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Efficient Instructor

Brig. Gen. Jon A. WeeksCommanderAir Force Special Operations Air Warfare CenterAir Force Special Operations Command

GeoPDF Project O FMV O SOCOM & AFSOC OpportunitiesUAV Weapon Systems O Encrypted Communications Systems

August 2013 Volume 11, Issue 7

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SOTECH Brimstone Advert July 2013:Layout 1 31/07/2013 16:37 Page 1

Cover / Q&AFeatures

Brigadier general Jon a. Weeks

CommanderAir Force Special Operations

Air Warfare CenterAir Force Special

Operations Command

16

August 2013Volume 11, Issue 7Special OperatiOnS technOlOgy

8

Departments Industry Interview2 editor’s PersPective3 WhisPers4 PeoPle14 Black Watch27 resource center

Mark BelangerDirector of DoD Robotic ProductsiRobot Corporation, Defense and Security Business Unit

5Full Motion videoWarriors need to know where the enemy is and what he is preparing to do next. Full motion video can provide that critical information, and also keep friendly forces informed of each others’ location.By Jeff CampBell

19encryPted coMMunications servicesKeeping phone calls, texts and online communications private is a must for SOF operators. We look at systems that ensure only the sender and intended recipient(s) are privy to the communications via encryption services.By Jeff CampBell

22uav WeaPons systeMsTraditionally, UAVs performed ISR missions to locate potential enemy targets, which then would have to be taken out by land or air forces. But now, UAVs—after discovering targets—can also eliminate them, saving critical time. We examine key UAV weapon systems.By SCott NaNCe

25socoM and aFsoc oPPortunitiesNew business prospects continue to open up for vendors large and small. We break down SOCOM RFI for a mobile SIGINT system, and an AFSOC Special Operations Weather Team RFQ for a small tactical upper air sensing system.By Jeff CampBell

28

“I emphasize that our new instructors

and evaluators keep safety

and discipline as their number one task, while

maintaining credibility and proficiency,

not just currency, in their current

mission.”

—Brig. Gen. Jon A. Weeks

sPecial section: unManned systeMsIncreasingly, missions ranging from ISR to high-risk EOD work are being executed by unmanned systems, which often have far greater endurance than humans. It means that combatants aren’t placed in harm’s way.By peter BuxBaum

the geoPdF ProJectA small number of professionals are able to use complex GIS applications effectively, and many soldiers don’t have the time, training or resources to translate geospatial data into actionable information. The U.S. Army Geospatial Center has discovered and embraced an innovative means of converting complex, intricate National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and U.S. Geological Survey GIS/map data into a GeoPDF format, allowing users to exploit data without advanced training.By raymoNd Caputo

12

With more than two decades in uniform, many retired SOF operators can think of a gear modification or two that would help them better complete a mission—and they’re keen to go into business for themselves.

The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) has published some inter-esting facts about veteran-owned small businesses: Veterans are at least 45 percent more likely than those with no military experience to be entrepre-neurs; veterans own nearly one in 10 of all businesses nationwide; and 8.3 percent of those owners have service-related disabilities.

These facts are according to SBA Office of Veterans Business Development (OVBD) Associate Administrator Rhett Jeppson, a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve, who has served at SOCOM and Special Operations Command Central. The OVBD serves the veteran-owned small business community by acting as liaison, advocate and ombudsman.

The OVBD has several programs to help veterans get on the right track to small business ownership, including boots to business (B2B). “SBA and its partners are working with the DoD to provide entrepre-neurial training to servicemembers transitioning out of active duty,” Jeppson said. “B2B is designed to assist approximately 250,000 veterans annually to seek self-employment opportunities, and to develop a feasibility survey and a business plan.”

SBA also chairs the interagency task force on Veterans Small Business Development. “In 2011, the task force identified goals and since has been advocating for policy changes to increase veteran entrepreneurial opportunities for both potential and existing veteran business owners,” Jeppson said. Copies of the 2011 and subsequent 2012 report are available at www.sba.gov/vets. The website is also a one-stop shop for veteran entrepreneurs. “SBA instituted a new online contracting tutorial to help veterans and military spouses who own small businesses identify and win federal contracting opportunities,” Jeppson said.

Both the “Full Motion Video” and “Encrypted Communication” features in this issue include small businesses led by veterans with extensive experience in special operations.

Feel free to reach out to me with any questions about SOTECH.

Jeff Campbelleditor

World’s Largest Distributed Special Ops Magazine

Editorial

EditorJeff Campbell [email protected] EditorHarrison Donnelly [email protected] Editorial ManagerLaura Davis [email protected] EditorsSean Carmichael [email protected] Hobbes [email protected] Buxbaum • Henry Canaday • Jeff Goldman Hank Hogan • William Murray • Scott Nance Marc Selinger • Leslie Shaver

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Art DirectorJennifer Owers [email protected] Graphic DesignerJittima Saiwongnuan [email protected] DesignersScott Morris [email protected] Papineau [email protected] Paquette [email protected] Waring [email protected]

advErtising

Account ExecutivePhilippe Maman [email protected]

KMi MEdia groupPublisherKirk Brown [email protected] Executive OfficerJack Kerrigan [email protected] Financial OfficerConstance Kerrigan [email protected] Vice PresidentDavid Leaf [email protected] McKaughan [email protected] Castro [email protected] Show CoordinatorHolly Foster [email protected]’ Jones [email protected]

opErations, CirCulation & produCtion

Operations AdministratorBob Lesser [email protected] & Marketing AdministratorDuane Ebanks [email protected] Gill [email protected] SpecialistsRaymer Villanueva [email protected] Walker [email protected]

a proud MEMbEr of:

subsCription inforMation

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June 2012Volume 1, Issue 1

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Border Threat Prevention and CBRNE Response

Border Protector

Michael J. Fisher

ChiefU.S. Border PatrolU.S. Customs and Border Protection

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

Integrated Fixed Towers

Leadership Insight:Robert S. BrayAssistant Administrator for Law EnforcementDirector of the Federal Air Marshal Service Transportation Security Administration

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Border & CBRNE Defense

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Military AdvancedEducation

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Military Information Technology

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Communications Headset Milestone

Permanent hearing impairment is the number one service-related disability among U.S. veterans. The 3M Peltor tactical communications (COMTAC) III advanced communication headset (ACH), now in its fifth year of full-rate production, supports servicemembers’ operational effectiveness and helps preserve their hearing.

The COMTAC III ACH helps personnel maintain clear tactical communications by attenuating loud sounds—such as weapons fire or vehicle noise—to safe levels. The device also helps maintain situa-tional awareness in quieter environments, enabling warfighters to hear ambient sounds.

The COMTAC III ACH is fielded the Joint Special Operations Command, the U.S. Army Rapid Fielding Initiative, and special operations forces.

Next-Gen UAS Improved

General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc. (GA ASI) has announced the successful first flight of the U.S. Army’s Improved Gray Eagle (IGE), a next-generation derivative of the combat-proven Block 1 Gray Eagle Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) that has accu-mulated over 70,000 flight hours since 2008. The flight occurred at the company’s El Mirage Flight Operations Facility in Palmdale, Calif.

“Improved Gray Eagle will provide a game-changing capability, adding more endurance, more payload carriage, with increased reliability for our Army customer,” said Frank W. Pace, president, Aircraft Systems Group, GA-ASI. “The first flight of this aircraft ushers in a new era in unmanned aviation, building upon the successes of its predecessor and providing unmatched, life-saving support for our troops abroad.”

IGE is a capability enhancement over the Block 1 Gray Eagle configura-tion and was designed for increased endurance, with 23 additional hours for recon-naissance missions. The aircraft’s payload capacity features 50-plus percent more payload carriage than Gray Eagle, while also offering 50 percent more fuel capacity via its deep belly fuselage.

Gray Eagle is currently operational and anticipates a full-rate production deci-sion in June.

HD Battlefield System TestedRaytheon Company’s 3rd generation forward looking infrared (3rd Gen FLIR) Improved Target Acquisition

System (ITAS) and fire control successfully achieved proof of concept in a series of laboratory and field tests at Redstone Arsenal, Ala. Preliminary evaluation of the impact of firing all versions of the tube-launched, optically-tracked, wire command-link guided missile was also performed.

“Raytheon’s FLIR improvement program provides warfighters with better clarity at all ranges, allowing them to identify targets and differentiate between combatants and non-combatants at greater stand-off ranges,” said Jeff Miller, vice president of combat and sensing systems for Raytheon Missile Systems. “Implementing 3rd Gen ITAS FLIR improvements will continue to give our warfighters in the field an unfair advantage in the fight.”

During the test, the 3rd Gen ITAS FLIR demonstrated improved sensor performance and enhanced situ-ational awareness. The demonstration was conducted in the presence of program office personnel from the U.S. Army’s Close Combat Weapons Systems and Army Aviation and Missile Research and Development Engineering Center.

www.SOTECH-kmi.com SOTECH 11.7 | 3

Compiled by Kmi media Group staffWhiSperS

The 2013 Ranger Hall of Fame induction ceremony was held at the Maneuver Center of Excellence headquarters building on Fort Benning. The Ranger Training Brigade and the 75th Ranger Regiment inducted retired General Peter Schoomaker; retired Lieutenant General Gary Speer; retired Lieutenant Colonels James Dabney and Frederick Spaulding; retired Major Carleton Vencill; retired Command Sergeants Major Andrew McFowler, Doug Greenway, Bill Smith, Charles Williams, Robert Gilbert and Joe Mattison; retired Sergeants Major Matthew Berrena and Pat Hurley; and retired Master Sergeants Howard Mullen,

Thomas Bragg and Vincent Melillo.

Lieutenant General Eric Fiel, Air Force Special Operations Command commander, presided over the 27th Special Operations Wing Change of Command during which Colonel Tony D. Bauernfeind took command from Brigadier General Buck Elton.

Joint Special Operations Command Chief of Staff Colonel Mark C. Schwartz has been nominated to the rank of briga-dier general.

U.S. Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center Civil Affairs Branch

Director Colonel Michael J. Warmack has been nominated to the rank of brigadier general.

Lieutenant Colonel Benjamin Maitre relinquished command of the 353rd Special Operations Support Squadron to Lieutenant Colonel Jay Pelka during a change of command ceremony at Kadena Air Base, Japan.

Colonel Bryan P. Fenton, currently director of operations, Joint Special Operations Command, SOCOM, Fort Bragg, N.C., has been nominated to the rank of brigadier general.

During the 353rd Special Operations Maintenance

Squadron change of command ceremony at Kadena Air Base, Japan, Lieutenant Colonel Sarah Emory took command from Lieutenant Colonel Benjamin Maitre.

Lockheed Martin has appointed Chandra McMahon vice presi-dent of commercial markets for the company’s information systems and global solutions business. McMahon, who has more than 25 years of experience in the information technology industry, will lead Lockheed Martin’s cybersecurity capabilities and associated port-folio of information technology solutions.

Compiled by Kmi media Group staffpeOple

Successful Flight TestBAE Systems and United Technologies

Corporation have completed a flight test of the multi-service standard guided projec-tile (MS-SGP). The test, conducted at White Sands Missile Range, N.M., demonstrated the MS-SCP’s performance from a 5-inch 62-caliber Mk 45 Mod 4 Naval Gun System.

