Northrop Grumman [NOC] on Thursday introduced a new command and control (C2) system designed to easily integrate with existing and future sensors and effectors, rapidly manage the fight against drone swarms, and be user friendly.
AiON is the company’s solution to the Defense Innovation Unit’s (DIU) Forward Counter Unmanned Aircraft Systems (C-UAS) C2 solicitation issued last December (Defense Daily
, Dec. 11, 2024). DIU and the Army are planning four events this year to demonstrate bidders’ Forward CUAS C2 offerings.
Northrop Grumman is the prime contractor for the Army’s existing Forward Area Air Defense C2 capability, which is used for short-range air defense, C-UAS, and counter rocket, artillery and mortar missions. AiON is built to replace the C-UAS mission of FAAD C2, John Myers, director of global growth and capture for Northrop Grumman’s Strategic and Mobile C2 business, told reporters.
AiON is designed to counter hundreds and thousands of drones, Myers said. Northrop Grumman said the system is designed to help defeat threats from Group 1 through 4 UAS, which includes those weighing more than 1,320 pounds.
AiON already integrates with existing sensor and effectors that FAAD C2 is interoperable with and have been accredited by the Army, which means less testing going forward and no need to “start from scratch” as with a new system, Josh Sagucio, director of the Strategic and Mobile C2 unit, said during the virtual media roundtable. This helps keeps the system affordable, he said.
Myers added that AiON is designed for rapid development with a build, test, iterate approach that also helps keep costs low, and enables the company to respond quickly to customer feedback and keep pace with evolving threats.
The new system can be deployed to the cloud or to the tactical edge. Some capabilities might be lost at the edge such as only being able to identify targets using still imagery versus instead of full motion video depending on local processing power, Myers said.
Like FAAD C2, AiON enables warfighters to conduct fire control missions and can integrate with new sensors, effectors, and share data to other C2 systems, Myers said. Unlike the legacy system, “AiON is going to allow other C2 systems to contribute information to AiON for consideration in its processing, as well as allow the injection of third party algorithms or even parallel functions, which is indicative to what the Army is looking for in their Next Gen C2 architecture.”
In operation, AiON will allow human-in-the-loop and human-on-the-loop use.
Within a user-defined operating area, the operator can designate the threats and AiON will “automatically calculate an engagement solution” that would be activated by a “single-click, Myers said. Alternatively, AiON can automatically develop the engagement solution in a battlespace and then counter threats, he said.
“The operator’s role in that scenario then is to monitor those engagements,” he said.