Information Critical To Soldiers In Urban Battle Zones
Soldiers in urban battle zones could receive more timely and
complete information about enemy forces from low-flying unmanned
aerial vehicles (UAV) with technologies being developed by Northrop
Grumman Corporation under a US Department of Defense contract.
This work could lead to an autonomous system that coordinates
the delivery of data from UAVs and other military reconnaissance
assets and intelligence sources. For example, a soldier with a
handheld computer would request information about suspected enemy
positions, and the system would prioritize the requests and direct
individual UAVs to obtain the information and deliver it.These
technologies could someday be adapted for other military
applications and missions.
Currently, soldiers engaged in urban
warfare have no direct access to reconnaissance and surveillance
data, nor can they control the high-altitude aircraft and
satellites that collect it. In addition, those platforms cannot
provide information with the detail and timeliness required in a
rapidly changing urban combat zone.
HURT technology would allow the warfighter to directly request
information critical to individual needs. Northrop Grumman begins
work this month on an $11.6 million contract awarded by the Defense
Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to lead the so-called
"HURT" program. HURT stands for heterogeneous urban RSTA
(reconnaissance, surveillance and target acquisition) team.
"A HURT system would give the warfighter the ability to ask for
reconnaissance imagery unobtainable by high-altitude or fixed
sensors," said H.R. Keshavan, Northrop Grumman's HURT program
manager. "Low-flying UAVs could see around or even inside buildings
to provide more up-to-date information."
During the program's first phase, Northrop Grumman's Integrated
Systems sector will serve as prime contractor to demonstrate that
"coordinated autonomy" can be achieved. For example, the HURT
system must be able to simultaneously order the UAVs to conduct
wide-area surveillance while dispatching an individual vehicle to a
location requested by a soldier for a close-up look.
Northrop Grumman also will conduct two engineering flight tests
during the first phase to demonstrate further capabilities. While
these flights will utilize small UAV systems, the technologies
developed under HURT could eventually be used with larger unmanned
systems such as Northrop Grumman's RQ-4 Global Hawk, RQ-8 Fire
Scout vertical takeoff and landing tactical UAV and X-47B Joint
Unmanned Combat Air Systems (J-UCAS).
Key members of the HURT development team include Honeywell
Laboratories, SRI International, Teknowledge Corporation and
AeroVironment as well as researchers from NASA, the US Army and
academic institutions.