situational awareness

As technology accelerates all aspects of modern life, from business to warfare, the need for real-time situational awareness has become critical.

But several hurdles must be cleared to achieve this level of awareness, specifically the need to avoid or close any capability gaps and the ability to scale. 

“When you get to the heart of it, when we’re talking about real-time situational awareness, we are talking about mission,” David Erickson, senior director for solutions architecture at Elastic told Robert K. Ackerman, SIGNAL Magazine’s editor in chief during a SIGNAL Media Executive Video interview.

The Assured Positioning, Navigation and Timing/Space Cross-Functional Team announced today the approval of the Tactical Space Layer (TSL) abbreviated capability development document.

The document validates the need and provides the source for desired capabilities to execute rapid experimentation and prototyping efforts for tactical space-based sensors with supporting ground-based equipment. The accelerated TSL will deliver solutions necessary to shorten the sensor-to-shooter timeline and equip the Army multidomain operations (MDO)-capable force by 2028 to the MDO-ready force by 2035.

To outpace its adversaries in space, the U.S. Space Force intends on being a digital service. With a smaller force of about 16,000 total warfighters, civilians and contractors, the Space Force will have to rely on industry to bring the technologies needed to be a digitally advanced, said Lt. Gen. Chance Saltzman, USSF, deputy chief, Space Operations, Cyber, and Nuclear, Space Force. 

Communications requirements are changing in tandem with new modes of military battlefield requirements. Until a few years ago, voice had been the predominant communications medium. Variable message format messages were adopted as the digitally aided close air support standard, however even with a concerted effort by the U.S. Defense Department to standardize requirements, there continues to be longstanding issues with interoperability, including significant loss of key data and slow refresh rates. 


Quantum Spatial Inc., Petersburg, Florida (FA4452-19-D-A001); Geographic Information Services Inc., Birmingham, Alabama (FA4452-19-D-A002); Booz Allen Hamilton, McLean, Virginia (FA4452-19-D-A003); Woolpert Inc., Dayton, Ohio (FA4452-19-D-A004); and KFS LLC, Huntsville, Alabama (FA4452-19-D-A005), have been awarded multiyear indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contracts with a combined cumulative face value of $46,564,206. The contracts will provide geospatial tasks and support functions for improved shared situational awareness and decision making across the various echelons of military hierarchy including individual level, installation level, and management headquarters level.

The Defense Advanced Projects Research Agency has begun a program to address an emerging conflict in a nebulous area between peace and conventional warfare. Dubbed the “gray zone,” actions in this space occur slower and are executed more subtly using social, psychological, religious, informational, cyber and other means to achieve physical or cognitive objectives with or without violence.

U.S. Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM) entered into an agreement with the Belgium Federal Science Policy Office (BELSPO) to share space situational awareness (SSA) services and information. The arrangement is expected to enhance awareness within the space domain and increase the safety of spaceflight operations.

Maj. Gen. Clinton E. Crosier, USAF, USSTRATCOM director of plans and policy, signed a memorandum of understanding formalizing the arrangement on February 7 at Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska. Elke Sleurs, Belgium’s secretary of state for science policy, signed on January 31 in Brussels.

Fulcrum IT Services LLC, Centreville, Virginia, has been awarded a $168,155,289 ceiling cost-plus-award-fee task order under the General Services Administration (GSA) OASIS Small Business Pool 4 contract to provide the Joint Improvised-Threat Defeat Organization (JIDO) with strategic planning, research, analysis and training services in support of JIDO’s Global Situational Awareness (Global SA) and Communities of Action (CoA) missions.

BAE Systems Information and Electronic Systems Integration, Technology Solutions-Advanced Information Technologies, Burlington, Massachusetts, has been awarded a $9,402,650 cost-plus-fixed-fee contract for software and reports. The contractor will provide development and integration of the latest advancements in machine learning that benefit this effort as well as architectural enhancements that increase the flexibility and agility of applying analytics to solve space situational awareness problems and take full advantage of high-performance computing capabilities and multiple forms of visualization of the reasoning performed by the analytics involved in this effort.

