A U.S. Army paratrooper assigned to the 1st Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division, speaks into a radio microphone during Rotation 21-05 at the Joint Readiness Training Center on Fort Polk, Louisiana, March 7, 2021. (U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Justin Stafford)

TECHNET AUGUSTA 2024 – The Army’s radio frequency pilot, which officially began in July, is well underwayrt, and the service aims to engage the industry more in the coming weeks, so Steven Rehn, chief technology officer and program director at Army Cyber ​​​​Command.

The pilot, previously called the Electronic Warfare Data Pilot, is going “so far” in its first phase of testing, also known as Phase 1, Rehn told Breaking Defense after a Thursday briefing.ech at the TechNet conference in Augusta. .

The service’s radio frequency pilot was designed to enable the Army to operate in the electromagnetic spectrum (EMS) while having “the agility necessary to maneuver and execute actions consistent with operational speed,” according to a handout from the Armed Forces Communications & Electronics Association.

The service announced the pilot in May after learning how the Russian invasion of Ukraine has changed the status of electronic warfare. This is due to a number of factors, Rehn said, including rapid technological growth, an increase in threat actors with lower barriers to entry, and the increased opportunity to be detected in EMS.

“The ability to be visible in EMS is deadly. Deadly from the perspective that if I can see it, I can kill it,” Rehn said. “Do the capabilities we have today enable a unit to understand their EMS situation, not just in the moment, but over time to be able to do trend analysis as well?”

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Rehn also explained the importance of being able to act quickly within the emergency services, particularly the ability to change a soldier’s signature, and called on industry to help solve this problem.

“So, now that I’m moving to a Movement to contact“If I were to take a snapshot of it, do I look the same every time I make a movement to the contact? Is it a signature thing? Are there signatures there so that someone just watching the EMS spectrum knows that I’m executing certain events when I make certain signatures there?” Rehn asked.

“How do we change? How do we inform commanders so they understand this? Then they may be able to use different procedures (for movement to contact) to understand how to improve the chances of survival.”

Rehn said: The pilot will enter Phase 2 in September or October, at which point it will seek help from industry partners to develop technologies for the pilot. Currently, in Phase 1, the service is gathering data to determine what it needs to quickly reprogram systems on the battlefield.

“The challenge to vendors is, over the course of the September-October period, we’re going to put out a call in our research lab – the Army Cyber ​​Technology and Innovation Center – and say, ‘Hey, these are the challenges. What are the things we should be thinking about that we’re not thinking about?'” Rehn asked.

Rehn further explained how industry partners can benefit the pilot, including by introducing a Modular Mission Payload (MMP) concept, identifying challenges in MMP concepts and the supporting architecture, identifying areas that should be standardized but are not yet, and finally identifying opportunities to create an ecosystem for radio frequency development.

“If we set the right standards and data and understand the data that comes with it, we can get there now in conversation with industry partners,” Rehn said. “So I would say to those in the industry, we need their help.”