Future combat systems under tight scrutiny: much of the technology needed is not yet mature, contend army officials.

The U.S. Army's Future Combat Systems program, now heading into its development and demonstration phase, will see increased Pentagon oversight, not only as a result of its multibillion-dollar price tag, but also because of the program's lack of clear definition, said Army officials.

The Office of the Secretary of Defense will review FCS every' year during the next five yews, when the program reaches Milestone C and low-rate initial production, stud Col. Russell Hrdy, the program manager for FCS lethality The Army expects to have FCS initial operating capability" by 2010.

The Pentagon's tight grip on the program review will influence FCS budgets to a great extent, said Hrdy. According to him, "price increases with oversight." The Army got approval in May to budget nearly $15 billion for FCS, as the program enters the system development and demonstration phase, or Milestone B.

The FCS program--a family of combat vehicles and robotic systems linked by a computer network--does not have the clarity that other traditional Army programs have had.

"There are several key performance parameters that are undefined," Hrdy said at a National Defense Industrial Association armaments conference. "There are technologies that are below the expected readiness level. The schedule is very aggressive and there is a disagreement with OSD on cost benefits."

In this program, Hrdy said, "We are not defining a vehicle; we are not defining a manned-ground vehicle; or a UAV [unmanned aerial vehicle], or a radio. We are defining a capability."

Milestone B was "the most complex thing that OSD had ever seen come across its table to decide," said Marilyn Freeman, deputy director for Armament, Vehicle and Soldier Technologies at Army headquarters.

Speaking at the armaments conference, she noted that OSD officials in many cases did not understand the Army's vision and what it wanted to achieve.

During the Milestone B certification process, "we were still getting indications that the secretary was upset, and many of the leadership did not understand our mission," she said. "They just didn't get it. They knew there was something there. They knew they wanted it to succeed. They just didn't know what it was about."

The FCS has tested the Army's ability to break away from its traditional procurement practices, said Freeman. The service took "a very complex system of systems and convinced OSD that we are going to go ahead with this, [that] it is worth spending the money ... and [that they should] trust us that we are going to liver," she said.

One of OSD's biggest concerns was, and still is, the technology readiness level of the proposed systems. During the Milestone B certification process, OSD officials primarily questioned whether the FCS concept will ever work in an operational setting and whether the heavy reliance on computer networking will make the system vulnerable, Freeman recounted.

Pentagon officials allowed FCS to enter the SDD phase, even though file technology was less mature than typically is required, said Freeman. For most programs, that means having working prototypes. "Needless to say, we marched into this [Milestone B] with none of these things, we did not have prototypes. And yet we were trying to convince them that we should go ahead with this."

Freeman said the Army identified 31 critical technologies, encompassing areas such as network security, wide-band waveforms, precision munitions, manned/unmanned collaborations and counter-mine capabilities. The 31 technologies will need to mature to a TRL level 6 to meet the FCS requirements.

TRL level 6 means the technology was demonstrated in a relevant environment, Freeman explained. "It doesn't mean it is integrated or you have done all the work you need to do," she said.

Some of the technologies must be transferred from other programs throughout the Army and made compatible with the FCS, said Freeman. "There will be technology transition agreements Sat have to be made," she added. The program will evolve in phases, called spirals. "We are making it up as we go along, because we have not done this before."

Some of the technologies needed for FCS, Hrdy said, "are not ready today and so by assessment, this program really has to embrace an evolutionary approach to acquisitions, an incremental approach to acquisitions."

With just six and a half years to get FCS out in be field, the Army need to accelerate high payoff, core Army technologies, Freeman said.

While technology is being developed, the Army also has to make sure that systems can be manufactured at an affordable cost, according to Freeman. "None of this is going to happen if it is so expensive to manufacture that it becomes impossible for the Army to fund."

As the Army struggles with some far-fetched concepts at times, the service needs to make sure that it keeps dear-cut goals. "Clarity is what we get if we work through the concept stage down through making it a reality in all the programs that we have," she explained. "If you miss this opportunity, we are not going to see another one like it for another 10 years," she said.

The "absolute essential piece" of FCS is a secure and robust communications network, Freeman said. Fire support needs to tie into that network to ensure lethality. The Army and its lead, systems integrator--the Boeing and SAIC team--have just started working on the lethality aspect of the program, said Bud Irish, the SAIC LSI representative.

"Lethality is something important for us to continue to fired," Freeman said. The FCS has $1.7 billion through fiscal year 2009 to work on lethality. "Near term, we are working on precision munitions, guns, missiles and direct energy," she said. "Each one of these has a place," Freeman said. "We just have to find the place and we have to move the technology along. Precision fires can be very important regardless of the type of weapons."

