Accelerating the
Kill Chain
Topic POCs:
- Mr. Jay Hodge, Naval Air Warfare Center
- Mr. Russ Neu, Boeing
- Mr. Bruce Norris, Lockheed Martin
- Mr. Mark Trainoff, Raytheon
Time-sensitive targets require rapid execution of kill chain
functions in the face of ever-higher tasking levels for those
functions: mobile and asymmetric target engagements compress
decision times; advanced sensors provide high volumes of raw data
that must be processed to extract target information; and
expectations of precision targeting with little or no collateral
damage extend kill chain execution times.
“Accelerating the Kill Chain” will explore all aspects of the kill
chain, from new technologies to near-term operational lessons
learned, to the legal decisions and processes involved in target
selection. All aspects of the kill chain are open for discussion and
technological improvements: combat identification; multi-target
tracking and geolocation for rapid target recognition and location;
command and control improvements to reduce decision timelines;
closing the loop with bomb damage assessment; countering the effects
on kill chain speed of camouflage, concealment, and deception;
pushing engagement decisions forward to the platform; and the legal
and ethical aspects of targeting decision making and how these
decisions can be improved to reduce kill chain execution times.
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Advanced Technologies
Topic POCs:
- Mrs. Gisele Wilson, US Army Space & Missile Defense Command
- Dr. Katherine Rink, MIT Lincoln Laboratory
- Mr. James Moore, Air Force Research Laboratory
- Dr. David Corman, Boeing
Emerging concepts and technologies will be part of the
warfighters’ future arsenal and fire control capabilities. These are
the seed-corn for advanced fire control technologies giving
tomorrow’s military forces an overwhelming advantage in future
conflicts. This topic will focus on new and emerging technologies
(both offensive and defensive) and key initiatives that will help
maintain the US warfighters’ edge against an
increasingly sophisticated enemy within unconventional military
environments. This topic will cover concepts including lethal and
non-lethal antipersonnel weapons, emerging weapons and weapon system
platforms and their impact on the entire kill chain for various
missions and threats. It will also include
human factors considerations, decision and navigation aids, data
links, new and novel devices and algorithms, and compelling new
techniques that hold great promise for improved military
effectiveness.
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Asymmetric Warfare
Topic POCs:
- Mr. William Moore, Air Force Research Laboratory
- Mr. Daniel Misch, Naval Surface Warfare Center
- Mr. Douglas Ousborne, Johns Hopkins University/APL
We are witnessing dramatic changes in the strategic environment
caused by an enemy who is choosing asymmetric means to attack US and
Allied power.
The recent Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) states that “the Nation
is involved in a long war - a global war against violent extremists
who use terrorism as their weapon of choice and who seek to destroy
our free way of life.” This topic focuses on the fire control
implications of asymmetric attack which is unique to the diverse
environments (urban, littoral, open ocean, desert, mountainous,
trees) where our military must operate, as well as the type of
threat (IEDs, WMD, RPGs, UAVs, cheap cruise missiles, and rogue
nation ballistic missiles). Many nations have turned to small boats
to supplement and in some cases replace traditional naval forces for
patrol and active defense within the littoral regions.
Responding to these types of threats presents challenges in
situational awareness, threat identification (including
determination of hostile intent), rapid engagement response, rules
of engagement, endgame guidance and control, countermeasures, and
limiting collateral damage.
Topic papers should define the fire control challenges of asymmetric
warfare and describe how the US Government, DoD, HLD, and defense
contractors are responding to the challenges.
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Classification, Discrimination
& Identification
Topic POCs:
- Mr. Roger (Kip) Turner, Air Force Research Laboratory
- Mr. Jay Hodge, Naval Air Systems Command
- Dr. Katherine Rink, MIT Lincoln Laboratory
Enhancement of classification, discrimination, and identification
capabilities is a major objective of all the services in order to
accomplish positive identification of hostile targets during
engagement and to reduce fratricide. Timely identification on a
suspected air, ground, or surface target is required before the
warfighter can launch a weapon, and discrimination is required for
endgame target selection in the presence of debris, decoys, and
other countermeasures. Combat ID is the critical part of the Fire
Control loop that can help to assure that friendlies and neutrals
are not engaged by modern weapon systems while optimizing mission
accomplishment. Cooperative Combat ID (CCID) systems (e.g. MK XII,
Blue Force Tracking, BTIDS) continue to be improved, but are only
able to address suitably equipped friendlies and neutrals.
