How is ISR being integrated into and across the evolving net-centric battlespace?
It is an integral element; you can’t conduct modern warfare without ISR. But we need to change our perspectives and move away from the segregation of intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance and integrate these capabilities – not just within themselves, but amongst all force application and national security processes.
It’s a misnomer to call the F-22 and F-35 an “F” – they’re not “F,” they are F/B/EA/RC/EW/AWACS-22s and -35s – they are flying sensor platforms. And as we move into the future, as we design aircraft, every one needs to be a sensor and every sensor platform designed needs to have the ability to employ force.
We can increase the amount of ISR being processed by just integrating the tasking, processing, and disseminating system. We need to completely revamp the way we view airborne systems – and the next step is to integrate sea-, land-, and space-based systems into that process.
What is the future of ISR integration, down to the individual warfighter level?
To an extent, you see a bit of that on individual weapons systems. The kind of sensor integration on both the F-22 and F-35 are examples of almost extreme sensor integration at the individual level. They were designed to provide synthesized, integrated, fused ISR – but just to the pilot.
That has frustrated some folks because you have this tremendous ability to penetrate protected enemy airspace and collect intel, but it only goes to the pilot. And there is no way to send that offboard and share with the full enterprise.
As time goes on, you will see more and more information fed to individual soldiers. A very good example of that – and why there has been an increase in demand for remotely piloted aircraft – is the area at which UAVs are looking can be fed directly to someone on the ground, who then can see exactly what that platform is seeing to provide tactical awareness of what’s over the hill or around the next building.
An F-22 Raptor from the Hawaii Air National Guard’s 199th Fighter Squadron returns to a training mission after refueling March 27, 2012, over the Pacific Ocean near the Hawaiian Islands. During the training, U.S. Air Force Academy cadets received a familiarization flight to get a better understanding of the Air Force’s global reach capabilities. Deptula makes the point that advanced aircraft such as the F-22 are more than just fighters, but rather advanced sensor platforms. U.S. Air Force photo by Tech. Sgt. Michael Holzworth
And now, with wide-area airborne systems, such as Gorgon Stare, you can do that with a large area and provide information to 10 separate individuals on the ground. We’re developing systems that can provide that information, eventually, to more than 100 separate users on the ground in the not-too-distant future.
Which platforms are evolving – and in what ways – for ISR applications at the high-altitude long-endurance (HALE) and extreme HALE level of UAVs, balloons, airships, etc.?
Large-scale, long-endurance, lighter-than-air aircraft are extremely economical compared to fixed-wing and provide an order of magnitude greater persistence. Many of the limitations to dirigibles in the past have been overcome with modern technology in terms of the materials of which they are made.
So it is a new capability, using concepts that have been around for a long time, but the technologies have advanced to make them more readily available. An LTA airship is the equivalent of about 40 medium-high altitude UAVs to achieve the same ISR capability over an equivalent period of time.
These are not be-all, end-all capabilities, because they are restricted to operating in permissive airspace. But we have been operating in permissive airspace for the last 20 years. So they are very applicable and desirable in locations like the Strait of Hormuz, Afghanistan, the Horn of Africa for monitoring piracy, the Straits of Malacca, the Taiwan Straits, etc.
What are the enabling technologies for improving delivery of all this data?
You want to deliver as fused a product as possible, which goes back to integration, which we really are not doing much of today. All the information derived from our collection mechanisms comes through very stove-piped systems. We don’t do a lot of automated tipping and cueing to provide information direct to a user without first going through an analyst.
It will be very hard because some people are saying we are overwhelming our analytic processes with the amount of information being collected, so we need to cut back on our sensor processes. That is nonsense and absolutely the wrong way to look at what technology advances allow us to do in terms of increasing data.
What we need to change is the way we analyze it. Instead of having a person staring at a monitor coming off a collection platform, all that needs to be automated. The machine can note changes and alert an analyst to look at it or, to the extent it can within current technology, do that by machines.