“Currently the U.S. and its allies are using significantly more expensive solutions to address fire support and tactical targets,” said Chris Hughes, vice president and general

manager of weapon systems at BAE Systems. “The projectile can provide the U.S. forces with an affordable, long-range, and precision gun-launched projectile to greatly expand our fire support capability.”

The program aims to address stationary or moving targets at a fraction of the cost of current alternatives by providing a single projectile capable of tactical fire. The MS-SGP has an accuracy rate of less than five meters at a maximum range of nearly 100 kilometers.

Support Contract Awarded

SOCOM has awarded a contract to Herndon, Va.-based Northrop Grumman Technical Services Inc. to provide exer-cise and training support to command staff, battle staff and theater special opera-tions commands. Some work will be performed at various exercise locations throughout the United States and over-seas, while the majority of the training will take place at MacDill Air Force Base, Fla. The contract uses fiscal year 2013 operations and maintenance funds, and is expected to be complete by June of 2014.

www.SOTECH-kmi.com4 | SOTECH 11.7

You’ll never meet an operator who wants to go down range carrying half a dozen dif-ferent pieces of communication gear, adding burdensome pounds in addition to regular mission-essential gear. Many small and large businesses haven’t—often because they’re staffed with retired operators who know exactly what the active SOF team needs to execute a mission more effectively.

Full motion video (FMV) enables opera-tors to see what’s around the corner or farther down range. It can be beamed right into the operator’s hand through a mission mod-ule on a joint tactical radio system (JTRS)-enhanced multiband inter/intra team radio (JEM). Thales Communications Inc. produces the most widely used handheld radio device, the Army Navy portable radio communication (AN/PRC-148) JEM.

“We have over 200,000 AN/PRC-148s fielded to the military, quite a few to SOCOM, quite a few to Army, Air Force and Marine Corps,” said Thales Business Development Director Travis Queen. Those customers’ hands are occupied with many tasks, so having to carry separate receivers for radio, video and data wasn’t efficient. Thales works with industry partners who have video/data link receivers and miniaturizes them into a smaller form factor, the mission module. “Then the operators are actually able to attach that to their radios and then have a reduced size, weight and power capability,” Queen said, adding that Thales has a reputation for working well with partners. “We’re not the one button to push for every single solution out there. We have our strengths, and we take a look at other companies that have capabilities that we can bring over in to mission module form factors, to be

able to provide that capability for the war-fighter.”

A successful partnership helped them introduce the AN/PRC-148 with FMV receiver mission module, the smallest video/datalink analog/digital receiver on the market today. “It provides simultaneous full motion video receive and VHF/UHF line of sight operations for the warfighter,” Queen said. “It provides concurrent FMV and transmit/receive combat net operations all in one system, essentially eliminating the need to carry a separate stand-alone FMV receiver.” The system is about 2.5 pounds, including the battery, antenna and mission module.

In addition to decreasing the weight and operator’s footprint, swapping modules elimi-nates the need to purchase new separate systems, saving taxpayer dollars in these tight fiscal times. “It’s a cost-effective solution that provides current and next-generation tech-nology,” Queen said.

Lighter, SmaLLer and more affordabLe

Coastal Defense Inc. President Kyle Stan-bro founded the service-disabled veteran-owned small business after he retired from the Air Force. While serving as a joint ter-minal attack controller overseas, a couple of

his good friends were killed. At that time, he was using a remotely operated video enhanced receiver (ROVER) that weighed 25-30 pounds, adding too much weight to operate effectively. The ROVER worked well for vehi-cle operations, but once the world required mobile troops on the ground, a smaller, lighter option was needed. “When I retired, I was really

determined to help my teammates out, so I had a receiver built and worked to get the current system to be smaller and lighter,” Stanbro said.

Stanbro showed his new system around to good response, then teamed with an engineer-ing shop and bought a machine shop and con-tinued working to build the system smaller and lighter, until he produced the multi-band video receiver IV (MVR-IV). It’s a handheld unit that receives FMV in real time on the L, S and C bands, and weighs just 2 pounds. It all came together based on feedback from his fellow operators. “As an operator, I knew what I wanted, I just didn’t know how to get it, so when I retired, I said, ‘I’m going to get the operator what he wants,’” Stanbro said. The operator needs lighter and smaller equipment, and his boss needs it to be afford-able. Coastal Defense miniaturized internal components to lighten the system, and used standard military batteries and off-the-shelf displays to minimize cost. Whether from aircraft, UAV, or ground-based video sources, MVR-IV can provide situational awareness to SOF operators on the ground.

After-action reports of use in the field are classified, but Stanbro said the Marines really love it. “I work with them to integrate it into their systems,” Stanbro said, citing one instance where he sent a unit replace-ment cables at no charge. “They’re Marines, and they’re out doing the country’s work, so whatever I can do to support those guys, I love to help them.” The original intent of the MVR was never to start a small business, it was to help his buddies who needed a better system, but the demand increased and Coastal Defense was born. The company now has 10 employees. “Technology is always moving for-ward,” Stanbro said. “I think with the seques-tration and engagements overseas cutting back, we’re going to have to start looking at smarter, cost-effective solutions.” One of those

future-proofing fmV SyStemS to work weLL with coaLition partnerS.

Travis Queen

by Jeff campbeLL, Sotech editor

[email protected]


solutions may be a mobile wireless network. Similar to a personal network at home where people connect to the Internet, an aircraft could arrive in an area of responsibility and operators could check into that network.

Before that scenario becomes a reality, Stanbro’s near-term goal is to shrink the MVR system to the size of a cell phone. “That’s what I’m pushing for; that’s where I think guys are looking to go,” he said. “Right now, it’s about 50 percent bigger than a cell phone, which isn’t too bad, but I’m still working out heat displacement and video screen resolu-tion.” Other additions in the next generation of the MVR system include making it day-light readable, extending the battery life, and making sure it works with legacy systems. The ease of compatibility is more crucial as SOCOM continues to expand the global SOF partnership. “There are so many thousands of systems out there, and [partner nations] are not going to be able to upgrade them. There’s no way you can upgrade them all,” Stanbro said. “With coalition forces having the older version, you’ve got to maintain that capabil-ity, and then you’ve got to move forward to the next capability. So we’re making our soft-ware upgradeable, just like you can update on your phone with an app.”

Another Thales offering, the MBITR 2, is the world’s first and only simultaneous two-channel handheld radio, which is about the same size as the 148 design. “The cool thing about the FMV mission modules, and mission modules in general, is they can also leverage against the MBITR 2,” Queen said. “So if you have a JEM and then you upgrade to a MBITR 2, that theoretically gives the operator a three-channel handheld radio.” In that case, an operator could use two of the three simultaneously and configure it as necessary, leveraging future mission module capabilities.

Having FMV and transmit and receive concurrent in one system allows the opera-tor to pull down FMV while simultaneously transmitting and receiving on the radio, all on the same device. “Instead of them carrying another device to do voice and a device to do full motion video, they can do everything on one single device now, which is pretty signifi-cant,” Queen said.

Now the operator doesn’t need to carry additional devices, just mission modules tai-lored to meet specific objectives. Looking at mission modules as a whole, Thales is essentially building a family of them that can be carried downrange in the operator’s cargo pocket or ruck and hot-swapped in the field to

quickly access additional capabilities. Beyond FMV and voice, Thales is looking at more module types, such as a wave relay mission module. “We’re looking at various data, vari-ous covert-type communication solutions in the mission module form factor,” Queen said. The ultimate goal for Thales is continuing to reduce size, weight and power. “We wanted to be able to reduce, swap and eliminate the need to carry another stand-alone receiver,” Queen said, stressing that the team wanted to produce a module that has “phenomenal” battery life. “It’s not going to make sense for the operator if they slap on a FMV mission module, and then their voice and their FMV only gets two hours.”

fmV and motion imagery combined

Once the FMV feed is secure, intel ana-lysts can combine it with motion imagery data to give a SOF team actionable intel-ligence. An enterprise solution emerged to make this possible about seven years ago at Harris. Originally from the broadcast side of the house, Harris Corporation Strategy Officer and Architect John Delay was respon-sible for strategic growth programs when he led the team through architecting the full motion video asset management engine (FAME). “Over a course of time, we tran-sitioned not only the development work, but also people like myself from the broad-cast division into the government segment,” Delay said. “Subsequently, the system has been deployed in enterprise networks as part of a couple different programs, and has con-tinued to evolve capability-wise from being FMV-only to being multi-intelligence (Multi-INT) enterprise management, for not only FMV but also imagery data, light detection and ranging (LiDAR) data, wide area motion imagery, hyper spectral imaging (HSI), and signals intelligence data (SIGINT). [It] really [is] giving you an enterprise system that allows you to search and discover any of those data types.”

One of the key technologies that Harris took from the broadcasting world and imple-mented in the FAME enterprise system is a concept called “evolved FMV.” “Imagine being able to create what is equivalent to a CNN news broadcast but actually fuse Multi-INT data in real time, or very near real time, with the video feed and then broadcast that video feed as an outbound feed,” Delay said. The result provides context to the source, giving the operator intel about what they’re looking

at, such as what the target of interest is and what its geospatial location is.

FAME can also incorporate chat sessions relevant to that mission. “So now, we’re tak-ing what was normally just raw video that you get off of the sensor and we’re adding context to that,” Delay said. “Then that is dis-seminated to tactical users who are consum-ing that data, making the data much more relevant to them.” Once wide-area motion imagery is ingested, operators can also search and find data inside a large image. Beyond that, FAME can stream out a view port or multiple view ports of intersections of inter-est—particular regions mission planners may want to research—and play out that data in a very granular way.

“A third example of the kind of things that we can do with this enterprise system is to take a live, incoming FMV stream, extract the geospatial reference data for where the sensor is at, and automatically correlate other data types which are in the same region of inter-est based on a bounding box the analyst sets up,” Delay explained. So instead of an analyst having to search to see if an up-to-date image, recent SIGINT, or any recent track data is available, FAME automatically finds that data and puts it at their fingertips.

Harris’ objective with the enterprise approach to FAME is to reduce the depen-dency on the traditional client server applica-tion and enable the discovery of data across many different data types. At the same time, they’re recording and archiving everything.

“We are trying to take the best tech-nologies from the broadcast community and move those technologies and adapt them— there’s work that has to be done—but take those concepts and adapt them to serve the DoD intel community,” Delay said. “If you look down the road, once we get the enter-prise systems deployed on a wide basis, and you get enough Multi-INT data in it, now you can start turning your attention to more production-oriented tools, like newsroom production tools that add value.”

The intel community needs to give mis-sion planners activity-based intelligence, and dealing with data on a real-time basis makes it much easier. “All of this metadata that gets ingested in the system is correlated frame-accurately to the motion imagery,” Delay said, adding that the extra benefit of motion imag-ery data inclusion has been eye-opening to longtime users. “We ingest it frame-accurately so you can correlate data to frames of imagery.”

Through FAME, analysts can also treat imagery like FMV, playing stacks of images


like a flip book, creating motion imagery out of imagery data. “By doing this, you open up the aperture of the art of the possible of these data types, and you’re starting to look at the data from a time perspective and a geospatial perspective,” Delay said. “In most previous implementations or systems, they primarily interact with the data geospatially.”

