available to ate for 24 hours at 2,500 to all UUVs. Autonomy is being 3,000 feet. Rockwell also has researched and matured by components on the RQ-4 commercial and government Global Hawk, MQ-1 Predaagencies. tor, MQ-9 Reaper, MQ-8 Fire Several unmanned surScout and Shadow. face vehicle prototypes are GE Intelligent Platforms being evaluated by the Navy.

Scot Wesolaski is active in capturing video For example, the unmanned and sensor data, graphiinfluence sweep system cal communication, networking, switch(UISS) would provide the Littoral Coming and backend processing for ISR and bat Ship with stand-off, long endurance, SIGINT, according to Scot Wesolaski, global semi-autonomous minesweeping capability. www.TISR-kmi.com

with a canister of gas that inflates a bladder industry manager for defense and aerospace and enables the UUV to ascend. embedded computing.

Gliding yields very long distances, but Wesolaski said defense customers want without the control of powered operation, so actionable intelligence. “The trend in data is best for small payloads to measure water download is away from full motion video to temperature and salinity.

FMV tagging. They want to go from data to Docking stations could exploit wave activity-based intelligence.” energy with a wave-harvesting buoy. Or Interoperability is also important, Wesoenergy could be drawn from ocean currents, laski said. Other trends are autonomous which yield less energy than operations and additional waves but are steadier. functionalities, for example Individually, all these hyper-spectral sensors. technologies are available UASs increasingly go into now, but integrating them is contested airspace so will the challenge. “The ocean is need more weapons. Defense not friendly or predictable,” also wants UASs to move Geoghegan stressed. food, ammunition and supUUVs cannot be remotely plies by air. controlled, because GPS does Wesolaski predicts shortnot work unless an antenna term funds will go to small Bob Geoghegan is put up and pulled down.

UASs, then to medium and They require sophisticated eventually to larger modnavigation systems. els. “GE can deploy systems Battelle also works on quickly and fit into new sysimproving UASs, said Art tems well. Commercial offSchultz, manager of tactical the-shelf [COTS] rugged equipment. UASs are susceptisystems enable UAS primes ble to icing conditions, which to move into production fast.” can seriously impact perforGE’s Adept 3000 small mance, and reduce availabilautomatic miniature video ity for missions. Battelle has tracker tracks single targets developed an active resistive and Adept 5000 tracks mulArt Schultz heating coating (RHC) solutiple targets. It is working tion for anti-icing and has on general purpose graphtested it in wind tunnels. ics processing units and has For unmanned ground partnered with InVidia, which vehicles (UGVs), there are makes gaming applications. power issues. Defense wanted GE’s COTS rugged box with a a man transportable robotic rugged display can be used for system (MTRS) to use milimany different applications. tary batteries. Battelle delivBattelle mainly makes ered several thousand battery systems related to unmanned boxes that enable MTRS to vehicles, explained Bob use military, rather than Geoghegan, manager of ocean Brian Goldberg OEM, batteries. engineering. “The Navy wants Battelle does system engiUUVs to stay out longer, go neering and architecture design to support places ships can’t and avoid ship-tending the drive toward more commonality and costs.” helps both OEMs and government customers Battelle subsidiary Bluefin Robotics and strengthen autonomous controls. the Columbia Group are working on a larger Adsys Controls’ makes flight controls, UUV, Proteus, which should be demonstrated automatic pilots, payloads and mission systhis fall. Proteus could operate up to 900 tems, explained President Brian Goldberg. miles and up to 300 hours.

The company also makes autopilot simulaAnother approach is using docking stators and does system modeling. The latter tions to recharge batteries, offload data and includes simulating flight dynamics, power, give UUVs new instructions. communication, fuel management and Or a UUV could glide underwater, savpayload systems. Simulations are used for ing battery power. But when the UUV gets system design and vehicle validation and beyond its depth, it must increase buoyancy www.TISR-kmi.com

have been extended for training. Adsys also simulates EO and IR performance. Coupled with scenario generation, this allows emulation of mission scenarios for both vehicle operator and payload operator immersive training.

Adsys is working on new technology, the laser aided recovery system (LARS) for missions that are not in GPS- or radio frequencyfriendly environments. Most UASs use GPS for navigation and recovery, except for a few like Shadow and Fire Scout, which use RF. RF is susceptible to jamming by sophisticated adversaries, and GPS might be denied in some areas. Additionally, RF systems are susceptible to reliability issues and multipath errors risking loss of vehicle. LARS will be demonstrated on a UAS next year.

