Persistence Imperative

Written by Adam Baddeley

GIF 2009 Volume: 7 Issue: 6 (November/December)

SURVEILLANCE SYSTEMS MEET NEED FOR
CONTINUOUS, WIDE-AREA, DAY-ORNIGHT
SITUATIONAL AWARENESS IN COMPLEX
OPERATIONAL ENVIRONMENTS.

Persistence is an increasing attribute of surveillance systems. Military and intelligence users in Southwest Asia and elsewhere need coverage of an area of interest to be constant over a period of months and available in all weathers and times, and often unattended by personnel both for reasons of force protection and covertness.

In response to that pressing need, the military and industry are stepping up efforts to develop and deploy systems for persistent surveillance of all types. BAE Systems, for example, this year developed and delivered the first airborne persistent surveillance system to the Army, addressing an urgent need for continuous, wide-area, day-ornight situational awareness in complex operational environments.

BAE Systems began developing the Army’s Airborne Wide Area Persistent Surveillance Sensor (AWAPSS), under a $23.8 million contract awarded last year. Tasked with producing two complete systems and two spare sensors, the delivery of the first systems took place in July, with the first systems scheduled to be deployed early next year. “This is in response to IEDs. What we are trying to do is to cover a very large area—8 kilometers in radius, circling at about 18,000-foot altitude and to be able to collect day and night imagery simultaneously with enough solution to track vehicles,” said Bruce Konigsberg, director sensor systems, BAE Systems.

After roughly 18 months of development, the first systems recently took flight in Twin Otter test aircraft of the Army Night Vision Lab, the lead for the program. It will also be deployed to both Iraq and Afghanistan onboard the Army C-23 and C-12 aircraft, respectively.

The system’s persistence lies in the platform it is installed upon. “These platforms will fly in a circle for about six hours collecting data,” said Konigsberg. “They will land and another platform will take its place and that is how it gets its time on station or its persistence. That is all dependent on the fuel the platform carries. When it lands, the data gets pulled off and analyzed. If something blows up you can now have that vehicle and backtrack in time to see where that vehicle came from. AWAPSS is a forensic tool.”

AWAPSS’ uniqueness derives not from the advent of new technology. Indeed, one of the requirements of the bid was that it should use mature technology. BAE’s solution is substantially based on the firm’s Advanced Reconnaissance System, which is currently already fielded in several countries, but has been systemized in a unique way.

The AWAPSS system consists of three focal plane arrays, one for daylight operation, the remaining two for night operation. Konigsberg said, “It is the only system that has both day and night in a single turret.”

AEROSTAT DEPLOYMENT

The Base Expeditionary Targeting and Surveillance System (BETSC) program, meanwhile, is run by the Army Program Executive Office Intelligence, Electronic Warfare and Sensors and managed by Program Manager Night Vision. It is an umbrella acquisition program, designed to acquire numerous platforms and surveillance to provide surveillance capabilities optimized for force protection.

Raytheon provides the Rapid Aerostat Initial Deployment (RAID) system, which with other surveillance systems makes up the BETSC family. For the balance of capabilities, ICx Technologies is prime contractor for the Cerberus systems, a smaller-tower-based persistent surveillance program, while SAIC is prime for the Force Protection suite, a series of small cameras that in some cases are simply nailed to the side of buildings.

RAID provides platforms to achieve persistent surveillance including a 17-meter aerostat, which flies at about 1,000 feet, and a 107-foot tower. The exact mix is still evolving, however.

“RAID is about five years old now and has evolved in its capabilities,” said Peter Choate, RAID program manager at Raytheon Defense Systems. “It is better but not a lot different. We have gone from a 107-foot tower to an 80-foot tower. The 107-foot model needed guy wires going to ground, but the 80-foot solution doesn’t need them and is thus more rapidly deployable. We have also added some sensor technologies to its payload.”

Under the analogous Ground Based Operational Surveillance System (GBOSS) program for the Marine Corps, RAID is also used, although in that case, the electro-optic payload on board is matched with a DRS-sourced MSTAR radar.

