{"id":26525,"date":"2020-08-05T21:28:21","date_gmt":"2020-08-05T21:28:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/uncategorized\/2020\/08\/05\/how-the-army-plans-to-use-space-and-artificial-intelligence-to-hit-deep-targets-quickly\/"},"modified":"2026-08-07T22:19:41","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T22:19:41","slug":"how-the-army-plans-to-use-space-and-artificial-intelligence-to-hit-deep-targets-quickly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/digital-show-dailies\/smd\/2020\/08\/05\/how-the-army-plans-to-use-space-and-artificial-intelligence-to-hit-deep-targets-quickly\/","title":{"rendered":"How the Army plans to use space and artificial intelligence to hit deep targets quickly"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">WASHINGTON &#8211; It\u2019s hard to hit targets you can\u2019t see.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That\u2019s the problem Willie Nelson is trying to solve as director of the Army\u2019s Assured Positioning, Navigation and Timing (APNT) Cross-Functional Team. In that role, Nelson is integrating the Army\u2019s efforts to locate beyond-line-of-sight threats and delivering accurate targeting data to weapons systems in a timely manner. In order to do that, his team is leveraging space-based sensors, artificial intelligence and a new scalable ground system that can connect to all of the Army\u2019s weapon systems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Of course, the first part of the problem is finding the threats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For Nelson, the clear answer is satellites. While aerial platforms can provide that sensing capability, that\u2019s only realistic in a scenario with air superiority. That\u2019s not always the case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cIn essence, the deeper and deeper you go, you can\u2019t assume air superiority \u2026 so really, quite frankly, the only avenue we have is to sense from space,\u201d said Nelson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The growing exploitation of low Earth orbit for imagery and sensing has opened new doors for the Army, said Nelson. It\u2019s now possible to put deep sensing sensors on orbit that can collect that data without even alerting the adversary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cQuite frankly, that is a gamechanger,\u201d said Nelson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">While the primary tool is electro-optical imagery &#8211; the traditional satellite images soldiers are used to &#8211; Nelson said the Army is interested in using other phenomenologies, including synthetic aperture radar and radio frequency sensing. Ultimately, those sensing capabilities need to be persistent and directly integrated in theater all the way down to the guns, he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">With those sensors on orbit, the next step is to get the data to the ground. Traditionally, that process can take hours or even days, as the satellites have to wait until they pass over an appropriate ground station to downlink. That timeline was never going to work for the Army.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Speed is critical and service wants to be able to stop \u201cshoot and scoot\u201d attacks, Nelson referring to enemies who move to an area, set themselves up quickly, launch an attack and move on. Waiting hours for sensor information just wasn\u2019t going to cut it. By the time targeting data was available, the threat could have attacked and moved on to a new location.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Waiting for data to be downlinked in the continental United States and then transported back to the theater was never a realistic option, explained Nelson. That\u2019s where the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.c4isrnet.com\/battlefield-tech\/it-networks\/2020\/06\/09\/what-the-armys-titan-program-means-to-multidomain-operations\/\" target=_blank>Army\u2019s TITAN solution fits in<\/a>. TITAN is a new <a href=\"https:\/\/www.c4isrnet.com\/battlefield-tech\/c2-comms\/2020\/03\/20\/the-pentagon-wants-to-see-new-ground-station-prototypes\/\" target=_blank>scalable, transportable ground system in development<\/a> that will be able to downlink data from those satellites in theater, and in turn task them to collect more imagery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cOne that data comes down, there\u2019s a variety of tools that we\u2019re pursuing,\u201d said Nelson. \u201cOne of those is referred to as Prometheus.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Prometheus is a machine learning algorithm that takes in the various data delivered by on orbit satellites \u2014be it electro-optical, synthetic aperture radar or something else \u2014 and fuse it into meaningful, usable targeting data.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And once Prometheus creates that targeting data, it transfers it to a new program referred to as SHOT. SHOT is aware of all of the blue fires capabilities, explained Nelson. SHOT can take targeting data on multiple threats, compare it against available weapons systems, and determine which fire capability is the best for each threat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">All of that information is then seamlessly delivered to a firing system such as<a href=\"https:\/\/www.defensenews.com\/land\/2017\/02\/02\/pentagon-agency-hits-rewind-in-army-fire-support-software-competition\/\" target=_blank> the Advanced Field Artillery Tactical Data System<\/a>, which responds to the threat. Nelson emphasized that there are humans in the loop in this system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But none of these steps are easy. The APNT team is an integrator of related efforts across the Army, pulling in various advanced technologies to provide better sensing capabilities, better target identification, and to speed up that sensor to shooter timeline.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Nelson declined to share exactly how fast that timeline could operate at present.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWe\u2019re shaving off what used to be days, which used to be morning and afternoon types of data, from hours down to minutes,\u201d said Nelson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In March, Nelson\u2019s team was able to conduct a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.c4isrnet.com\/2020\/07\/06\/army-on-path-to-use-space-sensors-to-help-guns-on-the-ground-see-farther\/\" target=_blank>live-fire exercise in Germany<\/a> to see how this sensor to shooter chain works in reality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That demonstration was able to use a variety of government and commercial satellites, utilizing electro-optical and synthetic aperture radar imagery, as well as emitter detection capabilities, said Nelson. Those on orbit sensors were able to collect data about targets and then downlink to a TITAN surrogate ground station, where it was then disseminated to the appropriate weapon systems. Thanks in part to that TITAN technology and the availability of those on orbit sensors, the entire exercise was able to take place in theater.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWe\u2019re doing that entire fires kill chain all within theater, and I think that\u2019s critical. We\u2019re able to receive that data in theater, and process that data, be able to develop targeting coordinates from that, put it directly into the firing system AFATDS, and be able to launch weapons on that target. And we\u2019re doing that now very successfully in a very short time,\u201d said Nelson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cBeyond just the organics of the test\u2014bringing the data down, running it through its algorithms, getting it into the guns and the excitement of live fires\u2014we deployed a team of data managers across that architecture, which frankly goes across Germany, and had them at each of the nodes along the way which that data transcends the operational architecture,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Those data managers were able to record how quickly data was transferred from one node to the next, giving the Army critical data on how the current system actually works. The Army can now input that data into their models for more accurate war gaming and simulations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWhile this was a technical demonstration, at its core it really was more about how do we operationalize this capability and how do we quickly get this into the field as a capability that soldiers can use,\u201d said Nelson.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>New low Earth orbit sensors and machine learning algorithms like Prometheus could enable the U.S. Army to hit beyond-line-of-sight targets with new levels of speed and 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