Today, the human interaction for ana-lysts with data is data-centric. “It’s a specific data modality, and for them to try to corre-late the fact that there was a SIGINT hit the same time that there was FMV on a target is a very difficult thing to do,” Delay said. “SIGINT is just one example, it could also be track data, or it could be data that you’re pulling from known target databases in the intel community.”

Most of the exploitation on systems deployed today is still being done through a client server application. There is a growing user community of FAME’s data in the Multi-INT environment, according to Delay. “I look at satellite imagery data and I say this stuff is unbelievably mature,” he said. “We’ve done about everything you could possibly dream

up with satellite images ... if you look at the other data types, like LiDAR, FMV or HSI, they’re all relatively new technologies to the community.”

When new products come from com-bined multiple sets of data, there is tremen-dous value for mission planning. “That’s really where the opportunity is,” Delay said. “It’s not so much how people interact with data today, it’s what you can do when you can bring these data types together and make them discoverable, and then produce new derivative products from the sets of data that you can’t produce from a single data type.”

Multi-INT discovery capabilities allow much better mission planning for SOF. “Their job is mission execution, which means that a lot more effort has to go into the mission planning aspect,” Delay said. “By making the data more discoverable and more standardized and closer to real time, I think the big benefit to SOF is they can collapse time for their mission planning process so that their execution becomes much more precise and much more efficient.”

With enhanced mission planning, SOF teams can better predict how long opera-tions might take. “For example, say a SOF unit was doing a mission where the target was a building,” Delay said. “They can cre-ate a 3-D model from FMV source data and LiDAR data and fly over that target, changing the perspective of mission planning, com-pared to just having a two-dimensional video and a three-dimensional point cloud.” When the two are combined, the unit now knows exactly what they’re looking at and what its dimensions are.

“All of that work today is very manual and human intensive,” Delay said. “If you can turn your attention away from the manual production of the analysis of that problem and automate major parts of it, then you can collapse the amount of time it takes to develop your mission plan, and then make your response more effective.” O

For more information, contact SOTECH Editor Jeff Campbell at [email protected] or search our online archives for related stories

at www.sotech-kmi.com.


The recent conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq have promoted the advancement and proliferation of two important ISR (intel-ligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance) technologies: unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and sensors that capture and transmit full motion video. Combining these two tech-nologies by mounting video sensors on UAVs has created an indispensable tool that today’s warfighters, commanders and analysts rely upon.

They rely on video for ISR, force protec-tion and situational awareness. The use of FMV by U.S. forces exploded in Iraq and Afghanistan with unmanned aircraft and other platforms providing massive amounts of ISR data.

The accelerated demand for video over the last few years has led companies pro-viding UAVs equipped with video camera payloads to constantly make improvements

to their platforms and sen-sors. Recent advancements have included the continued miniaturization and bundling of sensors, more robust data links to provide broadband transmission service, and more user-friendly ground devices on which to capture and view the video.

All of this allows U.S. forces to maintain unswerv-ing surveillance of adversary activities.

“Small unmanned aerial systems have been employed in a variety of reconnais-sance and surveillance roles, ranging from simple target identification and location to assessment of attacks, route

reconnaissance, weather reconnaissance and, in some cases, declaration of presence,” said Jeffrey Golliver, Air Force Special Opera-tions Command Unmanned Systems branch chief. “In general, all are battery-powered flying cameras. A wide variety of tactical intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance terminals can receive the video.”

“We are integrating new sensors into our unmanned aerial platform,” said Johan Hans-son, vice president for marketing and sales at Saab North America. “Sensors are getting smaller and are becoming more capable of providing better imagery. More systems are going from analog to digital. There are still a lot of systems using analog to transfer signals, but many are moving to complete digital solutions.” Also contributing to the increased usefulness of video, noted Hans-

son, is advanced software that addresses vibration and enhances and improves the resulting images.

AeroVironment has expanded the bandwidth available for video transmis-sions from its Raven, Puma and Wasp platforms by transi-tioning from analog to digital video. “Our original analog system operated on four chan-nels,” said Steve Gitlin, a company vice president. “Our digital video operates on 30 channels and integrates digi-tal signal encryption so that it is very difficult for anyone else to view it.”

The U.S. Air Force has completed a buy of 55 RQ-11B Raven systems for Air Force Security Forces. “Air Force Special Operations Com-mand recently purchased 10

Steve Gitlin

Johan Hansson

[email protected]

fmV SenSorS and uaVS combine to form an indiSpenSabLe tooL.

by peter buxbaum

Sotech correSpondent

Special Section


www.JohnDeere.com/Military

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Wasp-AE unmanned aerial systems with residual funds from the Battlefield Air Opera-tions Kit,” said Golliver.

AeroVironment’s sensors have also evolved from six separate digital sensors to a bundled, gimbaled payload that incorporates color and infrared sensors as well as a laser illuminator into a single unit that can move independently of the direction of the aircraft. A gimbal is basically a ball, often containing a multi-sensor payload that is able to rotate on an axis.

Better imagery is brought about through improvements in both com-puting power and optics, noted Hansson. “We have seen requirements in the last cou-ple of years for high-definition video imagery,” he said. “This presents a challenge because of bandwidth issues and data links primarily over longer dis-tances. Sensors can produce high-definition video imagery. The challenge is to transfer that to the ground.”

Another of AeroViron-ment’s innovations comes in the form of a new hand-held ground station. “This is a third-generation control-ler that incorporates a color monitor had that makes it easier for the user to operate the system,” said Gitlin. “The advanced data link integrated into all systems enables more efficient use of the frequency spectrum.”

Smaller UAVs also have improved their capabilities as far as capturing and transmit-ting full motion video. Prioria’s Maveric micro UAV is in the process of being outfitted with a high-definition video camera. The Maveric measures 28 inches, weighs 2 pounds, and is equipped with bendable, carbon fiber wings, allowing it to be stored in a 6-inch tube.

“Many UAVs today use a video camera that can transmit 30 frames per second with a resolution of 320-by-240 pixels,” said Derek Lyons, Prioria’s vice president for sales and marketing. “We are now working on

integrating a camera capable of 640-by-480 resolution as well a compression board that can transmit high-definition video over the existing pipe.”

The Canadian military operated 60 Maveric systems in Afghanistan and the U.S. Army recently put in an order for 14 systems, the first for the United States. An upgrade kit is going to be made avail-able to Canada, according to Lyons, so that they can take advantage of higher-defini-tion video.

The Skate, a 1-kilogram system from Aurora Flight Services, is equipped with a video camera capable of capturing high-definition images. The Skate uses one payload at a time in order to save on weight, which can be swapped out for different missions.

A new development involves incorporating video processing on board the aircraft. “The video is stabilized on board the aircraft,” said Carl Schaefer, director of small UAS products at Aurora Flight Services, “and the stabilized image is sent down to the ground control sta-tion or remote video terminal. That way, you don’t need dedicated hardware on the ground to stabilize the imagery.”

Saab is also taking advantage of opportu-nity to digitally filtering out vibrations. “There are better algorithms available now for this purpose,” said Hansson. Saab North America is the maker of the small Skeldar, a rotary wing unmanned aircraft. The Skeldar’s abil-ity to hover or fly at low speeds benefits the collection of data from some types of sensors, according to Hansson.

Saab also works to enhance video imagery by reducing the vibration on the Skeldar. “Deal-ing with vibration is important especially on rotary wing air vehicles and especially when you are getting to higher definition and longer ranges,” said Hansson. “What we have done is to provide additional damping on the transmis-sion, the engine and the rotor system to make it as free from vibration as possible and to gen-erate improved video quality. When you get to longer ranges, it becomes pretty important to have a good environment for the sensor.”

High-definition video also requires greater bandwidth there is more data to transfer to the ground. “That means we need the best possible data links,” said Hansson. “We have focused on integrated high-capacity data links to support high-definition video and encryption on the Skeldar.”

“Digital processing of frequencies allows for much more efficient utility of if the fre-quency spectrum,” noted Gitlin.

“A lot of it comes down to the ground control segment,” said Hansson. “You need the right antennas of the right sizes because you never know what frequencies you will be allowed to use, and things are getting congested in the frequency space. You have to be prepared to switch to a different fre-quency depending on how the spectrum is being allocated. That puts a challenge on the whole system, including antennas, modems and receivers that are capable of handling changes in frequencies. Data links are getting more advanced and better at dealing with dif-ferent bands and frequencies, but the laws of physics make it difficult to use different anten-nas on different bands. That requires more equipment.”

The Saab Skeldar medium-range UAV system is fully autonomous and designed for a range of land, maritime and civil applications. [Photo courtesy of Saab North America]

Carl Schaefer

[email protected]

Derek Lyons

[email protected]

Special Section


There have been a growing number of more advanced data link solutions in the marketplace in recent years, Hansson observed. “There appears to be more compe-tition and more alternatives for data links,” he said, “so it is possible to tailor a link solu-tion to specific context and for specific price range. The really high-end data links have an impact on system price.”

Challenges of bandwidth, frequency and the overall demand for video have neces-sitated the addition of hardware, especially on the ground side. “You don’t want to put too much more equipment on the UAV,” said Hansson. “With higher bandwidth require-ments you may need more equipment on the ground. On the UAV it needs to be the right equipment to get longer ranges. It is easier to put a large antenna on the ground. You defi-nitely don’t want to put heavier equipment on air vehicles.”

Sensors available for UAVs have been shrinking in size. “We can get the same qual-ity from an 8-inch gimbal today that we got from 10-inch gimbal a coupe of years ago,” said Hansson. “This decreases the weight of the payload, which is important for UAVs. You can still get the best quality from the high-end 10-inch gimbals. The point is that there are now more alternatives than ever for smaller gimbals.”

“We have been looking at developing gimbaled housing for the sensors over the last few years,” said Gitlin. “In the past, the infrared sensor was a separate device form the electro-optical color video sensor. The new payload strategy is to integrate both of those into a single package so that you don’t have to swap them out. You just switch from video to the thermal. If not for the fact that these sensors are getting smaller and lighter, we would not have been able to deploy them in the way that we have. We have benefited from ongoing technology advancements in the commercial markets.”

The problem that arises is that the way AeroVironment’s systems purposely crash land in harsh environments makes it hard on the sensitive gimbaled sensor package. “We developed different solution for each platform that incorporate tougher materials to protect the sensor package during land-ing,” said Gitlin.

AeroVironment has modified the design of some of its air frames in order to accom-modate integrated sensor packages. AeroVi-ronment’s Wasp UAV, in its latest Wasp AE

iteration, a 2.85-pound system, was recently redesigned to carry a 275-gram sensor pack-age. The company changed the way the aircraft lands so that it flips over to land on the reinforced side of the vehicle, protecting the payload.

“In the case of the Raven, [a 4-pound sys-tem with a 5-foot wingspan], our innovation team integrated electro-optical and thermal cameras as well as a laser illuminator in a gimbal small enough to fit in the nose cone of the vehicle,” said Gitlin.

