Vanguard Magazine

16 OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2018 www.vanguardcanada.com or a drone. The drone was tested at Silo 5 and succeeded in placing the sensor gently on the ground. However, members of B Company shared that typically equipment would likely be tossed from a helicopter into a location, so having to carefully place the technology was not probable. The re- search lead took heed of the feedback and will look to potentially augmenting the sensor's body with more hardy and robust materials – in effect, ruggedize the CUPSS. Another Canadian innovation, the CF- SAS Laser Ranger Finder (LRF), was also tested in the field by soldiers. The potential of the LRF is for its handler to share data on places or objects of interest to either fellow soldiers monitoring the information collected on their Integrated Soldier Sys- tem (ISS) tactical vest, or to other sensors, such as airborne sensors or drones. The Canadian-made technology is a type of "force multiplier" that is particularly use- ful in urban environments where the area to cover is usually much greater than the number of soldiers available, so the tech- nology would help broaden the range of deFenCe innoVAtion information gathered by a smaller unit. Major Kim Bériault, the commander of B Company, observed that although the laser range finder was, in its current itera- tion, built too bulky and too large to be used efficiently in the field, the capacity of the equipment to send its amassed data to the ISS vest, and thus to the soldier wear- ing the vests, was extremely useful. Not only did the researchers and the soldiers have the opportunity to increase the discussion and feedback opportunities during the experiment, CUE 18 also pro- vided the setting for improved collabora- tion between the scientists of the TTCP partnering nations themselves. Nick Engleback, the national represen- tative for New Zealand, identified how much easier it was to establish relations face-to-face rather than through emails and phone calls. He viewed the CUE series as a strong medium for bringing people together to synergize military technologies. Dr. Neil Gordon, the national represen- tative for Australia, echoed the sentiment. "At this iteration of CUE, we are collecting stronger metrics and our technologies are performing at a higher level, building off of the excellent work started in Adelaide last year," he said. "Just the fact of being in the same space together, without having to deal with time zones, makes collabora- tion much more fluid and more effective. If we need an adjustment made to one of the add-ons to our technologies from one of our TTCP partners, we just have to go over to the person working on that compo- nent and talk to them directly, in that mo- ment. It's very useful and it helps to build communication and to strengthen research relationships going forward." The Open Standard for Unattended Sensors (OSUS) is a platform developed by the United States Army Research Laboratory's researchers to allow, at the coalition level, for the interoperability and integration (tipping, cueing, and handoff) of ISR technologies and other informa- tion sources. TTCP partners have em- braced the platform as a way to share data captured through their native technolo- Photos: Department of National Defence and Canadian Armed Forces

• Cover