The Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology (S&T) Directorate is assessing data from two evaluations this year to detect, track and identify small drones and aircraft in wide open and mountainous environments, but early lessons show the need for vendors to use existing industry standards to ensure interoperability of systems and sensors to better enable system-of-systems solutions, the program lead said last week.
The standards, some of which are already being used by vendors for drone and small aircraft detection and tracking, would also enable smaller companies that have innovative capabilities for using sensor data to precisely track various targets to play a role in an air domain awareness solution for homeland security purposes, Shawn McDonald, a program manager overseeing S&T’s Air Domain Awareness (ADA) and Counter-Unmanned Aircraft Systems projects, told Defense Daily during a virtual interview on Oct. 1.
The ADA evaluation in the plains environment took place this spring in North Dakota and was followed in August by the assessment in the Montana National Guard’s Limestone Hills training area, which features mountainous terrain. In the earlier evaluation, various sensors and systems were provided by 15 vendors and in Montana some of those vendors didn’t participate while new ones did, McDonald said.
In fiscal year 2022, S&T will issue a list of existing data standards as a suggestion for air domain awareness sensors solutions that will be voluntary but will make it easier for vendors to eventually propose integrated, interoperable solutions to DHS components. MITRE has studied the appropriate standards for S&T, McDonald said. Some of the standards will be for radar, video and metadata and other categories.
“And it would make it easier for not only vendor-to-vendor integration but also for the government to be able to buy one system from one vendor, another system from another vendor, do the best-of-breed, and put them together and make it work because that’s really the answer for addressing detection of anything that’s in the air, even anything that’s maritime or ground; it’s a system of systems approach, defense-in-depth where you have longer-range sensors that are maybe a little less accurate and then as you get in closer to a defended asset or the area that you want to protect against, you get more resolution with the shorter range sensors,” McDonald said.
Some DHS components are already beginning to stand up acquisition efforts for C-UAS, he said.
Other initial lessons from the two evaluations are differences in abilities to detect aircraft in plain versus mountainous terrain and that some vendors teamed with other companies to bring solutions to the demonstrations with result being greater accuracy versus a vendor that relied on a single sensor modality to detect, track and identify small UAS and aircraft, McDonald said. By listing existing industry standards that can be used for ADA, it will be easier for vendors to come to the table with either integrated solutions or for the government to integrate a solution, he said.
The original plan for ADA was to follow the plains and mountain-area evaluations with another in the maritime environment this fall and in an urban environment next year. However, McDonald said the next round of assessments is on hold to allow S&T and its partners to process the large amounts of data that have been generated, see whether the performances so far meet the requirements of stakeholders and, if not, where are the gaps so future evaluations can be tailored to address these, and what emerging DHS component requirements call for.
McDonald said that his team is also leveraging testing done under his C-UAS program for the ADA effort, which was added to his portfolio this year, to save money. Another factor limiting the evaluations is the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and related restrictions, which he said has limited the number of S&T participants available to run tests and rely more heavily on partners.
“We’re getting by but it’s not optimal,” McDonald said.
The reports on the two evaluations will be ready by the end of 2021, he said. The data generated has already been shared with the industry participants. The reports will inform the next testing steps, with the plans in place by March 2022, he added.
Another reason to pause evaluations until DHS has a good idea what it wants to test next is to also take advantage of any new advances in vendors’ solutions, which McDonald said are occurring rapidly.
“Because that’s the pace that they’re operating at,” he said. “So, we want to make sure we’re taking the snapshots in time right when we need the data to supply these [DHS] acquisition offices, otherwise its just OBE (overtaken by events).”
However, testing in an urban environment will take place and an announcement for this could come in the months ahead for recurring testing in a large city with tall downtown buildings, McDonald said. This will give S&T the opportunity to do research, development, testing and evaluating in a city, something it hasn’t been able to do before, he said.
Earlier this year, the Defense Department’s Defense Innovation Unit hosted a detect, track and identify evaluation of small drones in New Orleans near high-rise buildings and the Mississippi River. McDonald, who said he has discussed the evaluation with DoD officials, said the event “confirmed for us how difficult the city environment is” to detect and track small drones.
Compared to testing done by the military at their ranges in the desert, the industry and government-supplied drone detection systems for the evaluation in New Orleans “had tremendous difficulty,” McDonald said. Detection ranges were “significantly degraded” and there was a lot of interference, he said.
The testing also didn’t include mitigation measures, which is important for safely dealing with a potential threat drone in an urban environment, he said.
Cities and airports are “two hard hitting environments” for DHS, McDonald said. S&T is also working with the Transportation Security Administration on that agency’s evaluation of C-UAS equipment to detect, track and identify drones operating in and around Miami International Airport.
S&T is providing the equipment for TSA’s evaluations, which are aimed at sorting out what systems will work in an airport environment and not interfere with airport operations and aircraft, he said.
In FY ’22, TSA will also begin drone detection, tracking and identification testing at Los Angeles International Airport.