US Army creates new office for integrating data and sensors

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Army’s office for procuring sensors, electronic warfare systems, intelligence programs and cyber tools recently created an integration office designed to better align the various elements of its portfolio across the larger Army, joint force and commercial industry.

As the military looks to link sensors and information to shooters in a new concept it is calling Combined Joint All-Domain Command and Control, standardizing data and systems will be critical.

The new integration directorate within Program Executive Office Intelligence, Electronic Warfare and Sensors — established in April — is aligned under three offices, according to its director, Christian Keller, who virtually briefed members of industry Nov. 24. The three offices are:

• Architectures, which is focused on system-of-systems engineering and common standards for interfacing with other programs.
• Futures, which is focused on understanding threat analysis and conducting science and technology transitions from groups across the Army. It is also looking at how to better integrate demonstrations and experimentation efforts such as Project Convergence, Multi-Domain Operations Live and the Defender series.
• The last group is looking at interfacing the program executive office with other elements of the Army such as Futures Command and its cross-functional teams, the Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Task Force, and the various centers of excellence within Training and Doctrine Command.

“We have [a] very complex system-of-systems environment we’re dealing with,” Keller said. “We have various sensor capabilities out there, which have to interface to ground stations and may have to interface to various users, both maneuver wise and fires wise and everything like that.”

One of the main efforts the group is undertaking involves various stakeholders working to wrangle what systems — to include a variety of forthcoming systems such as Tactical Intelligence Targeting Access Node, the Army’s next-generation ground station; the Terrestrial Layer System, the Army’s first integrated signals intelligence, electronic warfare and cyber platform; and the Multi-Domain Sensing System, a high altitude ISR platform — along with existing systems to ensure data is provided seamlessly and effectively from sensors and nodes all the way to commanders and shooters.

“What we’re trying to do within the group is work on understanding what systems are interfacing with what, understand what the data is going back-and-forth between those systems, how to do that effectively, and how to do that in somewhat of a seamless manner, although nothing is that easy,” Keller said.