Ground stations have also become smaller and more portable. “When we developed our

original Pointer system, [approximately 20 years ago], ground stations were the size of a piece of rolling luggage,” said Gitlin. “Now they are the size of a handheld video game and they work the same way too, so the men and women who operate the ground controllers are very familiar with the layout and usage of the system. A simplified user interface means simpler usability of the system.” O

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Organizations that utilize geospatial data employ professionals that are intimately familiar with geographic information sys-tems (GIS) in order to retrieve and utilize the valuable information stored and managed by today’s complex GIS applications. These GIS-proficient users represent a small number of people able to use these applications effec-tively, posing a significant challenge to those attempting to transfer this information to less-skilled end users. The Army’s operational and humanitarian missions rely heavily on such data; however, many of its soldiers do not have the time, training or resources to translate it into actionable information.

U.S. Army Geospatial Center (AGC) dis-covered and embraced an innovative means of converting complex, intricate National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) and U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) GIS/map data into a geo-referenced portable document file (GeoPDF) format that allows users to under-stand and exploit data without requiring advanced training in GIS applications.

The GeoPDF was developed to afford GIS professionals the ability to share geo-refer-enced maps and data with soldiers and other

users who may not be GIS application-savvy, using Adobe’s PDF format. A GeoPDF can be sent to field personnel from engineers on the scene of natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina or to soldiers in the field, who can utilize Adobe Reader to manipulate maps. Most computers in the world are equipped with Adobe Reader as part of their baseline software and each Army Geospatial Engi-neering Team has the full assortment of tools to enable them to produce mission-specific products in the GeoPDF format; therefore, a free, user-friendly plug-in from TerraGo Technologies, known as the “TerraGo Tool-bar,” is the only requirement for command chain users to view GeoPDFs. The Toolbar allows users to exploit and understand data without requiring advanced GIS training. This plug-in has an Army Certificate of Networthiness and has loading approval for many other government agencies. The files are small and nimble, yet are embedded with powerful capabilities that allow engineers to work in connected or disconnected modes.

There are two types of GeoPDF files: “raster” and “vector.” Both formats provide a scalable display of the digital map or image

with crisp, clear delineation of roads, rivers, contour lines and other features as the user zooms in for a closer look. The raster files are comprised of paper maps that are scanned or developed from existing electronic map files that are saved in a PDF format and geo-referenced using the TerraGo Composer solution. The vector GeoPDF format has an added function that enables users to turn data layers on and off to help clarify their analysis of map displays. The use of these applications with GIS software, such as Arc-GIS and Intergraph’s GeoMedia, publishes these vector GeoPDFs.

The AGC created “for official use only” GeoPDF Country DVDs for most countries of the world through its partnership with NGA, which produced GeoPDFs of most of their standard map aeronautical and topographic map sheets. NGA has been producing, main-taining and replicating the GeoPDF Country Coverages since 2010, with dissemination via the Defense Logistics Agency’s map catalog; these DVDs are available now in the map catalog. Copies of the NGA GeoPDF coun-try DVDs are accessed from DLA reference Series Code “GPDF.”

creating mapS for the non-mapper.

by ray caputo

PKI (Common Access Card required): https://cac.agc.army.mil/products/maparchive/index.cfm

SIPRNET: www.agc.army.smil.mil/products/maparchive

JWICS: www.agc.army.ic.gov/products/maparchive

Copies of the Geopdf Country dVds may also be ordered using the aGC’s Common map Background product request form at www.agc.army.mil/cmb/request/cmbrequestform.cfm.

to view the data that is the basis for the dVds online, see https://cac.agc.army.mil/products/maparchive (dod Common access Card required).

Geopdf state data sets are available for viewing on all aGC websites including the open internet website at www.agc.army.mil/missions/terrain/geopdfmaps/usgsdatasets.aspx.

GeoPDF data sets are available at the following websites:


The AGC also had a hand in converting all of the USGS’s nearly 60,000 Digital Raster Graphic GEOTIFF files into GeoPDF using TerraGo Publisher for Raster. USGS posted the files on its online store’s website, where the availability of GeoPDF files has proven to be a great success based on the almost 200,000 downloads it averages each month, compared to the 4,000 downloads/month prior to the availability of GeoPDFs.

USGS now has a new product based upon the GeoPDF file format called “U.S. Topo,” which is the next generation of digital topographic maps arranged in the tradi-tional 7.5-minute quadrangle format. U.S. Topo contains raster data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agri-culture Imagery Program and vector data from USGS’s own national map. U.S. Topo files are also available from the USGS store website at www.store.usgs.gov via its Map Locator application. The AGC created and distributes GeoPDF state coverages for all 50 states, the three U.S. territories [Guam, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands] and the District of Columbia based upon the USGS

GeoPDF data. USGS also has begun to convert their historical archives to GeoPDF. These maps date back to the late 1800s and are available from USGS’s online store.

The AGC developed its urban tac-tical planner in the GeoPDF format, along with its engineering route stud-ies, urban water graphics, country over-views, BuckEye Mapbooks, cultural maps, historical photo analysis reports and the AGC’s Geospatial Information Library’s non-NGA maps and atlases. The center’s imagery office, which is the Army’s pri-mary point of contact for commercial satellite imagery data sources, has an online imagery distribution system that exports its repository of selected commercial images/products to GeoPDFs, along with a number of other formats.

The AGC continues to work to ensure that handheld/mobile GeoPDF software and apps meet Army requirements. The center co-funded the development of a new three-dimensional GeoPDF file format with NGA. Three-dimensional GeoPDFs are viewed using Adobe Reader with the free TerraGo

Toolbar. The AGC has created a whole coun-try and a few select areas of NGA maps in the 3-D GeoPDF format, along with some USGS maps over National Parks and imag-ery from AGC’s BuckEye Program. The AGC also funded the creation of a free tool called “Memento” as well as additional features in Voyager GIS’s web style document search tool. Memento allows U.S. government users to view multiple GeoPDFs seamlessly for free, while the Voyager GIS tool allows users to manage and search documents, which now include GeoPDFs and LiDAR data. O

Ray Caputo works for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers as a geographer with the Army Geospatial Center’s Terrain Analysis Branch of the Warfighter Geospatial Sup-port & Production Directorate.




CAmERA PACK INTRoduCEdPelican Products

Pelican Products Inc. has unveiled the Pelican ProGear

S115 Sport Elite Laptop/Camera Pro Pack. The S115 features

a rugged laptop case integrated with a water-resistant front

compartment with padded dividers that hold and protect

multiple camera bodies, lenses, flashes and other camera

equipment. The laptop case is an impact resistant compartment

that can fit any 15-inch notebook up to 1 inch thick.

Among the S115 compartments are air mesh lid organizer

pockets, internal pouches for cables and memory cards,

and three external side pockets for water bottles and other

accessories. In addition, the pack has a front plate to protect

camera gear from impact and side straps to attach full-sized

tripods.

The laptop compartment is rated watertight to 3.3 feet for

30 minutes and the pressure equalization valve prevents vacuum

lock within the case. It also features a chest clip and removable

waist belt.

PASSWoRd APP ENAblES bIomETRIC SECuRITyBattelle

Battelle has released

SignWave Unlock, a new

app for the Leap Motion 3-D

motion control device that

makes advanced biometric

security technology available.

Available in the Airspace Store,

SignWave Unlock verifies the

user’s identity and unlocks the

computer with a wave of the

hand in front of the Leap Motion

Controller. Programmers from

Battelle Cyber Innovations

developed the software that

works by measuring the

geometry of the user’s hand.

“Battelle SignWave Unlock

is able to identify the unique

characteristics of your hand to

build a biometric profile, so your

hand becomes the password

that can unlock your computer,”

said Nicholas Vidovich,

technical development lead for

the software.

A future application for

Battelle SignWave Unlock

could include use by operators

who need quick access to

secure facilities in rugged

environments.

“These are exciting times

for the Cyber Innovations

business, as this app

represents the first of a number

of innovative products that will

be launched in the months

ahead,” said Lisa McCauley,

general manager of Battelle’s

Cyber Innovations business.

Battelle was part of the

early developer program for

Leap Motion, and the Battelle

SignWave Unlock app was

selected as one of the first 75

available in Airspace.

BlacK Watch

CombAT KINg II To moodyLockheed Martin

The first Lockheed Martin

HC-130J Combat King II to

be assigned to Air Combat

Command’s (ACC) 347th

Rescue Group at Moody Air

Force Base, Ga., was recently

ferried from the company’s

Aeronautics facility. Major

General H.D. Polumbo Jr.,

commander, Ninth Air Force,

Air Combat Command, Shaw

Air Force Base, S.C., flew the

Super Hercules to Moody AFB.

The Lockheed Martin

HC-130J Combat King II is the

U.S. Air Force’s only dedicated

fixed-wing personnel recovery

platform and is flown by

ACC and Air Education and

Training Command. This

C-130J variant, which replaces

existing HC-130P/N aircraft,

specializes in tactical profiles

and avoiding detection to

support recovery operations

in austere environments.

This HC-130J is one of six

Super Hercules on contract

designated for assignment at

Moody AFB.

moRE ugVSiRobot Corp.

IRobot Corp. has been awarded a $30 million indefinite delivery/

indefinite quantity contract by the U.S. Army’s Robotic Systems Joint

Program Office. The four-year contract, which replaces an expiring IDIQ,

allows for the delivery of iRobot PackBot FasTac robotic systems and

associated spares.

An initial $3 million order under the contract for spares has also been

placed. Deliveries under this order will be completed by the end of the

fourth quarter of fiscal year 2013.

“IRobot is proud to provide robotic capabilities that help our

warfighters accomplish their mission,” said Frank Wilson, senior vice

president and general manager of iRobot’s Defense & Security business

unit. “The Army

recognizes the value

of the PackBot FasTac

robotic system on the

battlefield, and we look

forward to continuing

our work with RSJPO

to ensure the Army

is well equipped to

maintain its fleet of

PackBot FasTac robots

in the years ahead.”


Cloud-bASEd SoluTIoNS ACCREdITATIoN AChIEVEdQinetiQ North America

QinetiQ North America (QNA) has announced its accreditation to

evaluate cloud-based solutions for federal government agencies as a

Federal Risk Authorization and Management Program (FedRAMP) third

party assessment organization (3PAO). The FedRAMP program was

recently established by the General Services Administration (GSA) to

establish a universal framework for federal cloud-based solutions.

The governmentwide program provides a standardized approach for

the federal government to adopt and use cloud services from commercial

providers. In order for a federal agency to adopt a commercial cloud-

based solution, GSA requires that an accredited 3PAO perform an

independent assessment, which is evaluated by the FedRAMP Joint

Authorization Board before cloud offerings can be implemented in a

federal environment.

“It is critical now more than ever to ensure our customers are

adopting cloud solutions that are trustworthy,” said J.D. Crouch, chief

executive officer, QNA. “As services are steadfastly moving to cloud

formats, the FedRAMP program is necessary, and one we are proud to

be a part of.”

This 3PAO accreditation will enable QNA to help civilian, defense,

intelligence community and commercial customers as they develop their

cloud migration strategy, integrate their existing cloud offerings and

ensure compliance with federal regulations.

“We are excited to be one of the first in our industry to become

a 3PAO,” said QNA chief information officer, John Lambeth. “We look

forward to the opportunity to help our customers achieve their strategic

IT goals while ensuring compliance with federal standards.”