Potential range of the system is a function of elevation, with the curvature of the Earth enforcing absolute limits and intervening human and natural geography placing their own limits in terms of obscuring the line of sight for sensors. Choate explained, “If you are 107 feet up, you can see 12 miles, while an aerostat at 1,000 feet up gives you 35 miles. Ranges are classified, but cameras are perfectly capable of seeing as far as you need to see.”

Improvements to capabilities within that envelope are also under way, however. “The payload offering will also change from what it currently is. You learn things over time, and there are ways to improve things. We are also embarking on alternate aerostat sizes and capabilities so stay tuned to this channel. With helium you can only go to a specific height within your size envelope. If you go to bigger envelope you can go higher, and as you go higher you get longer range,” said Choate.

RAID also has an expansive growth path, according to Choate. “In addition to the aerostat and the tower, we are also looking at it on a truck with a mast and to make them more mobile. This smaller footprint provides a shorter range for forward operating base protection. Mobility is a key aspect of the RAID system, but it doesn’t preclude it from being a semi-permanent fixture. A lot of the time you want to move them around as you change your force structure or as you change your responsibilities.”

SENSOR RELIABILITY

FLIR Government Systems’ electro-optical sensors equip a range of persistent surveillance systems, with over 700 of the firm’s sensors being deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan as part of the RAID program and the Marine Corps BETSS-C program. Bill Sundermeier, president of FLIR’s Government Systems Division, emphasized that a major factor in endurance has to be the assurance that derives from the reliability of the sensor and the overall system.

“We are very proud that our turn-around time for repairs in the U.S. and around the world is approaching a week—that is, completely repaired within a week. Through the relationship with the people who run these systems we have really found out where all the potential failures could occur in hot and humid environments, and those lessons have been used to increase the mean time between failures [MTBF] for our gimbals to almost 7,000 hours and for their electronics unit to over 20,000 hours. The industry norm for MTBFs is around 1,000 hours.”

The RAID and BETSS-C programs have everything from short range cameras to medium- to long-range and very long-range gimballed-based solutions. FLIR populates the programs via a contract that has remaining funds allocated for over 70 more of FLIR’s Star SAFIRE III systems, and is due to come to an end next spring. Sundermeier noted that procurement has been cooled down as the force protection structure reorients toward Afghanistan and the differing requirements there, relative to Iraq.

Sundermeier believes that the Army already has much of the high-end sensor capability required for evolving missions, although certain additional sensor types may still be required. “The fight in Afghanistan is different and some of the very tall tower systems can’t make it out into the surrounding hills so the DoD is looking at other types of sensors like our long range cameras, putting them on shorter poles to put them on FOBs more easily than tower systems,” he said.

New technology is now being fielded in the shape of more rugged, energy-efficient uncooled technology—eliminating the need for damage-susceptible cooling devices and the accompanying power demands, which can reduce time on station.

FLIR recently won a program with the Rapid Equipping Force (REF) called FOCUS, which places a newly developed uncooled camera on a pan and tilt mast. Sundermeier said, “We are going to quickly put it on a HMMWV and put it into theater for the REF so they take a look at what uncooled technology can do for them on a vehicle.”

Persistence is also a function of the volume of sensor that can be deployed in parallel or in successive waves, which in turn can only feasibly be achieved if the sensor and platforms can be acquired affordably in the number required. A desire to provide such a capability is also being pursued by FLIR in concert with others.

“We are teamed with Diamond Air’s DA42 twin-engine turboprop, a very economical platform in which to integrate our systems,” said Sundermeier. “They wanted to prove that this aircraft could stay on station for a very long time. What is amazing about this aircraft is that with FLIR on board it was able to stay on station for 13 hours. The aircraft and FLIR’s sensor together only cost about $1 million. That is very economical for an ISR platform.”

GROUND WARNING

Unattended ground sensors (UGSs) provide a definitive persistent surveillance device, providing discrete warning and details of both conventional enemy forces and activity by less obvious but equally deadly ‘bad actors.’

Captain David Dilley, intelligence officer in the Army Program Executive Office Integration, outlined progress so far of the UGS element of the former Future Combat System. “This summer we finished the limited user test at White Sands, N.M. Then we are going to have the Milestone C decision at the beginning of 2010. Depending on the decision, we will go into initial operational test and evaluation in that summer and start initial rate production. Right now we are still focused on equipping a light infantry brigade combat team.”

