By Ann Roosevelt
Empire Challenge 09, the sixth annual live joint and coalition intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) interoperability demonstration, is under way focusing on providing ISR support to warfighters from the tactical edge to the combined Joint Task force (CTF) level.
“That is what we’re really trying to focus on is getting that ISR information out to that tactical edge,” said John Kittle, project manager for the annual Empire Challenge series of events at U.S. Joint Forces Command (JFCOM). “That’s what we’re really trying to improve on to make sure that the dismounted units, the small operational units, the autonomous battalions or brigades are getting as much information as a wired in-the-rear operations center.
That information is provided via interesting and new technologies and, in some cases, wirelessly.
“But [tactical edge warfighters] are also collectors, so we are getting information back from them as well and putting that into our common operational picture,” he said during a teleconference yesterday. “We hope that everyone has the same situational awareness of the battlefield at all levels of command.”
The demonstration also is working to deliver ISR support in a timely fashion to warfighters at the tip of the spear.
Air Force Col. George Krakie, JFCOM director for intelligence operations and military lead at Empire Challenge 09, said, “We push the information as close to real time as possible, making sure it’s not the guy in the U.K. having to pick up a phone, calling a phone number and going secure, who will then talk on a radio to pass to someone. We’re trying to take all those steps out. He sits there, he sees it, he chats it, the person on the other end reads that chat instantaneously and is able to react to it…It does no good if it’s 10 minutes late.”
JFCOM is conducting the demonstration that is sponsored by the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence July 6-13. The event involves more than 1,700 people and consists of live operations augmented by virtual and constructive modeling and simulations.
More than 100 new technologies, concepts or proposals were presented for the demonstration this year, Kittle said. Of those, about 40 initiatives passed criteria such as warfighter requirements, developmental maturity, or if it could transition to a program of record in a certain period of time. Some initiatives are highly classified, some not, and they run the gamut from new sensors to new processes, to new tactics techniques and procedures.
The primary live fly portion of the demonstration is at the Naval Air Weapons Station, China Lake, Calif., an environment similar to current operational areas being high, hot and dusty.
Distributed locations include the Joint Intelligence Lab in Suffolk, Va., the Combined Air Operations Center-Experimental at Langley AFB, Hampton, Va.; the Service Distributed Common Ground/Surface System labs around the country; coalition sites in the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and the NATO Consultation Command and Control Agency (C3A) in the Netherlands.
The demonstration is pursuing three efforts, Krakie said. One is ensuring the distributed common ground/surface (DCGS) family of systems is interoperable, since the services and special operations forces each have their own programs.
A second effort is to ensure that the DCGS systems are interoperable with U.S. services and allied partners such as the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia as well as the NATO C3A node in the Hague.
Finally, while Empire Challenge is working to ensure ISR is interoperable, work also is to ensure the interoperability extends to command and control systems.
Kittle said Empire Challenge focuses on working to solve war fighter-generated problems with ISR solutions or support from concerns raised in Iraq and Afghanistan today.
There are four joint capability threads, Kittle said: irregular war and counter IED; improving ISR support to strike operations; trying to improve capability in ground and maritime domains: and joint ISR management.
Multiple sensors are taking part in the demonstration including the U-2, Global Hawk and Scan Eagle unmanned aerial vehicles, unattended ground sensors, and strike assets such as F-16CJ and F-18E/F/G.
There are friendly and hostile forces conducting vignettes based on case studies in Iraq and Afghanistan, everything from convoys to snipers.
The effort is aimed at providing leaders who could be a staff sergeant in a Humvee or a three-star general with all the tools to help make better decisions, Krakie said.