Compiled by Kmi media Group staff

AdVANCEd NIghT VISIoN gogglE ACCESSoRyMatbock

• Provides ability to see objects at all distances without

adjusting focus on night vision goggles (NVGs)

• Clear front sacrificial lens to protect lens of NVGs and

prevent dust and debris from entering apparatus

• Allows optimal amount of light into NVGs and maintains

auto-focus capability

Matbock, a Virginia Beach, Va.-based service-disabled veteran-

owned company, has released the Tarsier Eclipse, a NVG accessory

that assists soldiers on dark nights and inside buildings. One of the

NVG limitations is the ability to only focus at one specific distance,

not various distances at the same time. When focused on the

horizon, images very near become blurry and vice versa. Many

soldiers poke small holes in the end of their protective covers to

solve this problem, but it creates another: by decreasing the amount

of light entering the NVG, the light sensors cannot amplify the

photons enough to create a clear picture for the soldier. This is not

an issue in areas with enough light, but under very dark conditions,

the soldier will not have enough light to see.

The Tarsier Eclipse solves that problem while retaining the

autofocus capability.

AIRCREW TRAININg SySTEm REComPETE AWARdEd

L-3 Communications

L-3 Communication’s Link Simulation & Training

(L-3 Link) division has won the recompete for the U.S.

Air Force’s Predator Mission Aircrew training System

(PMATS) program. The recompete contract awarded to

L-3 Link by the U.S. Air Force’s Life Cycle Management

Center at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, includes

transitional funding that extends through September

2013, in addition to six one-year contract options.

“The U.S. Air Force became our first unmanned

aircraft system training customer in 2005 and we

are honored to have been selected to continue as

prime contractor on the Predator Mission Aircrew

Training System,” said Steve Kantor, president of

L-3’s Electronic Systems Group. “Our PMATS system

is a proven, efficient and cost-effective platform for

unmanned aircraft simulation, and we remain committed

to providing MQ-1 Predator and MQ-9 Reaper combat

operators with a maximum level of training realism as

they prepare to undertake missions of global vigilance,

reach and power.”

Initial transitional funding will be used to provide L-3

Link’s ongoing contractor logistics support and Training

System Support Center activities for all 26 PMATS

devices located at Air Force installations throughout

the continental United States. The Air Force could

exercise contract options calling for L-3 Link to build

over 50 additional PMATS devices. L-3 Link will also be

responsible for follow-on concurrency between PMATS

devices and the unmanned aircraft through

2019.


Brigadier General Jon A. Weeks is commander, Air Force Spe-cial Operations Air Warfare Center, Air Force Special Operations Command [AFSOC], Hurlburt Field, Fla. As commander, Weeks organizes, trains, educates and equips forces to conduct special operations missions; leads AFSOC irregular warfare activities; executes special operations test, evaluation and lessons learned programs; and develops doctrine, tactics, techniques and proce-dures for Air Force Special Operations Forces.

Weeks has commanded at the Squadron, Combined Joint Spe-cial Operations Air Component and Wing level, with more than 12 months of combat command in the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility. Additionally, Weeks has flown more than 400 hours of combat time in support of operations Just Cause, Endur-ing Freedom and Iraqi Freedom, and has also deployed in support of operations Uphold Democracy and Southern Watch.

Prior to his current assignment, Weeks was special assistant to the commander, Air Force Special Operations Command, Hurl-burt Field.

Q: With capabilities of various units under one command, what are some efficiencies you’ve seen realized early on?

A: With the integration of some of our operational and train-ing units, together with the total force integration [TFI] of our Reserve component, the 919th Special Operations Wing, we have gained synergies with our overall maintenance effectiveness and with manning our continuation training and formal training unit flights. We are now better able to tap into our additional available personnel to fill seats on various flights. Also, with the Classic Reserve Associate relationship, we are now better able to fully pro-vide aircraft maintenance, both at home and down range.

Our aviation foreign internal defense [AvFID] and building partnership capacity [BPC] mission are more aligned now that we have the educational benefits of our USAF Special Operations School tied directly with our training and operational AvFID and BPC squadrons.

Q: While we’re in the middle of furloughs, what are some ways center training with sister services and other partner nations helps save the nation money in the long run?

A: The Air Force Special Air Warfare Center [AFSOAWC] inte-grated many irregular warfare activities that were previously spread throughout various units and levels of command within AFSOC. Pulling these capabilities under the oversight of a single organization allows our special operators to better advise on and execute irregular warfare missions in support of our joint and international partners, as well as develop doctrine, train and equip the next generation of irregular warfare warriors.

Q: What are some of the similarities to the Special Air Warfare Center of the 1960s that are applicable in AFSOAWC today?

A: Just like the Special Air Warfare Center, AFSOAWC is tasked to organize, train and equip Air Force SOF and train the air forces of friendly foreign nations in many aspects of unconven-tional warfare, counterinsurgency air operation, and military information support operations, in addition to developing Air Commando doctrine, tactics, techniques, procedures and hard-ware.

Arming Air Commandos with the Best Training

Efficient Instructor

Brigadier General Jon A. WeeksCommander

Air Force Special Operations Air Warfare Center

Air Force Special Operations Command

Q&AQ&A


Q: Are there lessons learned from AFSOAWC’s early months that are being applied already, or is it too early to tell?

A: One of the most significant lessons AFSOAWC has identi-fied thus far is how critical total force integration with the Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve is to the mission of the center. In fact, the center could not conduct its mission with-out the synergies realized through this vital partnership. One example is the center’s associate relationship with the 919th Special Operations Wing, an Air Force Reserve unit. Their inte-gration with the 6th Special Operations Squadron, to conduct the center’s aviation foreign internal defense mission, is key to global AvFID operations and providing needed training in our schoolhouses.

Q: Having previously commanded the 919th Special Operations Wing, how have you seen the AFSOAWC aid in total force part-nership between active and reserve airmen?

A: Probably the most significant element that has come out of this TFI venture is that we have built a force that is comprised of active duty, Reserve, Guard and civilians that are working in unison toward a focused mission. Thus far, our AFSOAWC TFI endeavor has surpassed all of our expectations, and should con-tinue to do so in the future.

Q: Are there advances in training systems you’re looking for to keep the center current with the latest technologies?

A: We depend on emergent technologies to make our train-ing programs more efficient and effective. This includes field-ing automated and interactive computer-based systems to supplement, and in some case replace live training events. High-fidelity aircrew and battlefield airman simulators can improve cognitive and motor skills without the high cost of flying real aircraft.

We have initiatives to deliver some of our courseware through online media instead of traditional brick and mortar classrooms. These “distance learning” events will provide our aircrew and battlefield airmen global, uninterrupted access to electronically-based mission qualification and continuation training materials.

We are pursuing improvements in database generation, aero-dynamic modeling, and networking with other geographically separated training systems. This enables us to use simulators to conduct mission qualification, continuation training, readiness/rehearsal training, and core joint SOF component skills training in frequent and challenging specialized scenarios.

Improving our training systems allows us to link simulators into exercises with live personnel on military ranges throughout the world. This gives us an opportunity to train at home station in realistic and complex combat missions without the high costs of flying aircraft, traveling, or spending time away from the base.


This is a transformational approach to getting the best training short of actual combat, but without danger and risks to life and property.

Q: How do you assess training of the current family of SUAS?

A: The small unmanned aerial system [SUAS] formal schoolhouse at Navy Outlying Field [NOLF] Choctaw is the formal schoolhouse for the Air Force and for SOCOM. AFSOC, as SOCOM’s agent for SUAS, is responsible for SUAS instructions and courseware, standard-izing operations and training across an extremely wide group of users.

The FAA has recognized the 371st Special Operations Combat Train-ing Squadron’s Detachment 1 as a model for aircraft integration. They have granted us permission to conduct simultaneous manned and unmanned aircraft operations at NOLF Choctaw; one of the few locations in the U.S. where such operations occur. Detach-ment 1 SUAS instruction is accredited by the Community College of the Air Force, which means our students can earn college credit towards their degree.

Q: What are some teaching devices you learned during several years training pilots on the MC-130E that you’ve been able to pass on to instructors at the center today?

A: It’s vital to use instruction time wisely. Prepare by carefully reviewing the lesson material before every presentation. Focus on what the student needs to know and try to avoid teaching minutia.

Demonstrating a commitment to your students will make you a more effective teacher. Ensure students receive a detailed debrief after every mission and offer time outside the classroom to review, quiz or offer additional ground training events if required or desired.

A good instructor needs to have mastery over the material and be a credible expert in the eyes of the student. Use a variety of methods to teach material and demonstrate familiarity with the subject matter. For instance, I would draw systems and explain certain performance calculations on a blank sheet of paper/white-board while I explained what the components do and how they interact. It was challenging and kept me in the books. When able, I would involve the students in the preparation and presentation of a lesson in order to increase their retention.

At every certification board that I chair, I emphasize that our new instructors and evaluators keep safety and discipline as their number one task, while maintaining credibility and proficiency, not just currency, in their current mission. It all boils down to one simple fact: instruct as you would like to be instructed.

Q: What are the top three goals for the center that you’d like implemented before your next assignment?

A: My number one goal for the center is to have the capability to provide AvFID or BPC assistance to our allies that desire the opportunity. With the ever-expanding reliance on coalitions and importance of regional security to combat global threats, AvFID or BPC contributes greatly to the overall deterrence capability of the United States and its allies. By arming our partnering nations’ security forces with the proper “know-how,” they can prevent or engage any situations from turning into global crises.

My number two goal is to accomplish a comprehensive evalu-ation of all qualification courses and continuation training to identify optimization and efficiencies initiatives. Right-sizing our training through the use of advanced technologies to provide Air Commandos realistic mission rehearsal and distributed mis-sion operations in support of joint and multinational users will enable us to not only maintain the unparalleled support AFSOC has provided to SOCOM, but allow us to enhance that support.

My number three goal is to further educate our U.S. forces in our various special operations courses and language special-ties so that they will be equipped with the necessary tools to be premier “servicemember-ambassadors” of the U.S. when called upon.

Q: What closing thoughts do you have about the military mem-bers and civilians serving under your command?

A: On a daily basis, I am in awe of the men and women that I have been offered the opportunity to command. They come from all aspects of this magnificent Air Force and from all corners of this great country. The amazing thing is that they have come together to form one synergistic entity with a very focused vision. I’m extremely proud of the team we have formed and I look forward to the great things we have in store in our future. O

A CV-22 Osprey aircraft flight engineer from the 8th Special Operations Squadron performs a preflight inspection on Hurlburt Field, Fla. [Photo courtesy of U.S. Air Force]


For a special operations forces (SOF) team member operating in a remote location, one of the few ways to send an encrypted email used to be to find a way to a U.S. Embassy when time allowed. Retired Navy SEAL Vic Hyder, chief operations officer at Silent Circle, a global encrypted communications service, remembers heading to a consulate on the weekend just to file off a quick report. For calling different phone numbers on a secure line, there were differ-ent protocols, whether calling a cellular number or landline for example. “I’d have to write all those down and make sure I knew exactly how to call,” Hyder said.

Hyder joined forces with co-founders Mike Janke, another former SEAL; Phil Zimmermann, inventor of Pretty Good Privacy, the world’s most widely used encryption code; and Jon Callas, cre-ator of Apple’s Whole-Disk Encryption, to form Silent Circle. “Mike and Phil got together and said there’s got to be something we can do to secure

smartphones and allow people to have conversations privately around the world,” Hyder said. “What we developed was Silent Circle, which secures your mobile devices.”