Non-Cooperative Combat ID (NCID) systems rely on the exploitation of
unique target features and have the potential to provide positive
hostile identification, especially when coupled with advanced sensor
suites and Automatic Target Recognition (ATR) technologies. Future
Sensor Fusion solutions will exploit the advantages of both
cooperative and non-cooperative systems.
This session will address both ballistic missile discrimination as
well as all of the potential Combat ID interactions (air-to-surface,
air-to-air, surface-to-air, and surface-to-surface) and consider
cooperative and non-cooperative approaches to achieving this
capability. The session will attempt to present a balanced overview
of current capabilities and also describe developmental efforts
which can lead to the desired classification, discrimination, and
identification performance in the future. Papers are invited which
will address algorithms and architectures, hardware, software, and
system integration solutions to the air, ground, and surface target
combat ID needs and the discrimination needs of Ballistic Missile
Defense.
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Directed Energy Fire Control
Topic POCs:
Mrs. Gisele Wilson, US Army Space & Missile Defense Command
Mr. Robert Hintz, Naval Air Systems Command
Advances in directed energy weapons have brought a new capability
to the brink of deployment. They have the inherent ability for
quick, highly accurate engagement of threats with little or no
collateral damage for a hard kill solution. The very nature of the
weapon that allows for the highly accurate engagement also presents
a new challenge to traditional methods of fire control. The accuracy
required can range from a few feet to a few inches depending on the
application and relies solely on the host platform’s tracking and
aiming capability.
This session explores the new challenges to fire control for
directed energy weapons and their impact on the fire control
process.
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Enabling Joint
Integrated Fire Control (2015 and Beyond)
Topic POCs:
- Mr. James Cech, CACI, Inc.
- Mr. Stanley Schroeder, Lockheed Martin
The emergence of multi mission threats, at home and abroad,
places additional burdens upon stove pipe cruise and ballistic
missile defense systems. Numerous Integrated Fire Control Systems of
Systems and Family of Systems are currently in various stages of
development and are designed to counter the proliferation of these
emerging cruise and ballistic missile threats. Although most of the
ongoing acquisitions are service mission specific, there is an
expectation and need for force multiplication that will benefit from
interoperability (planned and unplanned). Additionally there is a
growing expectation that these same DoD systems will integrate in a
seamless manner with their civilian Homeland Defense (HD)
counterparts. Key enablers to effective defense against these
challenging, multi-mission threats will be the integration of
capabilities across the joint (DoD and HD) services and as
appropriate, coalition partners to affect interoperability, manage
scarce resources, provide multiple engagement opportunities and
extend the battlefield at home and abroad.
This topic will address current issues, mandates and challenges
facing the development, integration and deployment of integrated
fire control initiatives including: sensor and combat systems
netting, open architecture contributions, joint service and
coalition command and control structures, concepts of operation,
multi-source data fusion and integration (real and non-real time),
mission de-confliction, combat identification and composite track
management, automated battle management aids including planning
tools, resource management and mission execution, integrated and
cooperative weapon and fire control systems and distributed weapons
and sensor coordination.
Issues, challenges, and solutions that demonstrate the commonality
with homeland defense and asymmetric warfare are of significant
interest.
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Exercises, Experiments & Operational
Lessons Learned
Topic POCs:
- Mr. Robert Strider, Missile Defense Agency
- Mr. James Cech, CACI, Inc.
- Mr. Russ Neu, Boeing
Funding for extensive use of “Live Fire” events, that validated
the parallel efforts of modeling and simulation, is no longer a
given. Risk mitigation efforts must still be executed, however,
costly live fire events must focus on the absolute critical elements
required for operator confidence. As efforts begin to focus on
“capabilities based acquisition”, to counter the emerging Integrated
Air and Missile Defense (IAMD) threats, both at home and abroad,
extensive reliance is being placed upon simulation based engineering
to reduce cost and accelerate the delivery of the systems.