DRS Network & Imaging Systems LLC, Melbourne, Florida, was awarded a $9,508,881 firm-fixed-price, foreign military sales contract for purchase of various quantities of embedded diagnostics parts to support production of 150 M1A1 tanks to a situational awareness configuration. Work will be performed in Huntsville, Alabama, with an estimated completion date of November 19, 2017. Bids were solicited via the Internet with one received. Fiscal 2010 other funds in the amount of $9,508,881 were obligated at the time of the award. The Army Contracting Command, Tank and Automotive, Warren, Michigan, is the contracting activity (W56HZV-16-C-0048).

​General Dynamics Land Systems, Sterling Heights, Michigan, was awarded a $358 million firm-fixed-price undefinitized foreign military sales contract (Morocco) for conversion of 150 M1A1 vehicles to the M1A1 situational awareness configuration. Work will be performed in Lima, Ohio, with an estimated completion date of February 28, 2018. One bid was solicited with one received. Fiscal 2010 other procurement funds in the amount of $11,390,194 were obligated at the time of the award. The Army Contracting Command, Warren, Michigan, is the contracting activity (W56HZV-15-C-0232).

Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX), chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, released a proposal to secure the border entitled “Blueprint for Southern Border Security.” The proposal calls for a broad mix of technologies, including radar, manned or unmanned aircraft, aerostats and unattended ground sensors. The technologies deployed should be as varied as the terrain.

 
Boeing will continue helping improve situational awareness for U.S. Navy surface combat ships under a $46 million exercised option of its Ship's Signal Exploitation Equipment (SSEE) Increment F contract. The funding, to Boeing subsidiary Argon ST, covers seven systems over 18 months, representing the third lot of full-rate production units. Argon has delivered a combined total of more than 80 SSEE systems since 2000. Increment F improves on the E’s antennas, signal acquisition, and direction finding, facilitating increased data collection and better identification of potential threats.

BAE Systems, York, Pennsylvania, was awarded a $306,171,558 firm-fixed-price contract modification to convert Operation Desert Storm (ODS) vehicles into the ODS situational awareness configuration. U.S. Army Contracting Command, Warren, Michigan, is the contracting activity.

Lockheed Martin Maritime Systems and Sensors, Liverpool, New York, is being awarded a $13,124,804 contract modification to exercise an option for the procurement of four low-cost conformal array (LCCA) production units and engineering and technical services. The LCCA is a passive planar array mounted on the aft submarine sail structure that is integrated with the acoustic rapid, commercially available off-the-shelf, insertion AN/BQQ-10 system to provide situational awareness and collision avoidance for improved tactical control in high density environments. The Naval Sea Systems Command, Washington Navy Yard, D.C., is the contracting activity.

Booz Allen Hamilton Incorporated, Herndon, Virginia, is being awarded three  contracts. The first is a $24,966,507 cost-plus-fixed-fee, indefinite-delivery requirements contract to perform research and development in order to complete and deliver the "Emerging Leading-Edge Technological Advancement of Intelligence Surveillance Recon Capabilities Report", "Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures Report" and wargame/exercise lessons learned reports. These deliverables will be used to ultimately increase the situational awareness and survivability of the warfighter by helping them to better identify battlefield threats.

BAE Systems, York, Pennsylvania, has been awarded a more than $47 million for the procurement of Operation Desert Storm situational awareness material to be used to convert vehicles in support of the Bradley Fighting Vehicle. The U.S. Army Tank-automotive and Armaments Command, Warren, Michigan, is the contracting activity.

Lockheed Martin Mission Systems and Sensors, Owego, New York, is being awarded a $35 million delivery order against a previously issued basic ordering agreement for non-recurring efforts in support of the MH-60R situational awareness technology insertion pre-engineering, manufacturing and development. The Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Maryland, is the contracting activity.