Joint Forces Command (JFCOM) is addressing warfighter requirements from Afghanistan for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) as it hosts Empire Challenge 10 (EC10) so they don’t have to be solved in theater, officials said.
“One of the things we work very hard on at Empire Challenge, and a lot of it is not on the technical side, but on the tactics, techniques and procedures–how do we get the right information to the warfighter,” Air Force Col. George “Skip” Krakie, Chief, ISR Integration Div., JFCOM, and military lead for EC10, said in a roundtable Aug. 9.
“It is not acceptable to just dump everything on them and force them to sort it out themselves. Using multi-int fusion and having an idea of what the requirements are from the warfighter, we’re hoping to get them more tailored products so they’re not overwhelmed,” he said from Ft. Huachuca, Ariz., where the bulk of EC10 takes place.
The event runs July 26-Aug. 13 and is the seventh annual joint and coalition ISR interoperability demonstration involving some 2,000 personnel. It is sponsored by the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence (USD/I) (Defense Daily, July 29, 2009).
Some 900 people are at Ft. Huachuca, others are at the Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake, Calif., and some 20 other locations worldwide, to include coalition sites in the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia; and the NATO Consultation, Command and Control Agency in the Netherlands.
EC10 is about promoting interoperability so ISR capabilities either already fielded or about to be fielded can talk to each other.
“We work those interoperability issues with the goal of solving those problems with sharing data here in Arizona rather than trying to solve it in Kandahar,” Krakie said. “It is an assessment-driven event. Everything that participates in Empire Challenge is assessed on interoperability and also assessed on whether it addresses warfighter-identified shortfalls.”
EC10 also focuses on moving ISR data to the warfighter who may only have a radio or laptop so he or she has the ISR data needed to execute his mission.
For that warfighter at the tip of the spear, EC10 has been looking at integrating data from other sensors with that of wide area sensors. At the brigade tactical operations center, wide area data comes in on one screen, showing about a 500-meter by 500-meter box. Bringing in a feed of about a half-kilometer by a half-kilometer from an air platform tightens the focus. Another screen shows a map of the brigade’s area.
“What’s happened now is we’ve been able to integrate other intelligence assets into that screen,” Krakie said. If an unattended ground sensor or other sensor picks up something it pops onto the operator’s screen and he can immediately slew to that area to see what those sensors picked up.
“It’s a lot of data coming down, but by fusing different intelligence and ISR assets together you can narrow your focus on the things that matter to you most,” he said.
EC10 also is working on how to take some of the wide area sensor feed and pass it to someone who may only have a (Remote Operated Video Enhanced Receiver) Rover. Also, EC10 is looking at helping that warfighter with a Rover move within the chain of command and architecture so he can see what he needs to see not what someone else has decided he needs to see.
EC10 focuses on the regional command level and below with most activities taking place at the Brigade Combat Team (BCT) level. Higher command is replicated at JFCOM’s Suffolk, Va., site, emulating a Combined Joint Task Force and a Joint Command Center.
There are two BCTs, one at Ft. Huachuca and one notional BCT operated at Suffolk. The multinational BCT at Ft. Huachuca consists of a tactical operations center, a U.S.-only battalion, a U.K. battalion operating two Forward Operating Bases (FOBs), a Canadian FOB and a Marine FOB.
Exercise vignettes and scenarios are based on case studies from Afghanistan, and capabilities are assessed against such things as IED attacks and force protection, identification and tracking of high value individuals and time sensitive targeting, border crossings and other events.
Participants brought their own suites of air and ground sensors.
For example, Canada brought its Longhouse force protection ISR capability, the United Kingdom brought its Cortez system, and the U.S. Army brought the Base Expeditionary Targeting Surveillance System Combined (BETSS-C), Krakie said.
The United States and Canada each brought an aerostat.
Air assets included the Scan Eagle unmanned aerial system (UAS), Constant Hawk, a Predator surrogate, which is an aircraft with the Predator sensor, Global Hawk UAS, and a variety of aircraft to include the U-2, the Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System, NATO AWACS, Navy EP-3, and Air Force Compass Call and RC-135RJ aircraft.
All are collecting and passing data.
“Our goal is to move that data as seamlessly as possible through the architecture, to the lowest level possible and across security domains,” Krakie said.
The demonstration has been able to push in data from other sites, for example, video from the U.S. BETSS-C system pushed to both the Canadians and to the U.K. personnel so they can see what the Americans are seeing, he said. The United States and United Kingdom have been able to work out how to pass data from the U.S. aerostat to the U.K. Cortez system, because they work together in Afghanistan and haven’t been able to do so previously.
“All in all I think interoperability is getting better,” Krakie said. “There’s still work to be done with every new sensor that comes down the line needs to be tested for interoperability.”