The Washington, D.C. company’s services include Silent Phone, which has fully secure conference calling and video call-

ing, and Silent Text, which gives subscribers chat capability and functionality. “It’s really simple to use for Apple and Android devices,” Hyder said. “You can attach documents, PDFs, PowerPoints, videos, voice messages, and send them completely encrypted to another subscriber anywhere in the world.” The transmission is encrypted peer-to-peer from one subscriber’s Apple or Android device to another, keeping unauthorized people from under-standing the content.

With an extended plan called Out-Circle Access, subscribers can still make calls outside the circle that are encrypted to and from the Silent Circle network. “If you’re an Android user and you pull up

when priVacy iS paramount, operatorS haVe meanS to keep commS Secret.

by Jeff campbeLL

Sotech editor

Vic Hyder

[email protected]


Silent Phone, it looks like a phone that you would have on an Android platform; you don’t have to learn anything new,” Hyder said. “All you have to do is dial the number, dial the user name of another subscriber that you’re calling and you go secure.”

a priVacy boon

Recent media attention to privacy concern has boosted Silent Circle’s business by about 400 percent. “I think the main thing is, it’s made people around the world aware of what’s going on,” Hyder said. “Not just governmental interest in our transmissions, but the ability of other entities out there, from criminal activities that can use them against you, to corporate espionage, so it really has raised people’s awareness.”

With users in more than 120 countries, Silent Circle is on track to breach more than 2 million subscribers worldwide by the end of the year. “It’s just exploded; 120 countries are the ones that I can count,” Hyder said. “There are ways of purchasing Silent Circle where it’s completely anonymous; therefore I don’t know where some of our customers are coming from.” One of them is the Ronin card, a pre-paid gift card named for the Japanese “Masterless Samu-rai” that includes a subscription to the Silent Circle suite.

The founders of Silent Circle developed the software with deployed servicemembers in mind who get issued a limited-use laptop. “So guys will bring their own device, their own laptop, in

order to be able to hop on their personal email account, go on Skype and com-municate back home, pay their bills or call home and say ‘Happy Mother’s Day.’” Before long, operators were calling Hyder saying they’d like to look into it. “We gave them some trial codes and let them play with it and it’s just going gangbusters,” he said.

From a place like Kabul or Baghdad, operators can do a video chat with their kids and know it’s completely encrypted. “With the texting ability, they’re able to send PDF files and PowerPoint presenta-tions from their iPad or iPhone or Android and transfer those documents around simply,” Hyder said. Silent Circle can’t be

used for documents classified as Secret or above, but it is an added layer of protection for sensitive unclas-sified information. While Hyder said Silent Circle’s encryption level is engineered for top secret, it has not gone through the federal information process-ing standards 140 certification, but the fast-growing company plans to do so.

Hyder recently got a call from a subscriber who would only say that he was somewhere in Eastern Africa. The caller was excited that with just two bars on the local cell network, he could make a completely encrypted call. “If another Benghazi goes

down and the communication infrastructure in the city is not available, the guys can’t run into the embassy to get secure comms, but they can get a couple bars with a local cell or get into a WiFi hotspot, they can make an encrypted call and communicate securely,” Hyder said.

Hyder said Silent Phone gives SOF members, business people thwarting espionage, and the average private citizen the utmost security, combined with simplicity. “We’re trying to make it avail-able to the everyday person, but what we’ve found is organizations around the world are implementing it, using it for their internal networks,” Hyder said. “I’m talking to people all over the world that are sending me emails, giving me phone calls, and contacting our customer support line, saying ‘I’m an international business trav-eler and I want to call home,’ or ‘I own a small architectural firm, and I’m really concerned about the outgoing transmission because of the competition that I have.’” When vying for the same contracts, some companies will use any method they can for corporate espio-nage to get an upper hand, said Hyder, recalling a trip to Mexico City speaking with small business owners. “Their biggest concern wasn’t their own government, it was the competition down the street try-ing to get an upper hand on them,” he said.

Hyder said SOCOM is near the end of reviewing it now for for-mal approval.

changing cyber-battLefieLd

Other companies go on the offensive to turn system weaknesses into active defenses. Quebec, Canada’s Arcadia G.P. offers exploita-tion courses for the intelligence and law enforcement communities. Arcadia G.P. President Pierre Roberge said encrypted communica-tions are not the specialized technologies they used to be, making the battlefield much more cut-throat.

“Nowadays, stealthy comms might be more of a concern than encryption by itself,” Roberge said. “Comms that are unencrypted, cheaply encrypted or not well-designed [not stealthy] are a fatal issue for offensive [or defensive] operational technologies.”

There are several types of offensive posture, including penetra-tion testing, hacking an enemy, or using the offensive technique to defend yourself, and the latter is where Arcadia leans. “Advance persistent threat [APT] hackers are more afraid of other APT hackers than all other security teams,” Roberge explained. “Using offensive security techniques is all about being at the APT hacker’s level. A decisive security posture is thus critical.”

Whether in an offensive or defensive context, the team backing your security must be present and ready to operate in a decisive security posture. This calls for expertise above and beyond the industry standard, and those individuals are hard to come by.

Pierre Roberge

[email protected]

Silent Circle’s “Silent Phone” service encrypts transmissions peer-to-peer from one subscriber’s device to another, keeping unauthorized people from accessing the content. [Photo courtesy of Silent Circle]


For more information, contact SOTECH Editor Jeff Campbell at [email protected] or search our online archives

for related stories at www.sotech-kmi.com.

“Today’s security landscape is getting more fast-paced, because the defensive technologies are getting better,” Roberge said. “This, in turn, drives the enemy to operate quicker, which means we have to be ahead of them.”

The Arcadia team stays ahead of by offering completely cus-tomized solutions to the intel, military and law enforcement com-munities, and Roberge said their expertise in those areas makes his company well-suited to assist the SOF community. “By dealing with us, you know you are dealing with people who understand your needs and understand that reliability and stealthiness are not negotiable requirements, but necessities of the business,” he said.

Roberge first got interested in exploitation technology in the early days of the bulletin board system, while downloading and reading hacking magazines. “Most people are not aware of the pre-Internet days, but they were underground and very cool,” he said. “As for the team, I can say that we are competitive and love to win, with very similar backgrounds, highlighted by a passion to use soft-ware for purposes other than its original intent.”

While there’s lots of talk in the news about individual informa-tion security, Arcadia gears their products towards tactical users and offers their new active defense services to protect businesses needing high levels of security. “There used to be a mindset that only governments were targeted by the most advanced enemies,” Roberge said, adding that cannot be further from the truth in this decade of exponential technology growth. “Smart and successful businesses need to secure their assets.”

Online theft, deceptive competition and potential blackmailing are just a few of the exploitative tactics businesses must defend against. “The high-end service we offer is unique in that it does not compete with other commercial security products at all,” Roberge said. “Many technology companies try to sell some magical anti-APT products, but the tech is 20 percent of the equation; the real effec-tiveness comes from the team behind it.”

All of this is keeping Roberge busy now, but in the future he’s looking to expand Arcadia’s live monitoring services. “If a new mobile platform grows in popularity, we will most likely look into offering offensive solutions for it,” he said. “We understand the level of sophis-tication of the enemy trying to penetrate friendly networks, and we are grateful to the SOF community for getting the job done.”

Stopping attackS at the Source

Most government workers and military members are familiar with a common access card reader at their workstation, but as the SOF community oper-ates on the go, authentication solutions need to come along. Vienna, Va.-based Precise Biometrics developed the Tactivo smart card and fingerprint reader for Apple products, and last month expanded into the Android and Windows environments with Tactivo Mini. The reader enables users to move securely to mobile access, integrating any application with the embedded smart card reader and biomet-ric fingerprint sensor in the case. “This allows the SOF operator to securely access applications, email and backend systems using authentication methods like a personal identification number or matching your fingerprint on your hard credential,” said Jeff Scott, Precise vice president of sales for North America. “Other authentica-tion methods can be added, like additional biometrics, geo-fencing

and gestures. We have taken the smart card desktop reader and converted it to the mobile environment both as a case for the iPhone and iPad and as a dongle for Android, Windows and desktops where supported.”

What separates Precise’s Tactivo from the standard DoD card reader is the ability to take work from your desktop to the mobile space. “Potentially anything that you could do at your desktop could be ported over to mobile devices, whether tablets or phones,” Scott said, adding that without it, operators would run up against security

issues and authentication factors. “The Tactivo was designed for anyone looking at securing their mobile workspace with a smart card and a biometrics.”

The case doesn’t meet ruggedized military stan-dards at this point, but Scott said he would “feel as comfortable using this case as I would a smartphone or a smart tablet in a tactical environment.” Precise Biometrics is focused on growing the ecosystem of applications that provide a range of solutions, and their continued course will be determined in part by the requests received from SOF and other com-munities.

According to Scott, Tactivo can be seen as an extension to the SOF workplace and the types of applications that could be integrated into it are limitless. “Within each application the Tactivo can be used to authenticate and authorize actions using one’s credentials and/or one’s biometrics,” Scott said. “We look forward to working with any partner that puts applications into the hands of SOF that make their jobs and information more secure and easy to access anytime, anywhere—by just them, and not individu-als who shouldn’t have access.” O

Jeff Scott

Tactivo, a smart card and fingerprint reader, provides additional authentication capabilities to mobile users. [Photo courtesy of Precise Biometrics]


Call them unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), unmanned aerial systems (UASs) or remotely piloted aircraft—these fly-ing drones have proven themselves effec-tive and reliable weapons in recent years whether in-theater in Afghanistan or tak-ing out al-Qaeda leadership in Pakistan, Yemen and elsewhere.

“It’s a very effective weapon of choice,” said Chris Pehrson, director of Department of Defense programs for strategic develop-ment at General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, a leading manufacturer of such armed UAVs as Predator, Reaper and more. “It minimizes the exposure of U.S. crews. It doesn’t put the pilot in harm’s way, and it’s very cost-effective. The cost per flying-hour for a MQ-9, for example, is about $5,000, whereas with something like an F-18, it’s going to be closer to $12,000—or $10,000 minimum.”

Now that UAVs have proven their lethality, the U.S. military, UAV makers and munitions manufacturers are all busy at work developing, testing and fielding the next generations of UAV weapons systems.

Pehrson said that he sees a number of trends on the horizon, and adds that “non-traditional” systems are “actually more exciting than the munitions.”

This includes electronic-warfare pay-loads aboard UAVs, he said. “It’s a non-kinetic jamming pod. We did a stand-off jamming demonstration at a Marine Corps exercise in April where we jammed some radars [and the pod proved] very effective against some of the early-warning radars,” he said.

Another option will be the ability for a larger UAV to “drop a swarm or several small UASs,” Pehrson said.

“You could have a pod with several drones, and kind of swarm those out to any number of missions,” he said. “They could do close-in jamming, they could be kinetic with a warhead, they could be sensors to go out and do close-in reconnaissance. A lot of those concepts are developmental. Cus-tomers aren’t actually applying them yet. But we are looking at the R&D to make that happen.”

Yet another “game-changer technology is going to be directed-energy laser weap-ons development,” Pehrson predicted.

