The Army in early 2024 is slated to choose either Palantir [PLTR] or RTX [RTX] to move forward in its Tactical Intelligence Targeting Access Node (TITAN) program to continue developing the service’s new intelligence ground station, a lead official said Tuesday.
Brig. Gen. Ed Barker, the Army’s program executive officer for intelligence, electronic warfare and sensors, told reporters a decision to select one of the two firms for TITAN’s prototype maturation phase is expected between January to March.
“The selected vendor will further mature their prototype. There will be more soldier touchpoints. And then we intend to have some of this capability issued to designated units to allow them to refine the feedback and the [tactics, techniques and procedures] in which it would be employed,” Barker said.
Palantir and RTX were each awarded $36 million, 14-month deals from the Army in June 2022 to build TITAN ground station prototypes for evaluation and testing after both companies participated in an initial phase to work through their designs (Defense Daily, June 28 2022).
Barker noted the competitive prototyping effort to date with Palantir and RTX has included a series of soldier touchpoints and software sprint review, with the current phase culminating this past summer with a final soldier touchpoint and demonstration acceptance tests.
“Those final events really assessed the prototypes’ usability and technical feasibility, and they’re going to support the final evaluation as part of the competitive prototyping phase,” Barker said.
The TITAN program is expected to deliver scalable and expeditionary intelligence ground stations capable of providing fused sensor data to weapons systems at the battalion level, with the Army describing the future system as “a crucial component to enable deep sensing and [shortening] the sensor-to-shooter loop.”
Barker noted TITAN is also focused on enabling the Army’s ability to build in more artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities for processing sensor data “from space, high altitude, aerial and terrestrial layers.”
The Army is pursuing two variants of TITAN, starting with an “Advanced” version on heavier platforms such as tactical trucks with space direct downlink capability and a “Basic” model designed for lighter platforms (Defense Daily, Aug. 31 2022).
Barker noted the next phase of the TITAN prototyping effort will begin work on the “Basic” variant, which he said is “intended to be more expeditionary.”
Northrop Grumman [NOC] has also developed a TITAN “Pre-Prototype” (TPP) system, which officials have described as a component kit that will allow the ground station to integrate with space-based capabilities (Defense Daily, Nov. 10 2022).
“That’s kind of the direct downlink from those national technical means, from a space-based aspect. In terms of what that does, that reduces the cycle time by having that direct access to those space-based assets,” Barker told reporters on Tuesday.
Barker said the “Advanced” variant of TITAN will utilize the Northrop Grumman space capability kit, while the “Basic” will not.
“Now, that doesn’t mean the Basic does not have access to that space-based data, they just have to go through the normal route from an access standpoint based on when that information and that data is downloaded off those space-based assets,” Barker said.