Surveillance: On the road to ISR | ADM Jun 2010

Julian Kerr | Sydney

The review is being undertaken by the Joint Capability Coordination (JCC) Division, itself stood up only last year within the Vice Chief of Defence Force's Group.

The JCC was established to provide coordination and influence for the development of joint and strategic capabilities and covers domains such as ISR, EW and Air-Surface Integration (formerly Joint Fires).

"In 2007 it's probably fair to say the Defence ISR domain was fairly loosely defined and represented a series of independent, quite capable, but somewhat disjointed capabilities," Air Commodore Chris Westwood, Director General of the JCC, told ADM.

"The key purpose of the Roadmap was to bring together a conceptual framework identifying numerous components of the ISR domain at the time.

"Part of the project at the time recognised the need for regular reviews and we're now looking at the Roadmap to see if there's anything else we need to do, particularly as we move further and further into the joint ISR domain."

The review began in March and the JCC team is consulting with players from all members of the large ISR community.

Input is also being sought from industry.

"It's become clear to us that one of the things we need to do is influence the capability development process for ISR projects," commented AIRCDRE Westwood.

"By our count there are about 45 projects of all descriptions and sizes in the Defence Capability Plan (DCP) that have a foot in the ISR camp.

"There's a close relationship between ISR and some of the other network-based capabilities or domains and I include NCW, Space and datalinks.

"They need a joint champion, and that's what we look to do."

ISR investment
The current review has involved returning to the original study, and back to the original teams that put the study together.

"We're looking at a number of options to refresh the Roadmap.

"One of these might be to provide a high-level implementation plan and leave the Roadmap as it is; these options need to actually help the process and not stop the world and change direction," AIRCDRE Westwood commented.

The Roadmap as it stands incorporates three phases: Establish (2007-08); Ensure (2007-12); and Extend (2007-17).

The Establish phase was intended to build the foundations of Defence ISR at the operational level by making measurable improvements in the exploitation of existing ISR information, an objective that AIRCDRE Westwood considers has been met.

The exchange of information at the operational level and down to the tactical level was given major impetus by the establishment in 2008 of Headquarters Joint Operations Command (HQJOC) at Bungendore.

"JOC has provided a vehicle for improving the utilisation of existing ISR; and such information at operational level now has a home, so to speak," AIRCDRE Westwood said.

"From personal observation there's a much greater awareness of what ISR sensors can provide, and a much greater demand on those sensors from commanders and decision-makers."

The deployment of a RAAF Control and Reporting unit to Kandahar airport from 2007 to 2009 to furnish air battle management and air surveillance also provided lessons learnt, enhanced coalition interoperability, and generally increased awareness of the role played by ISR in the modern battlespace.

The leasing last year by the RAAF of a Heron medium altitude, long endurance UAV system in Afghanistan would also doubtless provide a number of training and operational lessons from which the whole ISR community could benefit, the AIRCDRE said.

While praising the capabilities of current sensors and systems, AIRCDRE Westwood said it had been recognised that "where we're not particularly sharp" is in the processing, exploitation and dissemination of ISR material, and focusing on this area in the Ensure phase would bring the greatest rewards.

While a great deal of effort has been devoted to the processing, exploitation and dissemination of ISR material, successes have been predominantly localised and there have been limited advances in the integration and fusion of the material across the Defence enterprise.

Here, the imperative is to ensure that correlated ISR information is available to users at all levels.

JP2096
Key to this is the implementation of Joint Project 2096, entitled simply ‘Surveillance Enhancement' in the DCP.

Costed at the lower end of a $100-500 million band, the project "will seek to ensure that ISR resources and information are effectively utilised by enabling coordinated tasking and exploitation of all ISR assets and effective dissemination of ISR data."

According to AIRCDRE Westwood, JP2096 is a system of systems that will ensure a single focus on the ISR enterprise as a whole, and will essentially provide Defence's ISR backbone.

"We see this as the vehicle which enables the wholesale integration of Defence ISR data sources; it can host a variety of common analytical tools, it'll provide the user-defined output that supports information superiority in joint decision-making, and it also provides an interface into the US DCGS (Distributed Common Ground System) battlefield ISR system.

"This is the glue that will hold together all our ISR effort.

"If we get it right jointly, it will make the data from all our many ISR systems available to pretty much anyone in the community who wants it."

The filtering to be undertaken to ensure that decision-makers receive the right level of material will be performed at the decision-maker's end.

While some level of intelligent ‘push' will be required, the person who requires a certain level of information will be the one accessing that from across the system.

JCC is working closely with the community that operates the US DCGS to avoid mistakes and to ensure a degree of commonality, while recognising that the US system may not always reflect Australian requirements.

"Certainly the US has learnt the lessons about the type of training needed for those who will be pulling the data out of the various systems," AIRCDRE Westwood said.

"That's a challenge of all of us; the development of the future workforce will be key to our success in the ISR domain.

"We'll certainly need a different skill set and a different knowledge and education base; what that means to the structures of the Services and Groups is still unclear."

The final Extend phase is intended to guarantee that the integrated ISR enhancements delivered during the two earlier phases of the Roadmap evolve into mature capabilities, incorporating technological advances that occur during the life of the program.

As such, in due course it will build on the work currently being undertaken to ensure that interaction with Defence ISR is user-defined at all levels.

Although JP2096 has yet to win First Pass approval, this is expected later this year following completion and consideration of the Roadmap review now underway. Second pass approval is scheduled for 2011-2013, with Initial Operating Capability (IOC) still anticipated for 2013-2015.

