Aerial ISR

The Army wants industry to send feedback on draft specifications for an upgraded version of its aerial intelligence gathering system's sensor payloads. As Inside the Army reports this week:

The draft Performance Based Specification, posted to the Federal Business Opportunities website July 28 and labeled "for official use only," lays out the system-level requirements for the Airborne Reconnaissance Low-Enhanced (ARL-E) Mission Equipment Payload (MEP). The Army wants industry input on the specifications ahead of the anticipated Sept. 19 formal solicitation date, according to the request for information. Industry has until Aug. 11 to respond.

The ARL-E is the successor to the currently fielded ARL-Multifunction. The system overview portion of the draft specifications states the ARL-E will close several intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) capability gaps.

"The increment one capabilities provide ARL-E a more capable Full Motion Video, Radar, Hyperspectral, Signals Intelligence (SIGINT), and communications architecture capability over the current ARL-M platform," Chris Keller, deputy project manager for sensors-aerial intelligence, wrote in an Aug. 1 email to Inside the Army.

Budget justification documents state the new system will allow for a "rapid plug and play" sensor system to support different sensor-combinations. The band A -- or mandatory -- system requirements call for the ARL-E MEP to be capable of operating three sensor payloads at the same time, according to the draft specifications. The band B -- or highly-desired -- capability is four sensor payloads operating simultaneously.