“On our Avenger aircraft—that’s the new jet-powered Avenger—we are

designing [what we call] the HELAvenger. It’s the high-energy laser Avenger,” he said. “We want to modularize this laser and be able to mount it into the internal weapons bay of the Avenger and have a lethal capa-

bility with a laser.”The laser itself is going

to White Sands Missile Range for a series of tests this summer. Integrating it onto an unmanned aircraft probably will come in the “2018 timeframe, assum-ing the technology proves itself,” Pehrson added.

In terms of munitions, Pehrson said he sees trends toward smaller, high-preci-

sion, low collateral damage weapons—but also larger weaponized UAVs, which would be capable of deploying “penetrating weap-ons—bunker-buster type” bombs.

One of the advances for the Hellfire missile, which has been a workhorse aboard UAVs, is a “ripple-fire” option in which an operator fires multiple missiles at a single target in rapid succession, Peh-rson said.

“You can have several hit the same spot and it digs a deeper hole, to penetrate

by Scott nance

Sotech correSpondent

J.R. Smith

it’S not what’S in a name, but the payLoad that countS.


into a hardened facility or bunker,” he explained.

SmaLLer tacticaL uaVS and munitionS

Others also see a growing trend toward a wider proliferation of small- and mid-size tactical UAVs—and are designing munitions to match.

That trend already has been underway in Afghanistan, as seen in the use of the smaller RQ-7 Shadow compared to the larger MQ-1 Preda-tor and MQ-9 Reaper, according to J.R. Smith, business development manager at Tucson, Ariz.-based Raytheon Missile Systems.

“In the case of the Shadow, if you go back and you look at the number of hours and sorties flown over Afghanistan, what Shadow has done has far exceeded Preda-tor and Reaper combined,” he said. “It has to do with the number of these things that are out there. The Army has well over 500 in their inventory, for example, and a lot of them are being put to use to watch over convoys, to just keep watch outposts and things—and to support operations in wgeneral. At this point, they are sort of a surveillance platform.

“But the Marines established an emer-gent operational need a couple of years ago to weaponize Shadow because every day—literally every day—they would see something on the ground that was going on [and] they would want to intervene,” he added. “It could be someone plant-ing an IED [or] it could be some people setting up an ambush. These are fleeting targets, so before you could get somebody in there to do something about it—maybe a fixed-wing attack aircraft or a Predator/Reaper—they’re gone. That’s one thing that’s been kind of a trend.”

That’s why Raytheon Missile Systems offers an assortment of options for arming UAVs, including a 500-pound enhanced Paveway laser-guided bomb that also features GPS tracking for foul weather deployment against fixed targets, for a UAV like Reaper, down to a small 12-pound tactical munition Raytheon developed called Pyros, Smith said.

“That’s tailor-made for something more on the Shadow or TigerShark end of the scale,” he said. “Interestingly, if you look at enhanced Paveway and you look at the little 12-pound, 22-inch-long,

3.6-inch-diameter Pyros, they all have the same capabilities at the end of the day in terms that they are both GPS/[Inertial Navigation System-capable]. You’ve got things miniaturized now to the point that we can put it in a package that small. And they also have a semi-active laser detector so you get increased accuracy.”

MBDA Inc., a U.S. missile company owned by MBDA, a global missile com-pany, also sees the growth in smaller UAVs—and is working to provide the right munitions for them, said Douglas J. Denneny, the firm’s vice president of business development, communications and government relations.

The interest in weaponizing tactical UAVs extends beyond the United States, Denneny said.

“For many countries, they cannot either afford, nor do they have the same need for, the very large UAVs like Reaper and other things like that. What you’re seeing now is an explosion in growth in mid-size UAVs—ones that are more portable [and] have a smaller footprint,” he said.

MBDA’s Small Air Bomb Extended Range (SABER) is designed specifically for small- and mid-size UAVs, Denneny said.

SABER’s diamond-shaped wing provides lift-ing surfaces “that allow the weapon to come out quietly, unguided, and fly to the tar-get and strike high-speed, maneuvering targets,” he said. “We are currently spending a fair amount of internal resources to con-tinue development,” with testing scheduled this sum-mer, he added.

when the uaV iS the munition

With BattleHawk, Tex-tron Defense Systems has, in a sense, merged the tacti-cal UAV and its munition.

BattleHawk is light-weight, can be carried by a soldier and is easy to use, said Henry Finneral, vice president for advanced weapons and sensors for the contractor based outside Boston.

“We think BattleHawk has some sig-nificant advantages,” he said. “One is its endurance. … It has fairly large wings that fold around the fuselage that enable it to loiter for over half an hour. I don’t believe there is any other system out there that has that ability. So you are able to gain that additional time and situ-ational awareness while the system is up there—scouting out where the hostility that you want to put an end to is coming from.”

BattleHawk is designed more like a munition than a UAV, Finneral said. “Therefore, it is very easy to use. It’s not like flying a UAV; it’s more like a firing a weapon,” he said.

With a total weight of about 5.5 pounds, Finneral described BattleHawk as a munition that has some UAV attributes.

“It’s an aerial munition because that’s its main function. It does have sensor capabilities onboard to enable it to find its target, locate its target, and then go in and prosecute the target. It has its own launch capability,” he said. “It comes in a launch tube, which doubles as its carrying case. That launch tube and carrying case

can attach to a standard modular lightweight load-carrying equipment pack, so that the soldier has it at his disposal. He doesn’t have to call for fire, call for fire support, he doesn’t have to re-task an ISR/strike UAS to come over and provide that close-air support—he has it in his arsenal.”

To describe the use of BattleHawk, Finneral used the example of a special operator who begins tak-ing hostile fire. Not sure exactly where fire is com-ing from, the operator puts himself in a protected posi-tion, quickly emplaces the BattleHawk launcher and uses his smartphone-style BattleHawk controller to deploy the munition. Bat-tleHawk will then loiter to find where the hostile

attack is coming from, sending stream-ing video back to a controller to allow the operator to identify the target based, perhaps, on muzzle flashes.

Henry Finneral

Douglas Denneny

[email protected]




“All he does is tap the screen on the muzzle flash or target, and the system will autonomously guide itself into that, and then impact, and provide a lethal capability to take out that hostile threat,” Finneral said.

Textron has demonstrated for the U.S. Special Operations Command, as well as an Air Force live-fire test at Dugway Proving Ground in Utah, against a vehicle and a dismounted target set, he said. “We were two for two; both units worked flaw-lessly,” he added.

Another important goal for future UAV weapon systems is for them to offer supe-rior accuracy while mitigating collateral damage, said MBDA’s Denneny. Another of the company’s UAV-capable munitions is called Brimstone.

“It has a documented 98 percent suc-cess rate. … It can engage high-speed, maneuvering ground targets. You think about coming off of an airplane or a UAV, and you have a target that’s moving quickly—let’s say a car, [or] a motor-cycle going down a dirt trail—it’s very, very effective both for high-speed

maneuvering targets and also for station-ary targets,” he said.

Denneny cited President Obama’s May 23 speech at National Defense Univer-sity in Washington, D.C., in which he defended his administration use of UAVs against al-Qaeda, but also acknowledged the need to minimize civilian casualties as a result of such strikes.

“The president of the United States talked about drone strikes, and he talked about the challenges of continuing the drone strikes but balancing the collateral damage concerns that he has. … That’s what we’re trying to do with Brimstone, is to offer a solution that helps with his col-lateral damage concerns,” Denneny said.

It’s not only the weapons themselves that require development, but also the sensor systems and related technologies in UAVs, said John Kelly, director of advanced ISR solutions at BAE Systems, a provider of UAV sensor gear. “Before you apply a kinetic or non-kinetic weapon on a target, you have to find the target … so that’s really where we’re working,” Kelly said.

BAE Systems is creating advanced technology that will better create “action-able intelligence out of raw sensor data,” Kelly said.

“What that really means is: You have to have detection algorithms, you’re able to track targets, fuse different tracks into a single, long-term track, and then use that information to cross-cue other sensors to perhaps learn more about the target itself. For instance … is that a dis-mount? Is that a group of dismounts? Is it a vehicle? How big is the vehicle? And you can do these at fairly considerable ranges,” he said.

In particular, BAE Systems is work-ing to reduce the size, weight, and power requirements of “very mature, combat-proven algorithms” so as to integrate them into smaller tactical platforms, he added. O

Workers attach the 12-pound Pyros tactical munition to a UAV. [Photo courtesy of Raytheon Missile Systems]


The Federal Business Opportunities website, www.fedbizopps.gov, has several requests posted for industry input, including a SOCOM request for information (RFI) for a mobile signals intel-ligence (SIGINT) system and an Air Force Special Operations Com-mand (AFSOC) Special Operations Weather Team (SOWT) request for quotation (RFQ) for a small tactical upper air sensing system.

Joint threat warning SyStem (JtwS) ground Sigint kit-mobiLe

This RFI is for planning purposes only and any response will be treated only as information. If your company is interested, remember it is responsible for adequately marking proprietary or competition sensitive information contained in the response. The government does not intend to award a contract on the basis of this RFI or pay for the information submitted in response.

SOCOM has established a requirement to acquire a mobile SIGINT system called ground SIGINT kit mobile (GSK-Mobile) to support tactical SOF mission needs. The system will minimize space, weight and power to facilitate a vehicular configuration with the capability to detect process and locate a wide assortment of emitters such as push-to-talk transceivers, high-powered radio telephones, satellite telephones, personal communications service wireless telephones and wireless devices across multiple bands.

The intent is to identify non-developmental items that can do the following: identify companies that possess the technical, production, and support capabilities required to support proposed technical solutions over their life cycle; determine technological feasibility, supportability and readiness levels of required key attri-butes; and assist in formalizing requirements and the acquisition strategy for the JTWS GSK-Mobile.

The GSK-Mobile will have the threshold capability to detect process and locate a wide assortment of emitters. In the high fre-quency band, it will detect and process, and in the very high and ultra-high (UHF) frequency bands it will detect, process and locate. The system will also detect, process and locate additional emitters such as all PCS bands, Wi-Fi, and worldwide interoperability for microwave access signals.

The system will allow the operator to read equipment displays and controls in bright sunlight and during nighttime conditions (compatible with night vision goggles), having a variable bright-ness control. It will provide the operator with an audio headset or earpiece that provides an audible alert for a newly detected signal and provides audio of processed emitter intelligence. The

system will also provide the operator with a visual alert for a newly detected signal.

GSK-Mobile will have the capability to incorporate digital ter-rain elevation data. It will allow the operator to select and observe geographical maps with superimposed operator position and move-ments, superimposed emitter signals and locations, and locations of other JTWS operators using similar equipment.

The system will allow the operator to process and communicate collected signal information at the Top Secret SCI level to make the system accredited for TS/SI Information Assurance levels for U.S. Signal Information collection systems. The system will pass voice and data via the ANW2/ANW2C waveforms.

GSK-Mobile will have the capability to operate from 10-36 volt DC vehicle power and 110-240 volt AC, 48-63Hz single phase electrical power.

The system size will be for a mobile design, and an overall system weight of less than 25 pounds. The design will not interfere with operator’s military equipment and must provide unrestricted movements within the vehicle. It will allow the operator to store and easily retrieve emitter identification information and prepare emitter reports for communication to other similar operators using related equipment.