Adsys is also developing payloads, EO, IR and hyper-spectral. These will be very high-precision for long-distance surveillance requiring very precise pointing.

The company has a module, XSight, for high-definition video processing that can process four times the data as standarddefinition video processors. XSight provides

Platform, payload and mission analysis from concept through disposal.

www.trivector.us

TISR 2.4 | 31

capabilities reserved for much more expensive payloads at a fraction of the cost including multi-target tracking, digital video stabilization and video compression.

“The major problem is that UASs are stove-piped,” said DreamHammer CEO Nelson Paez. “That stops the innovation you get in commercial markets.”

DreamHammer is building a COTS product, Ballista, so third-party developers can build applications, sensors or platforms, Paez explained. “If the government builds it, there will be 10 different systems. You don’t have 10 different versions of SAP or Windows, you just have Windows.” The common approach will support multiple sensors, payloads, communications, vehicles, application developers and mission staff.

The Navy is interested. Ballista would control any unmanned system. And one man could control many systems. “You should not fly the vehicle, you should manage the mission and tell it where to fly,” Paez said.

DreamHammer expects to issue software development kits in spring 2013, allowing developers to communicate with

32 | TISR 2.4

impossible with manned platforms. TriVecBallista’s application programming interfaces. tor also works with an interagency group “Our advantage is we are a commercial outthat looks at the use of fit, there will not be future unmanned vehicles by a block upgrades. And we can number of federal defense and spread the costs over many civilian agencies. customers.”

Coffey said the Defense UAS OEMs like Raytheon Department has done 90 perhave sophisticated capabilicent of UAS development, and ties, Paez acknowledged. “But TriVector and other agencies they work for government, want to leverage these miliso there will be different tary platforms. “We do not systems. And they think of want to build platforms, but hardware first, not user expeJohn Coffey use the ones with proven rience. That is why UAS trainreliability. We want to inteing is so hard.” grate new sensors and obtain unique, difAnd UASs are about to be used much ficult to acquire data sets.” The Defense more broadly. TriVector Services Inc. supDepartment could be interested in hazardous ports the National Oceanic and Atmospheric weather data, and TriVector is working with Administration’s (NOAA) UAS program, NOAA, the Navy and the Air Force on this explained John Coffey, vice president, problem. O Unmanned Systems Division. NOAA has been stepping up its interest in unmanned systems to study hazardous weather, the For more information, contact Editor-in-Chief Arctic and marine mammals and is looking Jeff McKaughanat jeffm@kmimediagroup.com or search our online archives for related stories at both UASs and UUVs. One project seeks to at www.tisr-kmi.com. gather surface data in the eye of hurricanes,

www.TISR-kmi.com

Radar set the early stages for distance detection and is still a technology on the cutting edge.

The first aircraft outfitted with radar flew in 1938, when a Bell Lab product was attached to a United Air Lines aircraft. Almost 75 years later, radars are still relied on to detect potential dangers in the air and on the ground.

Along the way there have certainly been major advances and discoveries, like synthetic-aperture radar (SAR), which relies on motion between an antenna and its target to provide higher resolution, in the 1950s. Today, SAR can offer maps for surveillance and be used for coordinate generation and bomb impact assessment purposes. It provides air forces with the ability to precisely geo-locate points of interest and conduct surveillance activities day or night, in adverse weather conditions The movement today is making systems better—from shortening the time required for the tasking, collection, processing, and dissemination process, to extending the maximum range of the radar, to podded systems that can help efficiently place radar on different types of aircraft. Some companies which helped develop SAR in the 1950s, like Bethesda, Md.-based Lockheed Martin, are still at it today.

By Leslie Shaver TISR Correspondent

military airborne surveillance capabilities to mid-size Boeing 737 aircraft. The MESA radar provides air-to-air coverage, air-tosurface coverage, integrated identification friend or foe, special track beams and focused sector operation.

“We have a whole array of surveillance systems both for the AEW mission as well as for the air-to-ground mission,” Kalafos said.

A Wider Footprint

Lockheed’s tactical reconnaissance and counter-concealment radar (TRACER) is designed to stare at a geographic location so that it can detect changes over long period of time. The lightweight, low-frequency system relies on radio waves in the UHF and VHF frequency ranges instead of light to see through foliage, rain, darkness, dust storms or atmospheric haze to provide realtime, high-quality tactical ground imagery any time it is needed, day or night. Lockheed said the system uses data link technology to allow results to be disseminated to ground users immediately.

