U.S. and NATO commanders in Afghanistan are looking for new intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance tools to help secure territory in the troubled Helmand province as the political situation reaches a critical phase following the recent coalition offensive against the Taliban.

As a result, close attention will be focused on results due out this week from the Empire Challenge 09 demonstration, which looked at new ways of collecting and sharing real-time intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) data. Many of the systems under test are due to transition immediately into service and be used across the nations and services involved in the campaign. EC09, which wrapped up on July 31, included evaluations of some 40 initiatives for gaining the tactical edge across the extensive high desert ranges of the Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Station, China Lake, Calif.

Run by the U.S. Joint Forces Command (USJFCOM), the “live fly” EC09 generated ISR data on a range of simulated ambushes, sniper and “shoot and scoot” mortar attacks, making and planting improvised explosive devices (IEDs), kidnapping and other elements of “irregular” insurgent warfare. “It is very similar to the environment our forces face in Afghanistan,” says Air Force Col. George Krakie, USJFCOM Joint Intelligence Directorate military lead for EC09.

“The whole focus is to make sure critical ISR data get down to the tactical edge, whether command and control goes from a three-star general to a staff sergeant in a Humvee with a laptop,” says Krakie. The initiatives were aimed at digitally speeding up data dissemination, making it more precise, of better quality and developing seamless flows from service to service as well as between coalition partners.

“We’ve been working on four basic battlefield areas where we’ve been asked to solve problems with better ISR,” says USJFCOM EC09 project manager John Kittle. “The first is irregular warfare and the counter-IED problem. The second is joint ISR management and the sort of tactics and procedures we need to develop to work best with the massive amount of ISR data. We’re overwhelmed with data, and most of it falls on the floor as we call it. It never gets seen by analysts.”

The third is “multi-domain awareness, which covers improving situational awareness throughout the battlespace ranging from ground and maritime operations, to persistent surveillance and tracking of high-value individuals. The fourth is ISR in support of strike operations, which we call ISR-Strike Integration. So for the demo, there’s plenty of IEDs by the side of the road, ambushes being set up, people being kidnapped and attacks on airfields,” says Kittle.

EC09 involved real-time distribution of ISR data using seven different networks at three classification levels: U.S. only, “4 Eyes” (Australia, Canada, the U.K. and U.S.), and “9 Eyes” (NATO). Data were shared and used by approximately 1,700 personnel worldwide at sites in the U.S., Australia, Canada, U.K., as well as NATO where analysts from Germany and France handled the feed from China Lake. Participating U.S. sites included the Joint Intelligence Lab, Suffolk, Va., the Combined Air Operations Center-Experimental, Langley AFB, Va., as well as several service distributed common ground/surface system (DCGS) intelligence ground stations.

EC09 was also a key demonstration for the latest DCGS software, 10.2 which Mark Bigham, director of business development for the system’s creator Raytheon Defense and Civil Mission Solutions, says “will be the biggest improvement in intelligence-sharing capability in decades.” The exercise was a “preliminary ‘let’s see how it runs’ opportunity. This was our maiden voyage out of the box,” adds Bigham. The updated software is due to become operational throughout the U.S. Air Force’s DCGS infrastructure during the next nine months and is designed to increase ISR ground processing capability by a factor of 10. “It will have the capacity to handle 10 Predators, and five U-2s or Global Hawks at the same time,” he adds.

EC09 was also the chance for Raytheon to introduce its “dockable DIB” (DCGS Integration Backbone), or Thundr (Tactical Handoff Using Nearest Distributed common ground system Resource). This is a rugged laptop hosting middleware that facilitates distribution of ISR data between the DCGS and all users on the various networks accessing them. The application runs on standard-issue U.S. Army laptops and is designed to give greater mobility for intelligence collection and dissemination by Army, Marine and special operations units and echelons at battalion level and below.

Thundr permits tactical network connection to the nearest DCGS server and download of a complete, self-contained mission data set for an area of interest. When the information is downloaded a mobile user then disconnects for on-the-move operations, says Raytheon.