The GSK-Mobile will allow the operator to destroy any sensitive information in an emergency situation. It will be easy to declassify for equipment transportation and shipment.

The system will provide a useful service life of five years under severe environmental conditions and moderate to rough handling, given routine preventive maintenance and occasional failure repair.

The system must meet the National Security Agency Informa-tion Assurance standards and common SIGINT data format stan-dards and adhere to National Agency standards for Tactical SIGINT Data Format.

The vendor will prepare a safety confirmation recommendation for submission, to the U.S. Army Test and Evaluation Command Test Center when conducting risk assessment and acceptance of technical or operation limitations. The safety confirmation report will identify safety operations recommendations and references. The vendor will assess system safety during operations, transport and storage.

The GSK-Mobile will be delivered with a minimum three-year warranty against defects in material and workmanship.

If your company is interested, review the specifications at Fed Biz Ops and provide information regarding existing or near-term mature capabilities or products that meet all of a subset of the

mobiLe Sigint and SmaLL tacticaL upper air SenSing SyStemS Sought.by Jeff campbeLL, Sotech editor


identified attributes within 30 days of the RFI’s release. A request for proposals may be posted at some future time, however, the gov-ernment does not guarantee any action beyond this RFI.

SmaLL tacticaL upper air SenSing SyStem

AFSOC has issued an RFQ for a small tactical upper air sensing system. The request calls for the contractor to provide all labor, equipment, materials, tools, parts, shipping and all other items necessary to deliver 10 small tactical upper air sensing systems—including four radiosondes, a transceiver, tank nozzle and ground station software—and 1,000 compatible radiosondes with balloons. AFSOC SOWT personnel need to accurately, reliably and quickly obtain upper-atmosphere data. This data serves many of purposes, but none are more critical than the near real-time infiltration of both personnel and equipment in, or near, mission sensitive loca-tions.

To meet current tactics, techniques and procedures currently employed within the SOWT community, the upper air sensing system must be self-contained and, single operator back-packable from both a size (volume) and weight perspective, without com-promising the individual operator’s ability to carry additional mis-sion essential equipment. Compatible upper air (UA) processing software and firmware incorporating at a minimum the following requirements, must be included.

In order to obtain this data, the UA system must adhere to several performance requirements.

The system must be small and lightweight; hardware and soft-ware, not including a transport case and user-supplied computer, will include a high-pressure helium cylinder with balloon filling interface and four compatible radiosondes (to include one pilot bal-loon [PIBAL] per radiosondes) will weigh no more than 10 pounds.

The individual helium cylinder will weigh no more than 4 pounds empty and be capable of inflating a minimum of two 30-gram meteorological PIBAL balloons. The minimum balloon ascent rate with radiosondes attached will be approximately six to nine feet per second, or 360-540 feet a minute. The cylinder may

be disposable or refillable, but must be capable of maintaining 4500 pounds per square inch. The cylinder must meet all federal helium cylinder safety specifications.

System compatible radiosondes will use a 30-100 gram meteo-rological PIBAL balloon.

The system cannot rely on any proprietary laptop computer system. Its software must be compatible with Microsoft Windows 7 OS, and where required, system component connections will be universal serial bus.

Individual radiosondes should weigh 2 to 4 ounces or less and be capable of accurately collecting and transmitting to the ground receive station, atmospheric meteorological data to a minimum height of 39 kilo-feet and a slant range of 60-90 km line-of-sight. The radiosondes will transmit to the ground receive station in the 400-406MHz UHF bandwidth. They will use an onboard, self-contained dry cell type battery.

Upper air data format output must conform to standard World Meteorological Organization upper air reporting format. Additional software will include precision airdrop system (PADS) and Joint PADS (JPADS) airdrop systems functionality and com-patibility. The ground system must be capable of retransmitting current or archived raw and/or processed data to a PADS/JPADS capable aircraft receiver system out to 40 nautical miles, utilizing the 400-406MHz bandwidth. The software will be capable of pro-viding cargo/computed air release point input calculation data. All processed UA data shall be displayable in near real time during the course of the balloon’s ascent against a SKEW-T (a diagram com-monly used in weather analysis) background.

Atmospheric meteorological data to be collected includes code-correlated GPS wind speed and direction, atmospheric pressure, air temperature and relative humidity. O

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For more information, contact SOTECH Editor Jeff Campbell at [email protected] or search our online archives

for related stories at www.sotech-kmi.com.


SOtech reSOUrce center

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2D3 Sensing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17www.2d3sensing.comDavid Clark Company. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11www.davidclark.comGeneral Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C4www.ga-asi.comiRobot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13www.irobot.com/sotMBDA Incorporated . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C2www.brimstonemissile.comJohn Deere . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9www.johndeere.com/militaryPersistent Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7www.persistentsystems.comUSGIF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C3www.geoint2013.com

CalEndar

August 12-15, 2013AUVSI’s Unmanned Systems N. AmericaWashington, D.C.http://symposium.auvsi.org

September 16-18, 2013Air & Space ConferenceWashington, D.C.www.afa.org

October 21-23, 2013AUSA Annual MeetingWashington, D.C.www.ausa.org

November 5-6, 2013SOFEXFort Bragg, N.C.www.sofex.org

November 20-21, 2013SpecOps East Warfighter ExpoFayetteville, N.C.www.defensetradeshows.com

December 14-17, 2013Special Operations Medical Assoc. Conference (SOMA)Tampa, Fla.www.specopsmedassociation.org

September 2013Volume 11, Issue 8next ISSUE

Cover and In-depth IntervIew wIth:

Maj. Gen. Mark ClarkCommanderMarSoC

FeatureS

eo/Irelectro-optical and infrared (eO/ir) sensors, both passive and active, help operators detect, identify, and geo-locate air, sea-surface and ground targets. We examine advances in eO/ir technology.

radar & Sensor Systemsthese systems help operators determine the range, altitude, direction and speed of objects. Once those become known factors, the team can lay out a plan to intercept.

SoF Sniper/ designated Marksman training & GearSOF unit members in concealed positions can deliver precision fire to selected targets. they achieve those targets with the aid of highly specialized marksman training and gear.

InsertIon order deadlIne: auGuSt 30, 2013 | ad MaterIals deadlIne: SepteMber 6, 2013

bonuS dIStrIbutIonModern Day Marine, Quantico, Va

SpeCIal SeCtIon

Situational awarenessWhen you know what the enemy can and cannot do to influence your operations, chances of combat success increase dramatically. the lack of situational awareness can lead to serious consequences for individual operators, reducing the chances of mission success for the team.

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Mark Belanger is the director of DoD Robotic Products for iRobot Corporation in Bedford, Mass. He oversees the company’s portfolio of programs and products for their U.S. Army, Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force customers.

Q: How are your robots performing in theater?

A: At iRobot we are incredibly proud of the prominent role our robots have played in keeping warfighters out of harm’s way, and the feedback we’ve received from end-users has been amazing. We have fielded over 5,000 robots worldwide over the past decade, supporting various missions, including EOD, combat engineering and infantry. The most important thing our robots do is create safe separation between the warfighter and a threat, whether that’s an IED, active enemy shooter or HAZMAT threat. Our robots give the operator situ-ational awareness that they would not have had before.

Q: What role do you see robots playing in military operations in the future?

A: When robots were introduced to com-bat operations, one of the most obvious and successful places to use them was in counter-IED missions. We expect robots to continue to play a major role in EOD, where operators have spent years develop-ing tactics, techniques and procedures, and concept of operations documents for work-ing robots into their job.

One of the more recent developments has been the introduction of lightweight robots to support dismounted infantry and SOF operators in gaining better situational awareness of their battle space. Our 5-pound throwable robot, 110 FirstLook, and our larger 310 small unmanned ground vehicle [SUGV] give dismounts that asymmetrical advantage by allowing them to see threats hundreds of meters away, in and around

buildings and other structures, before they engage them.

The expansion of robots into main-stream infantry operations, with more autonomy and ease of use, is one of the many areas where we are headed in the future.

Q: How is iRobot innovating to meet the future needs of our warfighters?

A: What we are focused on at iRobot is deliv-ering a user experience with our products that is unmatched. We are making systems that are more powerful and maneuver-able than ever before, like our 710 robot which can lift over 320 pounds and scale jersey barriers. We are employing reliable and secure communications solutions like our mesh radio capability that allows the warfighter to get our robots deeper into culverts, tunnels and other RF-challenged environments. We are reducing the cogni-tive load on the warfighter and the weight on their back by introducing multi-robot controllers like that of the 110 FirstLook, which can seamlessly switch back and forth between driving a FirstLook and SUGV, or our 510 PackBot and 710 robots, which operate off the same controller with simi-lar operating styles. We are also making it easier for our customers to introduce new sensors and technologies onto our robots, by having a clean, open interface that can be easily integrated onto.

Ultimately, we are listening to our cus-tomers’ feedback based on years of experi-ence and thousands of delivered systems,

and responding with better, more capable products that are easy to use and support.

Q: As missions shift in the near term, what challenges do you see in supporting SOF?

A: One of the nice things about our family of robots is that it covers such a wide range of sizes and capabilities. We have robots span-ning from 5 to 100 pounds, which allows for solutions as diverse as the many missions that SOF operators are faced with. In order to support SOF properly, our systems also need to be extremely rugged and versatile. 110 FirstLook was designed with this in mind, as it is capable of surviving a 15-foot drop onto concrete and has the flexibility to integrate various payloads through a simple payload interface. The 310 SUGV and 510 PackBot are also highly rugged and versatile, with numerous sensors, cameras and payloads able to be swapped in and out. When faced with a mission requiring extreme lift capability, our 710 robot brings a unique set of capabilities to the fight.

The key is delivering systems that address numerous capability gaps, not just single point solutions. At iRobot, we are committed to doing just that.

Q: What closing thoughts do you have about your company, its people, and the SOF operators who use your robots?

A: As a company, we are proud of the fact that we’ve been able to respond when customers need us, not only in Iraq and Afghanistan, but also with our law enforce-ment community, coalition partners and nuclear facilities. We’ve been leaning for-ward with innovative robotic technologies that deliver an advantage to our warfighter and will continue to do so. But what we’re really most proud of is the skill and bravery of the men and women in uniform who risk their lives every day to keep us safe, and we are honored to call them customers. O

[email protected]

inDUStry interVieW Special Operations technology

Mark BelangerDirector of DoD Robotic Products

iRobot Corporation, Defense and Security Business Unit


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the Global SoF networkUSSOCOM Global OPT leadership, international SOF partners, and IA leadership discuss initiatives that are going to transform USSOCOM and the nation’s SOF to be increasingly “agile, flexible, and ready.”

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the Honorable James r. Clapper Jr.Director of National Intelligence (DNI)

Parag KhannaGlobal Strategist, World Traveler, and Author

Ms. letitia a. longDirector, National Geospatial- Intelligence Agency (NGA)

robert ScobleAmerican Blogger, Technical Evangelist, and Author

aDM William H. Mcraven, U.S. navyCommander, U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM)

Dr. David KilcullenAuthor and President & CEO, Caerus Associates

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• The most sophisticated, reliable, and capable aircraft in the U.S. Army’s UAS inventory

• All-weather Reconnaissance, Surveillance and Target Acquisition

• Full-motion EO/IR video and Lynx Multi-mode radar enable persistent surveillance

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