“The Phoenix Eye can image targets up to 150 kilometers Building off AWACs away and weighs less than 400 pounds,” said Mark Grablin, director of airborne reconnaissance systems for Lockheed MarIt’s hard to look at what’s happening with airtin Information Systems and Global Solutionsborne sensors without looking at the world enviDefense. “The antenna is 4 feet long and produces ronment. Buz Kalafos, vice president of Northrop high resolution SAR images and GMTI target Grumman’s surveillance systems business unit, said detections.” the military’s transition from counter-insurgency Lockheed’s Phoenix Eye radar is a dual mode operations to a more traditional role focused on X-band SAR, which can transmit airborne prothe Asia/Pacific region changes what the warfighter cessed images and moving target detections to needs. Instead of permissive environments like ground-based exploitation stations in real-time via Afghanistan, the warfighter will find denied access secure data links. environments where threats exist from air-to-air The system provides extremely high-resolution and ground-to-air environments. Because of this, imagery, even in inclement weather or darkness. In Buz Kalafos the warfighter demands 360 degree situational less than one minute, the radar’s wide area moving awareness across the battlefield at all times, requiring persistent target indicator mode can scan a 10,000-square-kilometer area, ISR. Information must come from a variety of sources and be detect ground movement, then overlay that moving target data pushed into a network that can disseminate it to a host of users. onto a map.

Northrop Grumman has been in the ISR world for more than One of Lockheed’s major focuses in product development is 40 years and has evolved as the climate changed. One of its flag- offering a podded system that would allow its radars to be fielded ship products is the E-3 Sentry, an airborne warning and control on various aircraft. The Phoenix Eye was first developed for an Air system (AWACS) aircraft that provides all-weather surveillance, Force F-16 podded radar program and a later version flew on an command, control and communications. Northrop Grumman F-15. “If you can mount it, it gives you a lot of versatility,” Grablin Electronic Systems also offers airborne early warning (AEW) to said. “It just makes it easier.”

Boeing for the AN/APY-1 and AN/APY-2 radar systems used on the Reducing weight is also a key goal. “In general terms, you add E-3, and the AN/APY-2 radar system used on the E-767. modules and capabilities and reduce size and power requirements.

Northrop builds off of its AWACS platform with the multi-role The combination of long-range capability and small size is fully electronically scanned array (MESA) surveillance radar to bring unique in our offering,” Grablin said. www.TISR-kmi.com

TISR 2.4 | 33

Process Focused

Margulis said Artemis offers a radar system that can be used on vehicles going as high as 20,000 feet. One the Artemis products’ greatest strengths, according to Margulis, is that they’re modular.

Boulder, Colo.-based Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp.

“Because we do a pulse system, you can just add power or you recently demonstrated its real-time, full motion color LiDAR [light can change the antenna or both and go all the way to 20,000 feet,” detection and ranging] system for DoD. The system uses a 3-D flash he said. “The core SlimSAR system remains the same. So we just LiDAR camera from Santa Barbara, Calif.-based Advanced Scientific make the changes and go up.”

Concepts to capture and send a 3-D image from a Margulis said the SlimSAR’s multi band approach, fixed or rotary wing aircraft to the ground. “What we which includes UHF, L, and X bands, weigh less than provide is the software and signal processing to do 20 pounds (including the digital, the power supply fusing, orthorectification, and georeferencing in real and some preliminary on-board processing) also sets time, providing actionable intelligence to the user it apart. instead of just raw LiDAR data,” said Roy Nelson, “You change where you go, you will have differlaser applications advanced systems manager for Ball. ent frequency allotments or things jamming you,” “The LiDAR camera runs at 30 frames a second; we Margulis said. “With these three bands, if you can’t fuse that data with a synchronized context camera, use UHF at all, you can just use the L and X band. You either visible or IR, and georeference using an intenever really have a bad day with this system because grated IMU in real time.”

Mark Grablin at a minimum at least you get data back.”

Both the LiDAR and context camera view the same area on the ground. Each pixel in the LiDAR sensor independently provides a range value. “So Cost Cutting Mode in real time we fuse or add all of the color camera parameters to each LiDAR range pixel,” Nelson said.

