Over the years at various defence fora, Major Bruce Gilchrist has challenged defence industry with “finding Waldo” – developing a small arms-based technology to identify, target and share data on a lone shooter or assailant in a large crowd.
Last month at RAMPART, a small weapons demonstration in Ottawa, Colt Canada and General Dynamics Canada highlighted an alternative to radio-centric soldier systems that integrates the networking and computational capabilities of a smartphone with the sensors on a standard C7 rifle. Not only is it possible to find, identify and display Waldo on a screen connected to the rifle, that information, including exact target location, can be shared with other shooters and command elements.
SWORD, short for Soldier, Weapon, Observer Reconnaissance Devices, is a target and blue force command and control system that introduces networking into the battlespace in a way that is instantly recognizable to a generation of soldiers for whom smartphones and tablets have become ubiquitous.
The phone would allow a sniper and spotter, for example, to acquire a bearing angle and picture of a target through the rifle, transmit in back and forth for verification, all in a matter of seconds and all in an easily understandable digital format. That’s a significant difference, says Jeff MacLeod, general manager of Colt Canada and a former army Electrical and Mechanical Engineering officer. “It used to be done all through voice. With this kind of system, the spotter could be half a kilometre away and still communicate it very quickly.”
Moreover, if a soldier is under fire or otherwise cannot engage the target, that data can be passed to others in his section. That capability also makes SWORD the “ultimate indirect fire” solution, MacLeod says, using the phone to calculate and share grid reference and trajectory data with artillery, vehicles or close air support. It can also do much of the work required to employ a grenade launcher. “All we really need is a point on the map,” he explained. “We can either inject that point through the system or you can input it via the touchscreen. And then it’s just a matter of engaging the grenade launcher mode, and as you move the grenade launcher up, down and sideways, your bearing angle and your target impact point moves.”
No more calculating target locations on a map in the thick of a fire fight. “With this, you lase the target, press the button, it’s all done for you.”
Rick Fawcett, GDC’s director of business development for land and joint solutions, says there is still a mindset barrier to overcome for officers who see the smartphone as “hugely expensive and not tactically robust.” But for a fraction of the cost of a hand held radio or display that meets military specifications, financially constrained militaries like Canada’s could equip an entire B fleet of vehicles with a smartphone that would provide blue positional awareness and a display, he notes. “You can buy a lot of smartphones for the price of a single radio.”
There’s an app for that
While some of the initial thinking about SWORD may have begun with the call to find Waldo, the NATO-led effort to replace the Picatinny rail with a powered rail was the real impetus for Colt Canada, MacLeod said.
“We spent a lot of money to develop that, but we saw from day one that just providing power was not going to cut it. If we can provide power, we can put sensors onto that system, interconnect the different devices, and pass and use that data. And this is leading to the next generation of rifles, where all this stuff will be fully integrated.”
With a cellphone attached to the side of the rifle, the system does appear unwieldy. But MacLeod said Colt is working with a company to display the information within the sight of the rifle. It’s also working on a new upper receiver for the C7 and C8 rifles that would remove the add-on rails and embed the networking technology, greatly reducing the weight.
And that’s just scratching the surface, he said. Blue force awareness and tactile sensors would allow for vibration in the weapon if it is pointed in the direction of friendly forces, and muzzle velocity sensors could provide information about poorly performing ammo. Perhaps most impressive, Colt has demonstrated the ability to control remote weapons stations with the software via a satellite radio, explained Matthew Kirkpatrick of Colt Advanced Systems. “If I see friendly units moving into the area on my battle management software, I could slave their remote weapons stations all onto one target and I could control their fire.”
That networking requirement made the partnership with General Dynamics a natural. MacLeod said Colt is “dabbling in areas that we’ve never played with before” and needed the expertise of a communications company. But although it might be better known as “metal bashers,” this experience has helped the company become system integrators. “We are looking to the future,” he said. “I think the beauty of it is, from the soldier’s standpoint, they’re really enjoying seeing the gun company do this.”
For General Dynamics, which is focused on the development of future networks, the integrated smartphone is a way to show the art of the possible.
“Colt gives us a demonstration that everyone can relate to,” Fawcett said. “Right now it works off Wi-Fi. But imagine that working as part of an LTE network, where not only are you connecting the spotter to the shooter, but you can connect that spotter to your entire command network and bring in all those assets on much greater bandwidth.
“Today you can’t pass video down to a soldier; now you could,” he said, noting that feeds from a UAV or Aurora could be passed through the network to a smartphone. “The amount of time we spent wondering what was on the other side of the wall in Afghanistan, well, now everyone can see what is on the other side, and it is all geo-referenced.”
GD is exploring the development of apps for the phone, such as a link to the soldier radio. “Instead of having to find your radio to change frequency, you’d toggle to your radio app, and toggle back to your blue PA.” Fawcett also sees a possibility for training in which the rifle and smartphone technology are able to tell exactly where and at what a soldier is pointing, replacing the need for more cumbersome systems like the current Weapons Effects System.
“That is all doable today,” he said. “The piece we are working on now is the security between your traditional military networks, which are very robust, highly reliable, very secure, and very, very expensive, and layering it on top of an LTE network. We want to be able to pass through each network, so if you only have your basic radios, your system works; if you bring in your LTE network, you can now leverage that, still using your radios; and if you lose your LTE network, you drop back down to your basic capability. The system has to be smart enough to be able to determine what is available and when, and how to route the traffic so that the soldier doesn’t have to do anything.”
To support the technology, GD is working on a tactical cell system known as Cells on Wheels (COWs) that would provide quick and easy access to a cellular network.
As the Canadian Army moves ahead with its Forward Observation Officer/Forward Air Controller modernization project and its new sniper team system, much of what it requires might be found within aspects of SWORD. Although neither Colt or General Dynamics set out to specifically address the requirements of either program, both recognize the future is about networking and the enhanced capability you can develop to operate on those networks.
But the project has created an issue MacLeod thought he’d never see. “The head of our engineering group is a former chief warrant officer, a former weapons tech, and he said, ‘I had hoped to be fully retired before I ever heard that the software version of my gun doesn’t match the software version of my computer.’ But we’ve already run into those problems – we’re now very much working on software configuration and control.”
Apparently, even a rifle can suffer from information overload.