Compatibility among weapons systems will prove to be a challenge, she cautioned. "One of the concerns that everyone has is that there are all these things going on, weapons systems that have to coordinate with each other," she said. Forward-looking concepts, such as unattended sensors being dropped from helicopters that can then send real-time video to the shooters to launch missiles, can also complicate the network. According to Irish, the LSI is looking at PAM (precision attack missile) and LAM (loitering attack missile), and trying to determine the benefit of loitering munitions over unmanned aerial vehicles. "We are going to need all types of weapons," said Freeman. "The question is what is the tight weapon for today? It's not all guns. It's not all missiles. It's a mix."

The Army is interested in directed energy weapons, such as high-powered micro-waves and lasers, but that will require upgraded power systems.

For fiscal years 2004-09, the Army has poured $600 million toward vehicle and soldier-systems power, said Freeman. There are initiatives in hybrid electric vehicles and some all-electric vehicles to maximize fuel efficiency and silent mobility. "I believe that hybrid-electric is going to be a very important part of our vehicle fleet."

While silent mobility would allow soldiers to approach their targets unnoticed, the Army has to figure out how the systems can stay survivable as they get closer and closer to the action. One solution, Freeman said, is through an "active protection sequence." It basically means that when a vehicle gets shot at, "you anticipate the incoming round."

However, she pointed out that physics "does not allow us to make a lightweight vehicles as impenetrable as a heavy-weight vehicle."

In order to get survivability, "we have to use all sensors and the network, our mobility, our active protection systems," she said.

Power and energy technologies could help reduce the weight that soldiers must carry. FCS is looking at 1.5 pound fuel cells, a 1 pound rechargeable battery belt and a 1.5 pound methanol canister. "We want to try to get them to carry 50 instead of 100 pounds of extra weight," Freeman said.

The technology developers for unmanned ground systems have to work on perception, which is software driven; on the platforms and their characteristics; situational behavior and soldier interface, Freeman said.

For the unmanned aerial vehicles the question becomes what is the right mix, said Maj. Gen. Joseph Yakovac, the program executive officer for Army ground combat systems. "There is robust funding in the technology base and in SDD dollars to continue to develop and integrate UAVs in the battle space," he told National Defense.

"We have Class 1-4 in the requirements," he said. Class 1 will be a platoon-class small aircraft. Class 2 will operate at the company level, class 3 will be attached to the battalion and class 4 to the brigade commander.

"The problem is that some of those classes are not far enough in technology," said Yakovac. "When you combine the UAV with the sensor, there is a mismatch right now. For example, I can provide a class 2 UAV but when I marry it up with the sensor, the sensor package the user wants may be too heavy for that vehicle."

For the first FCS brigade (called a unit of action), Yakovac said he does not expect to have all four classes of UAVs. "It's not because of funding, but matching the bird with the sensor," he said.

Each FCS brigade would have 36 class-1, 36 class-2, 12 class-3 and 16 class-4 aircraft.

Meanwhile, the FCS manned ground vehicle plan is for a family of eight variants based on a common chassis. These vehicles all must be transportable by C-130 military air cargo plan without any waiver restriction (except the Non-Line of Sight, Beyond Line of Sight and mortar vehicle, which are expected to exceed the nominal 16 short ton weight).

This limits the combat-ready weight of each vehicle. Each vehicle is distinct when equipped and assembled with a unique mission module system consisting of a combination of carrier and or ordnance systems.

The Army and vehicle manufacturers General Dynamics and United Defense team have assessed the rises, said Hrdy.

The manned ground vehicle (MGV) program is synchronized with the FCS overall plan, he noted. The cannon (NLOS-C) is being designed by United Defense. General Dynamics is developing the line-of-sight platform.

The lethality suites for each MGV variant have been defined, while the architecture for all common and variant subsystems have been developed, said Hrdy. Initial weight, volume, power, cooling and reliability allocations have also been established.

However, the MGV already faces some constraints. One of them is C-130 transportability. This would require both design and requirements adjustments, said Hrdy. Another challenge is posed by the ambitious systems-integration requirements.

RELATED ARTICLE: Army to adapt fire-control system for FCS.

Army and industry officials expect to transfer some capabilities of the Advanced Field Artillery Tactical Data System into the Future Combat Systems program, based on favorable reviews from the Iraqi battlefield. Feedback from the war, however, also pointed to several shortfalls that need to be fixed.

