Surveillance technology a priority for special operations forces.

• Author: Harper, Jon

* Advances in intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities over the past 14 years of war have revolutionized information gathering and aerial strike. But members of U.S. Special Operations Command's aviation component face difficult technological challenges as they seek to improve their ability to find, track and destroy the enemy.

Although small unmanned aircraft play a critical role in the command's ISR mission, their limited room for antennas and power-generation capability creates data transport problems, according to officials.

John Coglianese, director of unmanned aerial systems at SOCOM, said the power plants in UAS groups two and three --which weigh between 20 and 1,320 pounds--are "not sufficient."

"What we're looking for in an unmanned system is power plants that can operate and provide the reliability that we see today in manned systems," he said in May at the Special Operations Forces Industry Conference in Tampa, Florida. "And holistically industry is not there, and so that is something that we're focused on now and we are focused on in the future."

Air Force Col. Matt Atkins, head of SOCOM's intelligence capabilities and requirements division, said major improvements in sensor technology can be problematic for smaller unmanned aircraft.

"When you have a big platform like a Reaper that has a lot of power and wing space, then you can actually generate an ability to move the electrons off of it," he said. "Having a high-definition camera on that small airplane is great but your ability to blow those electrons off and then move them around is what really presents that challenge... It's something we're going to continue to struggle with, and right now I think the sensor guys are probably ahead of the data transport guys in the race because there's a lot more investment in that."

The command is looking for assistance from industry to tackle the problem.

"We need innovative ways to move data off the respective collection platforms because every time we roll out a new HD sensor [or] a new widget... we're crushing the data rates all over again. So we do need help in solving the data transport problem from a technological perspective," Atkins said.

Turning a mountain of data into actionable intelligence is another challenge facing the command. The analytical process has been compared to drinking water from a fire hose.

"That troubles us the most," Atkins said of intelligence processing, exploitation and dissemination...