Demand exists for not only innovation, but concurrency with Homeland
Defense initiatives, in the integration and testing for emerging IFC
systems. This applies equally to the challenge of matching the
proliferation of emerging cruise and ballistic missile threats. The
battle space (capability) of the emerging IAMD systems, coupled with
the complexity of the threats we now face, forces reliance upon a
simulation environment that can properly describe the new combat
capability.
Exercises, demonstrations and experiments are limited by the costs
and paucity of Live Fire range opportunities, especially overland,
which will severely limit Live Fire data collections and the testing
of concepts of operations. In the case of homeland defense, few
opportunities exist to fully test operational systems in a realistic
urban environment. Infrequent Live Fire events must provide broad
data collection opportunities to justify their costs. At the same
time, test ranges are making innovative improvements to their
capability to reduce cost, improve data collection, and provide
concurrent test support to make maximum use of limited Live Fire
opportunities.
This topic will address current and planned simulation and Live Fire
activities. The topic will capture the issues and challenges facing
the integration and testing of integrated fire control component
Systems of Systems (SoS) and Family of Systems (FoS). Of particular
interest will be the opportunities and challenges facing the
integration and demonstration activities with Homeland Defense FoS.
Included in this discussion will be the opportunities for at-sea and
land based range utilization, range activities that expand and
improve testing efforts, contributions to integration and testing
requirements through open architecture, testing of sensor and combat
systems netting in a joint environment, integration of joint service
command and control structures, concepts of operations for
joint/coalition testing, multi-source data fusion for modeling &
simulation validation, operational and technical planning of Live
Fire opportunities, and recent/planed IFC exercises and test events.
Symmetry with integration and test events associated with Homeland
Defense and asymmetric warfare are of exceptional interest.
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Fire Control
in the Presence of Electronic Warfare (EW)
Topic POCs:
- Mr. Daniel Misch, Naval Surface Warfare Center
- Mr. Bryant Centofanti, Northrop Grumman
- Mr. Douglas Ousborne, Johns Hopkins University/APL
- Dr. Katherine Rink, MIT Lincoln Laboratory
Modern-day Fire Control means different things to different
people. It can be conducted from a stand-alone manned platform
(soldier, aircraft, ground vehicle, ship), unmanned vehicle (UV) on
land, sea or air, or by cooperative platforms operating across a
number of domains and “net enabled” via high-speed data links. It
must be enabled day or night in both normal and adverse environments
(denied GPS, RF jamming, high clutter, etc.). Due to the need for
low collateral damage - especially in urban environments - the
desired effects from the weapon, whether it be kinetic or
non-kinetic, must be precise and localized. To the Air Force, fire
control is embedded in its “kill chain” concept of F2T2EA (Find,
Fix, Track, Target, Engage, and Assess), but each of the other
services have similar doctrines, even if identified by other
names/acronyms.
Fire Control in the presence of Electronic Warfare (EW) has become
an even more difficult task today than it was just a decade ago.
Many countries now have access to high-power, wideband, high-speed
electronically-scanned array (ESA) antennas and Digital RF Memory (DRFM)
devices as well as sophisticated digital jamming
waveforms/techniques. To complicate the problem, Electronic Attack
(EA) can take many forms: brute force jamming, deception techniques,
spoofing, use of sophisticated false targets, or information
operations. In fact, recent live-fly experiences have clearly
illustrated the difficulty of this challenge.
This session invites papers addressing any aspect of the problem of
performing fire control functions in a modern-day EW environment and
will include, but not be limited to, such key topics as:
- Fire control aspects of current or proposed stand-alone or
cooperative air,
ground (including the individual soldier), or naval platforms
and their
organic countermeasures capabilities (RF or EO/IR),
- CONOPS/technologies for fire control in GPS-denied or
communications-
denied environments,
- Emerging EW threats to fire control system effectiveness,
- Information Operations (IO)/Cyber Warfare implications for
fire control system effectiveness,
- Spectrum management for effective sensor or communications
operations in
jamming environments,
- Open Architecture and Service Oriented Architecture (SOA)
concepts for
fire control in an electronic warfare environment,
- Applicable modeling & simulation results, and
- Results of applicable actual field
tests/experiments/deployments.
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Homeland Defense
Topic POCs:
- Mr. Norven Goddard, US Army Space & Missile Defense Command
- Mr. John Robinson, US Army Space & Missile Defense Command
- Mr. James Cech, CACI, Inc.
