By Allison Weissert

HADES will be a multi-faceted sensing capability on higher altitude, longer endurance manned platforms. (U.S. Army graphic)

ABERDEEN PROVING GROUND, Md. — The United States Army Signal Corps first partnered with the Aviation community when they purchased the Wright Military Flyer in 1908. This was a two-seat observation plane that was used to conduct flight training for only one year. Over a hundred and fifteen years later, the Army Aviators perform a multitude of missions from patrolling the modern battlefields from the sky or piloting unmanned aerial vehicles for reconnaissance.

As the Army Aviation community continues to strive for innovation, they presented their near and long-term goals for emerging technologies, rapid acquisition strategies and aircraft survivability at the annual Quad A Mission Solutions Summit conference in Denver, Colorado last month. One key point coming out the conference was the need for innovation through partnerships. Commanding General of the 4th Infantry Division, Maj. Gen. David S. Doyle said during the opening ceremony, “Now is the time to innovate, successful innovation requires all of us.”

Program Executive Office-Intelligence Electronic Warfare and Sensors, known as PEO IEW&S, partners with PEO Aviation to provide aerial platforms with modernized sensors dedicated to intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance — or ISR — as well as survivability. Project Director Sensors-Aerial Intelligence and Project Manager Aircraft Survivability Equipment — known as PD SAI and PM ASE — are PEO IEW&S’ lead organizations providing sensors to the aviation community.

PD SAI’s mission is to develop, acquire, field and supply life cycle support to tactically relevant aerial intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance sensors on multiple platforms that maintain battlespace awareness and superiority. Some of these platforms include Airborne Reconnaissance & Electronic Warfare System, Airborne Reconnaissance Targeting Exploitation Mission Intelligence System, Enhanced Medium Altitude Reconnaissance and Surveillance System, High Altitude Extended-range Long-endurance Intelligence Observation System, High Efficiency RF Monitoring and Exploitation System and the High Accuracy Detection and Exploitation System — called HADES — as well as several uncrewed aerial systems.

PEO Aviation’s PM Fixed Wing and PD SAI share a unique acquisition approach. For the development of the HADES program of record aircraft, PM Fixed Wing and PD SAI share funding and work together through the requirements process. HADES is planned to achieve deep sensing capabilities, which is a focus for Army leadership, as deep sensing provides the identification, monitoring, targeting and striking of targets from long distances with precision.

Brig. Gen. Ed Barker, PEO IEW&S, left, hosts a panel during Quad A: Modernized Sensors for Aerial ISR and Survivability. Participants include (l-r): Andrew Evans, Dir. ISR Tsk Force, Brig. Gen. David Phillips, PEO Aviation, Dennis Teefy, PD SAI, and Col. Brock Zimmerman, PM ASE. (U.S. Army photo by Allison Weissert)

Brig. Gen. Ed Barker, PEO IEW&S, left, hosts a panel during Quad A: Modernized Sensors for Aerial ISR and Survivability. Participants include (l-r): Andrew Evans, Dir. ISR Tsk Force, Brig. Gen. David Phillips, PEO Aviation, Dennis Teefy, PD SAI, and Col. Brock Zimmerman, PM ASE.
PM Fixed Wing provides for the plane, platform and integration of sensors. PD SAI provides their expertise on the sensor development and fielding throughout its life cycle. Col. Joseph Minor, PM Fixed Wing, said about the relationship with PD SAI, “We ensure the platform we build and select is reliable, robust and open so we can develop over time. We have a seamless relationship with SAI, we look forward to working together to deliver HADES as we have with the legacy fleet.”

Dennis Teefy, product manager for PD SAI said during a leadership Q&A session at Quad A that “we make sure our sensors work within the architecture of the digital backbone built by the aviation side”.

The HADES acquisition management plan maximizes affordability through competition; enabling the Army to meet stringent cost, performance and schedule requirements. The HADES team also employs the modular open systems approach, commonly known as MOSA. This approach meets the Army’s modernization plan.

MOSA uses a system architecture that allows major system components to be incrementally added, removed or replaced throughout the life cycle of a major system platform to afford opportunities for enhanced competition and innovation. PD SAI is leveraging software solutions to provide updated capabilities where possible. As the operational imperative is to sense and see farther, the ability to calibrate sensors through scalable, cost effective and advanced software is key for the new higher altitude platforms, such as HADES, that are being developed.

A key partner in developing the requirements for aerial ISR needs is the Army ISR Task Force. The organization partners with PEO Aviation and PEO IEW&S to seek out and develop ISR technology through multiple stakeholders, including the Department of Defense, industry and academia.

Andrew Evans, director of the ISR Task Force highlighted his priorities during a panel discussion at Quad A. “The four P’s we have to be ruthlessly focused on are: the right platforms; software defined payloads; modernized processing, exploitation and dissemination processes; and partnerships. Modernization is a team sport.” By leveraging technologies such as machine learning and artificial intelligence to refine data that comes in massive quantities, humans can then use discretion and judgement based on relevant information obtained by sensors.

The UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter along with other Army rotary wing aircraft leverage PM Aircraft Survivability Equipment systems to protect aircrew and their passengers. (U.S. Army photo)

The UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter along with other Army rotary wing aircraft leverage PM Aircraft Survivability Equipment systems to protect aircrew and their passengers.
Brig. Gen. David Phillips, PEO Aviation, referred to partnerships as a team of teams. He said, “without these team efforts, we would not accomplish any of these visionary capabilities.” These teams come together to create a common architecture to prevent having to re-architect or over complicate sensor capabilities.

The Under Secretary of the Army, Honorable Gabe Camarillo spoke during the opening day ceremony to update attendees on the state of the Army Aviation portfolio. He said “the Army and the Joint Force rely on aviation contributions on today’s missions and well into the future. Accomplishing this mission will require us to equip our Warfighter with a mix of innovative and enduring capabilities and I think we have the right investments in place.” He pointed to a strategy of incremental upgrades purchased in smaller quantities, adopting MOSA, and using software to make improvements with minimal mission disruption.

Brig. Gen. Ed Barker, PEO IEW&S said, “when we talk about modernizing sensors and aerial ISR, we are talking about what the chief and secretary of the Army often talk about, the operational imperatives of seeing and sensing farther than the enemy. We know that the enemy definitely gets a vote on how fast we have to iterate and innovate. I am very proud of the enduring partnerships we have with PEO Aviation and ISR task force.”

PM ASE is also a key partner in the aviation community. It provides for the development and fielding of aircraft systems that maximize the survivability of Army aircraft against continually evolving threats while minimizing mission degradation.

Col. Brock Zimmerman, PM ASE, said “our first strategic priority is to focus on ASE architecture and modernization. My office is looking to field threat agnostic and defeat capabilities, field rapid system updates, as well as present relevant and actionable information and deliver multi mission capabilities.”

This requires common architecture, reduce ASE size weight and power, amount of integration efforts and speeds updates to software and hardware, improved threat detection system, focusing on the new Future Long Range Assault Aircraft system and eventually apply to legacy system. ASE continues to develop fully digitized radar receivers to detect RF threats.

Barker echoed the importance of ASE, “we are hyper-focused on protecting our air crews and the passengers on those platforms, before we put them in harm’s way, we need to protect them the best way possible.”