Engineers and Soldiers Assess Reconnaissance and Surveying System at Camp Humphreys

By M. Scott Bortot | 

Undaunted by bad weather and scheduling challenges, engineers Fred Knudsen and Jeremy Wasson recently completed their mission to support United States Forces Korea with the latest in reconnaissance and surveying technology.

The Product Director Combat Terrain Information Systems (PD CTIS) engineers worked with over 50 Soldiers at Camp Humphreys to conduct the first Early User Assessment (EUA) of the Advanced Reconnaissance Kit Family of Systems (ARK FoS), and to perform a training and refresh for 27 Instrument Set, Reconnaissance and Surveying (ENFIRE) systems.

“This was our very first opportunity to get ARK FoS in front of Soldiers and receive any significant feedback,” said ENFIRE Technical Lead Jeremy Wasson.

ARK FoS is a capability under development for automated/semi-automated, deliberate and hasty, route, area, and zone reconnaissance operations and represents a significant modernization of the ENFIRE system to include integration of state-of-the-art capabilities and military systems support.

“This is indeed going to truly enhance engineer reconnaissance in the future,” Wasson said. “That’s what the main take away is for me.”

Wasson worked with 15 Soldiers to elicit feedback during the ARK FoS EUA. The EUA enabled PD CTIS to receive early user feedback on the application of new technologies that may be fielded under new and emerging Army requirements.

The Soldiers participating in the EUA engaged with 3D light detection and ranging (LIDAR), augmented reality goggles for viewing data and analysis, as well as android tactical assault kit (ATAK) components and next generation satellite communications capabilities.

A former 82nd Airborne member who participated in the EUA said carrying ARK FoS while jumping from an aircraft would present challenges.

“Hearing this was interesting for us,” Wasson said. “We always imagine someone having a vehicle to conduct an engineer reconnaissance, and now we have to ask how we are going to make adjustments to serve a light infantry unit?”

Listening to feedback helps the PD CTIS team improve products for the warfighter.

“For us, it’s an opportunity to get things in front of Soldiers and see if all these great ideas that we’ve had back in the lab look like in real life,” Wasson said.

Overall, the Soldiers in the EUA provided positive feedback on ARK FoS capabilities.

“When you are in the lab you are never sure until you get something in front of a Soldier and they may tell you it is a terrible idea, or they may say ‘holy smokes, this is amazing!’” Wasson said. “In Korea, we got a lot of ‘holy smokes, this is amazing!’”

Before Wasson conducted the EUA, Knudsen ran the training and refresh for the ENFIRE portion of the trip.

“We were able to successfully complete the training and get all the practical exercises in and leave the Soldiers with an understanding and operator capability on how to successfully conduct road and bridge reconnaissance,” said Information Systems Security Officer and Training Lead Fred Knudsen.

The tech refresh and training included members from the 11th EN BN, Headquarters and Headquarters Company (HHC), 630 EN Co, 643rd EN Co, 814th EN Co, 55th EN Co, 502 Field Hospital, and 121st Field Hospital elements.

Knudsen explained among the reasons for ENFIRE’s success (over 2,500 kits are fielded with Army and Marine engineers) is the system’s interoperability to serve multiple mission sets.

“Instead of having one kit where you are trying to craft it for all mission sets, we have sets that are specifically configured for each of these types of distinct and separate missions,” Knudsen said.

While the ENFIRE training refresh and update and ARK FoS EUA proved successful, Wasson and Knudsen needed to adjust schedules to accommodate local national holidays and a large snowstorm. The rough weather played a role in scrapping plans to incorporate a small-unmanned aerial system (sUAS) as part of the EUA.

“We were unable to fly, but we were still able to take representative and sample data sets with us so attendees could do that portion of the mission right,” Wasson said.

During the trip, the PD CTIS team also held discussions with the 2nd Infantry Division to emphasize the utility of the ENFIRE system and to encourage them to leverage the capabilities to support geospatial intelligence collection requirements.

Lessons learned from working with Soldiers at Camp Humphrey will serve to improve future ENFIRE updates and ARK FoS assessments. The PD CTIS Team will next partner with Marine engineers to work with the systems during the Technical Concept Experiment (TCE 25.1) at Camp LeJeune this month.

“We will have enhanced these ARK FoS capabilities and have them in front of Marine engineers where we can get continued feedback, having already improved on it,” Wasson said.