Since 9/11, great strides have been made to protect our country
across many mission areas. However, evolving world situations
warrant increasingly robust defense of the homeland. Terrorists can
still strike at any moment with terrible results. Further, rogue
nation developed weapons of mass destruction could cause devastation
hard to imagine. This session will focus on current and future:
Threat, Technology, Civil/Military Infrastructure, and
Doctrine/Contingency Plans as they relate to Homeland Defense
programs.
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Integrated Air & Missile Defense (IAMD)
Topic POCs:
- Mr. Michael Fischer, Northrop Grumman Integrated Systems
- Dr. Tony Pandiscio, Raytheon
- Dr. Katherine Rink, MIT Lincoln Laboratory
- Mr. Stanley Schroeder, Lockheed Martin
- Mr. John Warnke, Lockheed Martin
Integrated Air and Missile Defense (IAMD), with particular focus
on defense against aircraft, cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles
(BMs), continues to evolve from organic sensor-shooter systems to
networked sensing and effector elements that support, as
appropriate, integrated fire control concepts using non-organic
sensors. These net-centric capabilities can expand the defended
battlespace, better handle multiple engagement conditions, improve
defense against a full spectrum of threats to include ballistic
missiles, fixed-wing and rotary-wing aircraft, rockets, artillery
and mortars, and improve radar horizon limitations. But as these
fire control options are realized, new IAMD command and control
challenges must be addressed. In force operations capabilities must
be developed to properly plan for these capabilities, and in
engagement operations, capabilities are needed to ensure appropriate
contracting between sensors and effectors. Enablers such as a common
air picture, combat identification (CID) and BM discrimination are
also required.
Topic papers covering any technical aspect of IAMD are encouraged.
Of particular interest are papers discussing IAMD system
architectures and critical integrated fire control enablers such as
the generation and use of a SIAP, timely and assured CID and BM
discrimination, Counter Rocket Artillery and Mortars (CRAM)
capabilities, and automated battle management aides (ABMA). Topic
papers on integrated fire control testing and resulting lessons
learned are also being solicited.
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Interoperability & Network Enhanced Fire
Control
Topic POCs:
- Dr. Gary McCown, SPAWAR Systems Center Pacific
- Dr. David Corman, Boeing
- Dr. Tony Pandiscio, Raytheon
Joint warfare relies on systems and services that can
interoperate and also on data and common data models that can be
shared (including situational awareness), and data that is used and
is an integral part of the fire control process. Information over
the network can enhance the ability of the fire control system to
successfully complete the mission. Organic weapon systems are
effective, but when integrated with other sensors and weapons, they
can become even more capable and efficient. As joint systems
leverage shared information to create capabilities that would
otherwise not be possible, the true value of joint operations can be
achieved.
The emergence of multi mission threats places additional burdens
upon stove pipe cruise and ballistic missile defense systems.
Numerous Integrated Fire Control Systems of Systems and Family of
Systems are currently in various stages of development and are
designed to counter the proliferation of these emerging cruise and
ballistic missile threats. Although most of the ongoing acquisitions
are service mission specific, there is an expectation and need for
force multiplication that will benefit from interoperability
(planned and unplanned).
Key enablers to effective defense against these challenging,
multi-mission threats will be the integration of capabilities across
the joint services and as appropriate, coalition partners to affect
interoperability, manage scarce resources, provide multiple
engagement opportunities, and extend the battlefield.
This topic will address current issues, mandates and challenges
facing the development and deployment of integrated fire control
initiatives including: sensor and combat systems netting, open
architecture contributions, joint service and coalition command and
control structures, concepts of operation, multi-source data fusion
and integration (real and non-real time), mission de-confliction,
combat identification and composite track management, automated
battle management aids including planning tools, resource management
and mission execution, integrated and cooperative weapon and fire
control systems and distributed weapons and sensor coordination.
Issues, challenges, and solutions that demonstrate the commonality
with homeland defense and asymmetric warfare are also of significant
interest.
