WRIGHT-PATTERSON AFB, Ohio, 10 June 2011.Intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) systems integrators at the BAE Systems Electronics, Intelligence & Support (EI&S) business unit in Arlington, Va., are developing an airborne processing and sensor system able to detect and track 20,000 or more infantry soldiers and combat vehicles over a wide area under terms of a $11.4 million contract awarded Thursday.BAE Systems also will integrate tracking hardware, new-generation wide area motion imaging (WAMI) sensor-analysis technology, communications links to a ground station, as well as storage, chipping, dissemination, and processing control. Awarding the contract were officials of the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio.
WAMI technology typically requires sensor platforms with extremely long endurance to gather data that can be analyzed over significant time periods. U.S. military officials are looking to platforms such as the Boeing A160T Hummingbird unmanned helicopter to handle sensors that gather WAMI-related data.
Advanced WAMI technology largely has been under purview of the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in Arlington, Va., as part of programs such as the agency's Persistent Stare Exploitation and Analysis System (PerSEAS) program.
Last summer DARPA awarded a $13.9 million contract to Kitware Inc. in Clifton Park, N.Y., to develop a WAMI analysis workstation called the Persistent Motion Imagery Analysis Tool for Exploitation (PerMIATE). Kitware experts are designing this tool to present critical information to military video analysts.
The Kitware PerMIATE video analysis workstation will help intelligence experts validate or refute moving imagery gathered from persistent-surveillance sensors through a deep exploration of the underlying evidence to enhance the quality and accuracy of intelligence reports, as well as to reduce operator workload.
It is not clear whether BAE Systems will be working with DARPA or Kitware on this program. BAE Systems engineers also will develop ground processing software to help analyze WAMI downlink video and related data.
For more information contact BAE Systems EI&S online at www.baesystems.com/Businesses/EIS.