As viewed by JCC, the priority is to get the JP 2096 architecture in place as quickly as possible, notwithstanding any delays in individual ISR projects.

"Our focus is on providing the environment that maximises the effectiveness of the sensors and systems that we have at any one time as we go forward," AIRCDRE Westwood commented.

However, the team continues to work with project capability managers on concept development and ensuring the coordination of issues such as training, the development process, and equipment commonalities.

The materiel that will be collated, assessed and distributed via JP2096 architectures - some already existing, others yet to be developed - flows from a variety of agencies, sensors, and systems.

Joining the dots
These range from the Defence Intelligence Organisation (DIO), the Defence Signals Directorate (DSD) and the Defence Imagery and Geospatial Organisation (DIGO) to the RAAF's AP-3Cs, the JORN over-the-horizon radar network, Collins class submarines and, shortly, the impressive reach of the Wedgetail airborne early warning and control aircraft.

In due course these will be joined by the phased array radars of the RAN's air warfare destroyers and, much later, by the much-vaunted sensor fit of the Joint Strike Fighter.

Notwithstanding such capabilities, some gaps are apparent in the ISR domain.

DIGO provides satellite image data to Australian military and government customers.

According to a May 2009 ASPI policy paper authored by Andrew Davies, delays of hours or days can be experienced between requests being made and imagery being provided.

In some instances aircraft can provide faster turnaround, and the retirement by the end of this year of the RAAF's four RF-111 reconnaissance aircraft means Defence will be relying on the ATFLIR (Advanced Targeting Forward Looking Infrared) pods of the shorter range Super Hornets.

These pods have a slant range of 48 kms at heights of up to 50,000 ft and represent a significant advance on the Lightning II pods equipping the F/A-18A/B ‘Classic' Hornets.

However, receiving high resolution images from the ATFLIR pods in real time, rather than accessing the imagery when the aircraft returns to base, would require a high bandwidth satellite communications link with which the Super Hornet has yet to be fitted.

While each of the six Wedgetails will be able to provide surveillance of four million square kilometres in a 10-hour mission and also furnish a communication hub and control function, there will be capacity constraints on continuous operations in geographically separate areas.

Unlike the US JSTARS aircraft, the Wedgetails will not provide a ground tactical picture.

The RAAF's 19 AP-3Cs - 18 used for maritime reconnaissance and one for ELINT (electronic intelligence) missions - will be retired by 2018 and replaced with a mix of eight P-8A Poseidon multirole maritime patrol aircraft and, eventually, a number of high altitude, long endurance UAVs - probably the RQ-4N variant of Northrop Grumman's RQ-4B Global Hawk.

According to well-informed sources, some P-8A capabilities sought by Australia - high altitude surveillance, weapon launch, and carriage of a search and rescue pod - are likely to be deferred to later blocks of the P-8A to expedite early delivery of the type to the US Navy.

At the same time, the relatively small number of P-8As being purchased by Australia and the new-found focus on anti-submarine warfare signalled in the 2009 Defence White Paper may reduce their availability for surveillance missions.

Although the 2006-2016 DCP anticipated in-service delivery of the UAVs by 2009-2011, government in March last year decided against participating with the US Navy in the design and development phase of the Broad Area Maritime Surveillance (BAMS) variant of the Global Hawk.

Consideration of this capability has now been pushed beyond 2019, although Defence continues to closely monitor progress of the BAMS program.

JORN performance continues to be enhanced by a series of upgrades, but atmospheric vagaries mean that coverage is not uniform and it can be restricted at various times.

Small and/or slow-moving targets can be difficult to separate from background clutter.

Space, the final frontier
The establishment of a new satellite intelligence collection system was flagged in the White Paper.

This stated the government placed a high priority on assured access to high-quality space-based imagery to meet Defence's needs for mapping, charting, navigation and targeting data.

Such a system would require the purchase of one or more satellites with a remote sensing capability, probably based on a high resolution, cloud-penetrating, synthetic aperture radar (SAR).

Satellite-based SAR would be particularly useful in the tropics, where electro-optic surveillance can be affected by high humidity, but there is no reference to any such system in the DCP.

However, presentations made in March by Thales Alenia Space to Defence, including DIO and DIGO specialists, indicate interest in the group's COSMOS-Skynet series of satellites.

The May 2009 ASPI paper pointed out that a radar satellite in near-equatorial low earth orbit could revisit the entire northern approaches to Australia six to 10 times a day, covering one million square kilometres of ocean (somewhat less over land) in a single pass.

For its part, a single Global Hawk can provide radar surveillance of approximately 10 million square kilometres in the course of a 20-30 hour mission.

At the tactical level, the APG-79 AESA radars on the Super Hornets will provide welcome additional capability, as will the CEAFAR phased array radars intended for the Anzac class frigates as part of their anti-ship missile defence upgrade.

The void left by the termination in August 2008 of the JP129 tactical UAV program has been largely filled in land force operations in Afghanistan by leasing the Insitu/Boeing Scan Eagle and, more recently, the larger, one-tonne Heron.

Australia now seems poised to acquire two RQ-7B Shadow 200 tactical unmanned air vehicle (TUAV) systems at an estimated cost of US$218 million.

This follows a 6 May notification to the US Congress by the US Defence Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) of their possible sale "to support ongoing ground operations in Afghanistan."

No decision had yet been made to acquire this or any other TUAV system but a business case for Joint Project 129 Phase 2 would be presented to government in the second half of this year, a Defence spokesperson told ADM.