A soldier who gets separated or lost in a hostile landscape naturally wants to send a radio signal as a call for help. The problem: Enemies can often see the signal too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To break this conundrum, the Army recently awarded a $33.9 million contract to support development of new technology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe motto is to leave no one behind,\u201d said Mark Cianciolo, vice president of Americas for Orolia. \u201cWhen you look at troops wounded in ground combat, when you look at helicopter crashes, all those things drive a sense of urgency. The Army wants their soldiers to be able to activate that beacon when an emergency situation occurs.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Orolia officials say they plan to deliver 350 of its next-generation emergency beacons for user testing in the coming year, with potential subsequent deliveries of up to 40,000 beacons over the next four years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Soldiers presently carry a device that transmits a 406 MHz signal, which is the international distress frequency. When a soldier activates the alert, satellites receive the signal and relay it back to a mission control center, and from there to a rescue coordination center.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe problem is that when you are forward deployed, if you become separated or lost, you don\u2019t want to activate that and compromise your position, because in all probability our adversaries are monitoring those frequencies as well,\u201d Cianciolo said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Instead, Orolia suggests a dual-mode beacon. In peacetime it broadcasts using existing infrastructure. \u201cBut there is another mode, a software-defined radio with a programmable wave form that the Army can use to define their own classified, proprietary frequency,\u201d he said. \u201cThis allows for a closed-loop combat search and research capability.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The beacon is packaged in an easy to use, 7 oz. form factor. To activate, the soldier unfolds an antenna and presses a button.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Army has been looking for a way to improve how it recovers soldiers for more than a decade. A 2007 Army document said enhanced personnel recovery would \u201cincrease force morale by demonstrating that we will employ every effort possible to recover our personnel,\u201d but that effort struggled for funding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In a 2015 document, the Army continued to press the issue: \u201cSoldiers who become isolated are still in the fight and must trust in their fellow Soldiers to recover them and have confidence in their own abilities to survive and resist enemy exploitation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Army\u2019s Combined Arms Center at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas lays out the specific goals of soldier recovery, which aims to: return physically and mentally healthy recovered personnel to duty; sustains morale of the fighting force knowing they won\u2019t be left behind; increase operational performance by gathering lessons learned; and deny adversaries the chance to exploit the intelligence and propaganda value of isolated personnel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To meet those aims, soldiers need to be able to call for help, knowing their distress signals won\u2019t betray their position to the enemy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Orolia won a first-phase award for prototype development in 2016, in part, thanks to its ability to meet Army requirements for big battery life. Once activated, the dual-mode device should be able to remain operational for up to 48 hours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When soldiers are deemed to be in peril, a tactical operations center or rescue coordination center will monitor a preselected frequency. While the new technology will ensure that signal arrives safely, and without being intercepted, Army planners still will have to devise rescue plans specific to the circumstance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis will give them the ability to identify that person\u2019s location but the tactical situation on the ground will still dictate the way in which they prosecute that emergency, depending on the threat and the situation,\u201d Cianciolo said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cBut at least commanders on the ground will now have situational awareness,\u201d he said. \u201cThey will know that someone has been lost or separated and they will be able to make the appropriate decisions in real time.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Army is investing in technology that will help a soldier who gets separated or lost in a hostile landscape and wants to send a radio signal for help.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":47623,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":8,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[8,106,29,32],"tags":[],"coauthors":[2063],"class_list":["post-15507","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-c2-comms","category-daily-brief","category-home","category-newsletters"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"3RC7QKR2PBC5FHVIT2SEEX7YCE","arc_canonical_url":"\/c2-comms\/2018\/07\/05\/a-better-way-to-call-for-help\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n