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Space Operation as a Force
Enhancer
Topic POCs:
- Mr. John Robinson, US Army Space & Missile Defense Command
- Mrs. Gisele Wilson, US Army Space & Missile Defense Command
- Mr. Robert Strider, Missile Defense Agency
Today’s military operations in combat require a greater ability
for synchronization between more sophisticated systems across the
Joint spectrum. As our battlefields emerge with more technological
systems, space can serve to energize our fire control, command and
control (C2), and geo-location capabilities. Our forces have a
strong need for global situational awareness and a rapid information
flow to ensure accurate fire control which space capabilities can
fill. Space technology provides the connecting point enabling US
forces to fight Jointly or with coalition forces. This session will
focus on current space operations and activities, as well as any
future or planned activities. It will also examine how space
operations enable, or improve, fire control with respect to Finding,
Fixing, Tracking, Targeting, Engaging, and Assessing (F2T2EA) our
adversaries.
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System of System Modeling &
Simulation
Topic POCs:
- Dr. Gary McCown, SPAWAR Systems Center Pacific
- Mr. James Cech, CACI, Inc.
- Dr. Tony Pandiscio, Raytheon
System of System Modeling & Simulation (SoS M&S), characterized
by large numbers of highly interacting system models, plays an
increasingly important role in the development and assessment of
integrated fire control capabilities, especially as traditional
single-mission sensors and effectors begin to support multiple
missions and as sensor-effector-target engagement options span
multiple services via joint-service tracking and command and control
networks. As the number and diversity of these interconnected fire
control systems grow, field testing of the resulting “integrated”
capability becomes increasingly expensive and logistically
demanding, requiring the coordination of assets from across all the
services. A key goal of SoS M&S is to supplement early field testing
with a cost-effective high fidelity integration and test environment
that can identify and resolve problems prior to actual field test
events.
Topic papers covering any technical aspect of SoS M&S are
encouraged. Of particular interest are papers discussing existing
SoS M&S capabilities and lessons learned, trade-offs and limitations
of different distributed simulation methodologies, technologies for
storing, analyzing and visualizing large amounts of simulation
output data, efficient computer processing architectures, and unique
SoS M&S verification and validation challenges.
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Unmanned Systems
Topic POCs:
Mr. Robert Hintz, Naval Air Systems
Command
Mr. Bryant Centofanti, Northrop Grumman
Unmanned Systems have emerged from their prior status twenty
years ago as mere curiosities to their status today as a necessary
and vital part of the fabric of the modern-day battlefield. Whether
we are talking about Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), Unmanned
Ground Vehicles/Systems (UGV/Ss), Unmanned Surface Vehicles (USVs),
or Unmanned Underwater Vehicles (UUVs), all play a significant role
in many of today’s combat and non-combat missions, and all are
becoming more and more ubiquitous.
While many unmanned systems serve to carry intelligence,
surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) sensors or communications
relay payloads of some type, several UAV types also have been
selected to be weaponized. And now, with the continuance of the
Navy’s Unmanned Combat Air System CV Demonstration (UCAS-D) program,
a larger, dedicated weaponized UAV platform is still being planned
for. For all of these reasons, unmanned systems have become and will
continue to be an integral part of modern-day fire control.
This session invites papers that focus on any fire
control-related aspect of these platforms (whether in the air, on
the ground, on the surface, or underwater) and will include, but not
be limited to, such key topics as:
- capabilities and characteristics of the unmanned platforms
themselves,
- descriptions and capabilities of their current/planned
sensor payloads,
- networks/architectures/data links for passing sensor data to
ground stations and/or to other platforms as part of
network-centric operations,
- proposed new CONOPS leveraging unmanned systems
capabilities,
- tools for timely exploitation/dissemination of data coming
back from unmanned systems, and
- results of actual field tests/experiments/deployments
involving them.
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Weapons, Sensors, & Engagement Alternatives
Topic POCs:
-
Mr. James Moore, Air Force Research Laboratory
-
Mr. Bruce Norris, Lockheed Martin
-
Mr. Mark Trainoff, Raytheon
With the future of netted systems coming more into focus with
time and with a broadening array of sensors, the options for weapon
pairing increases. Also, the cognitive aspects of target engagement
continue to be of paramount interest and increasing importance as
engagement options and limitations, such as minimizing or
eliminating collateral damage expand. "Weapons, Sensors, and
Engagement Alternatives" will explore all aspects of weapon pairing
and the cognitive aspects of target engagement.
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