[Discuss-gnuradio] FCW: Army considers urban warfare tech

[John Gilmore]

[The official RFI has closed, but maybe we should send them a letter
 suggesting that our technology would be useful to such a program. -gnu]

http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2003/0106/web-cecom-01-06-03.asp

  Army considers urban warfare tech

BY Dan Caterinicchia <mailto:address@hidden>
Jan. 6, 2003

The Army is reviewing available technology that could be used to help it 
detect, identify and locate both friendly and hostile forces in city 
environments as quickly as possible.

The Army's Intelligence and Information Warfare Directorate (I2WD) is 
reviewing responses to a recent request for information for technology 
that can be used to gather intelligence and fight enemy forces in an 
urban environment.

However, this type of battle, especially in a foreign city, poses 
numerous problems for the Army, not the least of which is quickly 
identifying "bad guys" as opposed to innocent civilians, said Fran 
Orzech, chief of I2WD's information operations technology development 
branch at Communications-Electronics Command (Cecom) in Fort Monmouth, N.J.

That task is made even more difficult when enemy forces set up command 
and control (C2) centers using commercially available communications 
equipment in hospitals, schools and other locations where innocent city 
workers and inhabitants can also be found, Orzech said.

The "sheer density of radio frequency signals" in an urban environment, 
emitted from those commercial systems as well as wireless and paging 
systems, is yet another complicating factor, he added.

"We need to precisely locate [the enemy C2 hubs] to decrease collateral 
damage," whenever and wherever possible, Orzech said.

The RFI, which was issued Dec. 11, 2002, and closed Dec. 23, garnered 15 
responses from public- and private-sector organizations. It is part of a 
new four-year, science and technology objective program -- Information 
Operations for the Objective Force --that is focused on maturing sensor 
technology, signal processing techniques and computer network operations 
for transition to the Army's Future Combat Systems (FCS) and other 
transformational programs.

The Objective Force is a strategy to develop advanced information 
technology tools, vehicles and weapons that will make the Army's armored 
forces better able to survive an all-out fight. FCS is the centerpiece 
of that effort and will equip Army vehicles with information and 
communications systems to give soldiers capabilities for command and 
control, surveillance and reconnaissance, direct and non-line-of-sight 
weapons firing, and personnel transport.

The RFI included four major components of interest to the Army:

* Existing high sensitivity receiver systems that operate from 20 MHz to 
18 GHz and are capable of detecting, discriminating and identifying the 
operating protocols or information that may be associated with 
unintentional sources of radio frequency radiation up to a range of 
2,000 meters.

* Software algorithms that will take input data from a high sensitivity 
receiver and allow the discrimination and/or geo-location of individual 
sources of radio frequency radiation in a high-density environment.

* Protocol recognition technologies capable of working with the input 
from the high sensitivity receiver and identifying the underlying 
operational protocol 95 percent of the time or better.

* Traffic analysis algorithms that will examine all available received 
signal data and process it using conventional traffic analysis to 
further identify potential targets of interest.

"We are going to look at what we've got in the next week or two and see 
who has something to benefit" the Information Operations for the 
Objective Force program, said David Potter, technical manager for the 
RFI. "It's a fairly big problem with a lot of different aspects, and we 
don't know if there's one solution for all of it. We want to see if 
there [are] bits and pieces we can put together."

Once the Army has completed its review of the RFI responses and 
determined the number and types of urban information operations 
capabilities it has in-house, a decision will be made on whether to 
issue a request for proposals or to begin awarding contracts on a 
smaller basis, officials said.


"Army racing the clock for Objective Force" 
<http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2002/1104/pol-army-11-04-02.asp> 
[Federal Computer Week, Nov. 4, 2003]

"Officials detail Army tech needs" 
<http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2002/0909/web-tech-09-13-02.asp> 
[Federal Computer Week, Sept. 13, 2002]