While companies are often eager to talk about Nelson said that Ball demonstrated the unit at a their latest and greatest ISR platforms, Kalafos said, Special Operations Command tactical network testthings are changing. “Historically everybody looks bed exercise last fall at Camp Roberts. Ball’s system for what’s new. Give me the latest and greatest. The sent fused, full motion 3-D imagery, both day and things we’re seeing now are more about the legacy night, to the tactical operations center via an RF systems not going away.” downlink. He explained the speed of process is what That means Northrop is enhancing the operasets Ball’s system apart. Ball is calling their system tional performance of legacy platforms like the Joint Total Sight.

Stars, AWACs, Global Hawk, and E-2D. Yuly Margulis Yuly Margulis, president of Hauppauge, N.Y.“It’s not like they’re making a lot of new platyuly@artemisinc.net based Artemis, said data fusion is always a hot button forms,” Kalafos said. “The trend is to keep the curitem. “It’s rare that you see the combo of EO/IR and SAR [in the rent platforms relevant. They don’t have unlimited budgets where air]. People are happy to do it on the ground. Anything that will get they throw out what’s in service to replace it with the next generathem more information is important. More sensors crammed into tion. We’re seeing less new starts and more maintaining relevance.” a single vehicle and putting all of that data together to get you an The moneysaving mantra weaves itself into other goals as well. image is hot.”

It’s taking nontraditional ISR platforms, such as the F-22 Raptor and F-35 Lightning II, and using them as intelligence collectors.

“Given the budget constraints, we’re looking at ways to do multi The Unmanned Competitors missions,” Kalafos said. “We’re looking more and more at adding more capabilities to the systems that we have to give them a multiThere are also a number of companies that compete in mission capability. We’re seeing requests for reconfigurations, unmanned aircraft reconnaissance game. Springville, Utah-based whether it’s by adding software or additional sensors to provide a ImSAR’s core technologies include digital signal processing, radar, multi-mission focus.” manufacturing and inertial measurement systems. Its NanoSAR B To get there, there needs to be a common architecture that line uses a tactical inertial navigation system and its onboard firmallows data to be moved efficiently across different platforms. ware compresses real-time SAR data and transmits over a digital “There are tons of systems and sensors out there but historically link to its Lisa ground station, where the imagery is generated and they haven’t been networked together,” Kalafos said. “We’re seeing archived for exploitation by its Lisa tool suite. them networked together more.”

“Traditionally, radars have been exploited by an image analyst at Money can also be saved by relying on coalition partners. Instead a fairly high level and the time from image collection to disseminaof doing everything, U.S. forces may rely on Australia and Korea to tion has been measured in days and weeks,” said Adam Robertson, run their 737 AEW platform, which supports their AWACs platform. a vice president at ImSAR. “We simply get the imagery to tactical “We’re seeing more and more operations where we’re working users on the ground in real time.” in conjunction with our partners,” Kalafos said. O Robertson said his product also offers a breakthrough in size, weight and power. “We’re an order of a magnitude smaller, our weight is an order of a magnitude lighter, and our power requirements are an order of magnitude less,” he explained. “If we didn’t For more information, contact Editor-in-Chief Jeff McKaughan at jeffm@kmimediagroup.com or search our online archives for related stories have all of this simultaneously, we couldn’t fit in these tiny aircraft, at www.tisr-kmi.com. from Shadow 200 down to a Puma.”

34 | TISR 2.4

www.TISR-kmi.com

The advertisers index is provided as a service to our readers. KMI cannot be held responsible for discrepancies due to last-minute changes or alterations.

TISR RESOURCE CENTER Advertisers Index Ball Aerospace. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C3 www.ballaerospace.com Controp USA Inc.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 www.contropusa.com Datron World Communications. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 www.dtwc.com Digital Results Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 www.drgisr.com FLIR Systems. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 www.flir.com/gs FreeWave Technologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 www.freewave.com/unmannedsystems.aspx ISR Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C4 www.isrgroup.com Raytheon Company. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 www.raytheon.com Recon Robotics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 www.reconrobotics.com Selex Galileo Inc.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C2 www.selexgalileo.com SPIE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 www.spie.org/aboutdss Teledyne Nova Sensors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 www.novasensors.com TriVector Services Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 www.trivector.us USGIF. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 www.geoint2012.com

NextIssue

October 2012 Volume 2, Issue 5

Calendar August 6-9, 2012 AUVSI North America Las Vegas, Nev. http://symposium.auvsi.org

October 4, 2012 C4ISR Breakfast Arlington, Va. www.ndia.org/meetings/392A/

September 9-12, 2012 NGAUS General Conference Reno, Nev. www.ngaus.org

October 8-11, 2012 GEOINT 2012 Orlando, Fla. www.usgif.org

September 21-23, 2012 ONR Maritime Sensing Discovery and Invention Review Washington, D.C. https://secure.onr.navy.mil/ events/