AFATDS, built by the Raytheon Company, is an automated command and control system that identifies targets and pairs them with fire-support weapons. AFATDS was introduced into the force seven years ago, but has been upgraded several times. About 90 percent of the Army, 50 percent of the Army National Guard and the entire Marine Corps employs AFATDS.

The software development for the Past six years has cost around $270 million, according to Steve Lutz, Raytheon's program manager.

According to Col. Fred Coppola, the project manager for Intelligence and effects, AFATDS will be around for at least 20 more yearn. Army officials working with AFATDS call this program a bridge into the FCS and its fires support technologies.

"The FCS contractors have looked at AFATDS, and I think they have identified a lot of that core code, and they will be using that" said Lt. Gen. Steven Boutelle, the Army's director of information operations, networks and space. "Now. they will put their own interfaces on it," and make it work with the other systems in FCS.

Automated command and control requires linking a variety of sensors. explained Lutz. These could include a forward observer, an unmanned drone or the Joint JSTARS radar aircraft. "AFATDS is not about field artillery, but it is about fire support. We brought all these different methods of delivering fires together."

When the observer identifies the larger, it is sent to AFATDS over radio. AFATDS operates most of the Army's radios and communications systems, and works on mobile subscriber equipment, said Lutz.

Once the data is analyzed and displayed, the information is digitally sent to the weapons systems. "AFADTS can compute the technical solution" said Lutz. "At the same time, it notifies the observer that you have a mission coming."

This process takes about six minutes for firing rockets and four and a half for other munitions.

"There are high priority targets, which can be engaged faster," said Maj. Gen, Michael Maples, the commanding general of the Army's Field Artillery Center at Fort Sill. Okla. He said that four and a haft minutes is a "pretty fast response, but it is not where we want it ... There are some training issues that also can reduce that time," he added.

Maples said that sensor to shooter links are critical for the Army, " need to have a sensor, something that is going to ID the target to the accuracy that I require." he told National Defense. "What I do not want to have is a target that goes un-serviced on the battlefield for a length of time."

He noted that one of the shortfalls in the technology today is battle-damage assessment.

"One of the challenges that we have today is that I may fire that mission, but I may not know the outcome of that mission until later," he said.

Further, the de-confliction of air space is going to be critical for fire support missions, Maples contended. "We are going to have UAVs and, of course, we are going to have munitions of all types that are going to he operating in the air space." he said. "There are a lot of folks working to enable that, but it has to be done in a joint way," he said.

Plugging in too many advanced features may not be a good idea, he said. "We have reached a point where we made it too complicated.... If you do add additional functions in mere, they still have got to be [easily] accessed by those who are going to use them."

An after-action-review of the 3rd Infantry Division's mechanized artillery, published on June 17, contends that AFATDS provided a very stable and reliable fire control platform that allowed the delivery of fires in support of ground maneuver forces. Units effectively used it to tactically and technically deliver field artillery fires, manage fire support coordination measures, and provide a common operational picture down to platoon level." the review said.

Nevertheless, soldiers suggested a series of recommendations to improve future versions of AFATDS. On the battlefield, the soldiers found the AFATDS hardware to be vulnerable to the weather and the harsh desert terrain, the report said, particularly to sand, vibration and heat.

"Many of our AFATDS boxes have inoperable keyboards and dust contaminated the keys and mice of all the systems, sad the report.

Soldiers said the system was too large and heavy, and moving it in and out of vehicles was cumbersome, therefore dissuading operators from using the system at times. Set up and tear down procedures were lengthy, the report stated,

To solve size, weight and contaminant problems, the report recommends repackaging AFATDS into a more durable laptop system.

The AFATDS box is also extremely sensitive to AC voltage fluctuations, said Soldiers. Any changes in voltage causes AFATDS to default to unfiltered DC power or internal battery Dower. Consequently the AC inverter uses up a lot of wattage. A durable laptop is also the answer to this problem because it will eliminate the need for a heavy-duty power supply, the report said.

Soldiers also were unable to override the automated AFATDS decision making. The report recommends that the software be update to allow battalion and platoon operators to make necessary manual adjustments.

Soldiers could not select the type and number of rounds they wanted to fire, because the system generates a certain fire order for a particular situation. AFATDS needs to refine its guidance package, said the report, to allow the operator to "force a specific fire order" when necessary.

A total of 600 AFATDS--split between the Army and the Marine Corps--have been fielded during OIF. Raytheon is planning to integrate 12 systems onto U.S. Navy ships, according to Lt Col. Jim Chapman, the product manager for fire support. Eventually the system is going work with the Navy's Extended Range Guided Munition, as well as the Armys new GPS-guided round Excalibur and the Non-Line-of-Sight Launch System.