There have been significant changes from last year’s integration and testing, Diller explained. “It is hand emplaced, we have a more modular design, and we have cables that are interchangeable between all the different types of sensor. We also have fixed cameras, instead of rotating cameras because we realized that we needed to be more target oriented. We have a much better geophone—a spike that goes in the ground. For the urban UGS, we have a new imager that gives a clear picture, and the Local Display and Command [LDAC] is also new and will be carried forward into next year’s iteration of testing.”

The Tactical UGS used to be cylindrical, but the Army changed the form factor to meet their requirement for emplaced rather than air dropped. There are still a number of different nodes, including an ISR node that integrates the acoustic array into which you can plug in different sensors like the seismic spike,” explained Todd Kulik, manager, ground systems business development at Textron Defense Systems, UGS prime contractor for the Army Brigade Combat Team Modernization.

There is also an electro-optics node, which used to be a separate node with a 360 degree coverage but has also experienced change. “That now is an electro-optic head with day/night imagery and enhanced target tracking capability,” Kulik said. “It has a cable that attaches to the ISR node and you put it in position, looking at a road, intersection or other area of interest.”

In terms of endurance, another change over the last year has been the introduction of a “battery bag,” which can be buried containing several linked BA5390 batteries, sufficient for weeks of operation.

Urban UGS communicate on their own local network separate from Tactical UGS, and link into their own gateway. While Tactical and Urban UGS may have their own separate and unique missions, they both communicate into the same battle command network. Any soldier on the network can receive situational awareness from either system.

The major change to the Urban UGS design is a new PDA device, the Local Display and Controller (LDAC). Kulik outlined the concept: “When the soldier puts Urban UGS into a building and they are in the building using the sensors, the UGS will communicate the picture right directly to the LDAC, so they have immediate response and better information. When leaving the building, a gateway node can be left behind which will then communicates to a nearby vehicle.”

Further integration with other battlefield systems, funnelling situational awareness from these persistent sensors, is being actively explored. “We have had discussions with the Land Warrior and Ground Soldier Ensemble folks. Getting it integrated is not a difficult thing to do. But that is not on their radar screen right now. We have certainly demonstrated integrating Urban UGS onto other types of networks, whether it is Land Warrior or the Sierra Nevada Tacticomp system, which is used by some networks,” Kulik said.

BATTLEFIELD ANTI-INTRUSION

L-3 Communication Systems-East’s REM-Sense unattended ground sensor (UGS) product line has been used to meet the Army’s battlefield anti-intrusion system (BAIS) requirement. The current BAIS system nomenclature, AN/PRS-9, comprised the REMBASS-II radio, receiving set, AN/PSQ-16, also known as the handheld monitor/ programmer, and three seismic acoustic sensors--MK-2965/ GSR.

“BAIS is used not only for force protection, but is also part of the Army’s Base Expeditionary Targeting and Surveillance System- Combined (BETSS-C),” explained Skip Marsh, technical marketing manager, L-3 Communication Systems-East. “A variant of the BAIS seismic/acoustic sensor is used by Marine Corps ground sensor platoons as part of the tactical remote sensor system and the Marine Corps’ ground-based operational surveillance system.”

Work on the upgrade to the BAIS-II system is now nearing completion. The Army’s test and evaluation of the new system is underway. The new BAIS-II sensor/transceiver (S/T) unit is a fully backward compatible upgrade of the original BAIS system.

Marsh explained the differences: “There is a much lower physical profile. The geophone and microphone now attach at the end of the processor and transmitter housing. The system weight is substantially less, the size is smaller, the power consumption is less, yet the features are greatly enhanced.”

Testing of the HHM/T and S/T components of BAIS-II was conducted by Army test and evaluation personnel in October. It will be incorporated in the Army Expeditionary Warfare Experiment in January, followed by additional testing before commencing fielding to the troops.

The company is also evaluating future capabilities for the REM-Sense family, including an “urban sensor.”

“The urban sensor is a passive/infrared microwave sensor right now, but we are also looking at other transducers. The intention is to add capability to the REM-Sense family suite for urban activity. We are working on other things as well, for example adding other target detection and classification capabilities to the REM-Sensor Sensors. L-3 is doing that to respond to customer requirements,” Marsh said. ♦

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