October 22-24, 2012 AUSA Washington, D.C. www.ausa.org

September 25-27, 2012 Modern Day Marine Quantico, Va. www.marinemilitaryexpos.com www.TISR-kmi.com

November 14-15, 2012 AFCEA North Carolina Chapter Symposium and Exposition Fayetteville, N.C. www.afcea.org

Cover and In-Depth Interview with:

Stephen Kreider Acting PEO U.S. Army IEW&S

Special Section Man-Portable ISR

Features • • • • •

Urban ISR 3-D Mapping Ground-based EW Ground Control Stations Unattended Ground Stations

Bonus Distribution: AUSA GEOINT

Insertion Order Deadline: September 12, 2012 Ad Materials Deadline: September 19, 2012 TISR 2.4 | 35

INDUSTRY INTERVIEW

Tactical ISR Technology

Alfred Lumpkin Founder and CEO ISR Group

Alfred Lumpkin founded ISR Group in 2005 and his vision led the company to its current level of success. He has 20 years of technical leadership experience in the power systems industry and worked for several leading organizations, including Westinghouse Electric, General Electric and Bechtel Group. He is a U.S. Army veteran and served as a pathfinder during the Vietnam War. Q: How is ISR Group prepared to meet the changing demands of military requirements?

A: The drawdown of troops from Iraq and Afghanistan presents the military with a two-fold challenge in maintaining effective unmanned systems training and resetting the returning UAS hardware. For active duty soldiers returning to CONUS, they will need to be retrained on the latest unmanned technologies and CONOPS lessons learned.

Reservists and National Guard units will require initial UAS operator and advanced tactical training, along with currency training on the latest UAS technologies. This demand will exponentially accelerate the operational tempo of training. A part of ISR Group’s mission is to fill the gaps in DoD’s unmanned training requirements. We are training experts in unmanned technologies because of our close industry relationships and experience with a diverse range of unmanned UAS platforms.

Q: And what can you do on the equipment side of the drawdown?

A: Along with DoD’s increased training requirements, the drawdown of troops from Iraq and Afghanistan will also cause an 36 | TISR 2.4

influx of hardware returning from theater.

This will drive up depot level maintenance requirements, which ISR Group is prepared to support with our own logistics and depot maintenance capability. We have the facilities, resources, skillsets and experience to perform as a prime contractor, system integrator or MRO contractor.

Q: What unmanned trends are you working with for your DoD customers?

A: The integration of unmanned technologies to support war fighting continues to grow because of the high demand for actionable intelligence on the battlefield. contractor owned, contractor operated [COCO] type contracts grew in popularity during OIF [Operation Iraqi Freedom] and OEF [Operation Enduring Freedom] due to their a valueadded concept for DoD. As a contractor, ISR Group must be cost-effective in the selection, deployment, flight operations and maintenance of UASs and associated payloads to meet our COCO requirements. We continue to work with DoD to provide this service, which reduces the military’s needs to heavily invest in rapidly changing technology, personnel recruitment and training, and new maintenance processes and tooling. And it holds us accountable to offer the best value to the government.

Q: How will your skills and capabilities translate to the needs of other government customers?

A: While we will continue to support DoD missions around the world, we will begin

to see a shift in theater from DoD operations to State[Department]-led operations.

As the number of sState representatives assigned to higher risk areas increases, there will be a strong need for UAS operations to ensure the safety of diplomats and support teams.

Domestically, the Customs and Border Patrol [CBP] is utilizing unmanned systems for border security, and there has been a call for the CBP’s improvement of their program planning to maximize operations.

Where border security challenges are worsening, the high reliability and low cost of UASs are valuable to homeland security initiatives.

Q: How do you see the future growth of the UAS industry?

A: The only way to move the UAS industry forward commercially is to ensure the safe integration of manned/unmanned systems into the NAS [National Airspace System].

This will require the FAA to designate a number of UAS test and evaluation centers around the country dedicated to improving UAS sense and avoid technologies and processes.

ISR Group owns the largest private UASspecific range in the U.S. Our range complex includes 32 square miles of airspace, a 10-square-mile private range, and a training facility for classroom preparation and hands-on experience at our headquarters in Tennessee.

We have the experience and resources to help prepare researchers, developers and operators for the integration of unmanned aircraft in the NAS. O www.TISR-kmi.com