Automated multi-INT fusion for tactical reconnaissance

The capabilities of tactical intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) payloads continue to expand from single sensor imagers to integrated systems of systems architectures. We describe here flight test results of the Sensor Management System (SMS) designed to provide a flexible central coordination component capable of managing multiple collaborative sensor systems onboard an aircraft or unmanned aerial system (UAS). The SMS architecture is designed to be sensor and data agnostic and provide flexible networked access for both data providers and data consumers. It supports pre-planned and ad-hoc missions, with provisions for on-demand tasking and updates from users connected via data links. The SMS system is STANAG 4575 compliant as a removable memory module (RMM) and can act as a vehicle specific module (VSM) to provide STANAG 4586 compliance (level-3 interoperability) to a noncompliant sensor system. The SMS architecture will be described and results from several flight tests that included multiple sensor combinations and live data link updates will be shown.