Preserving capacity, General Tom Lawson, Chief of the Defence Staff, Keys to Canadian SAR
Issue link: http://vanguardcanada.uberflip.com/i/235053
e edge oF Tech by Vanguard staff RIFL2E Targeting access to ISR data When the CP-140 Aurora long-range maritime patrol aircraft entered service in 1980, it was the most advanced anti-submarine warfare platform of its time. When the Royal Canadian Air Force completes its incremental modernization of the Aurora, it will regain its status as a leading-edge intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) platform. It will also be a large generator of data. One of the ongoing challenges for the RCAF as it reintroduces the upgraded CP140 and explores its options for medium to high altitude unmanned systems and a next generation fighter, is how to deliver that critical data generated aboard these aircraft to decision-makers on the ground in near-real time while also allowing airborne pilots and mission system operators to interrogate ground-based databases. Traditionally, an aircraft had to land before the information it gathered from its sensor suite could be downloaded to a network and accessed or disseminated. A joint technology demonstration project between the RCAF and Defence Research and Development Canada (DRDC) will soon change that. 44 DeceMBeR 2013/JANUARY 2014 The Radar and Imaging for the Land/ Littoral Environment, better known by its acronym, RIFL2E, will allow operators on the ground direct access to the data while the aircraft is still in the air. Specifically, the project employs a new airborne satellite communications terminal to transmit and access near-real time ISR data from nearly any location worldwide without having to also deploy ground operators. The equipment consists of a transmitter and a storage device approximately the size of a satellite dish and a television receiver. "The RIFL2E architecture eliminates the requirement for deployed ground support by using an on-board network enabled database," explained Captain Gordon Keyser, the deputy project manager for www.vanguardcanada.com RIFL2E. "The architecture enables storage of all ISR data collected by on-board sensors. Selected data can then be transmitted through a dedicated Beyond Line of Sight (BLOS) satellite communications (SATCOM) terminal to a land-based network in near-real time. This provides users at ground-based terminals with access to imagery within seconds of its collection by remote airborne sensors. Similarly, the users onboard the aircraft can search the ground-based imagery database network for previously recorded imagery." The project began in 2007 with an initial goal of demonstrating a better way to conduct sensing operations in remote environments, especially as the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) intensified its mission in Afghanistan and turned greater attention to operations and exercises in the Arctic. That effort paid off last June when a National Research Council of Canada (NRC) Convair 580 aircraft equipped with the RIFL2E transmitter and receiver