Coalition Aerial Surveillance and Reconnaissance: the CAESAR project

Military Intelligence Professional Bulletin, Jan-March, 2003 by Stephen J. Bond

Coalition Aerial Surveillance and Reconnaissance or CAESAR is an intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) interoperability project. Seven nations and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Consultation, Command and Control Agency (NC3A) are working the project to integrate, exploit, and share data from ground moving target indicator (MTI) and synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery surveillance platforms to the associated coalition ground stations (see Figure 1). The seven participating nations, all NATO members, include the United States, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Norway, and the United Kingdom. Supreme Headquarters, Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) has endorsed the project.

The CAESAR Project will maximize the efficient and effective use of high-demand, low-density surveillance platforms and ground stations among the coalition member nations. The Project's goals are to establish interoperability through technical interface, architectural design, and operational standards for employing surveillance platforms and ground stations to support the U.S. and other coalition ground, air, and maritime commanders (see Figure 2). For the United States, CAESAR is an Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) Advanced Concept Technology Demonstration (ACTD). The Air Force is the lead Service for the demonstration and provides the technical management for the U.S. participants in the project through the Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System (Joint STARS) Program Office, Electronic Systems Command, at Hanscom Air Force Base, Massachusetts. The U.S. Army Intelligence Center (USAIC) provides operational management for the Project. Representatives from all the Services participate with the r epresentatives from the other member nations in coalition working groups. International memorandums of agreement and security arrangements, signed by the participating nations, establish and govern the Project.

Project Objectives

The specific objectives for the Project are to--

* Produce interoperable concepts of operations (CONOPs) and tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTP) for use by coalition, joint, ground, air, and maritime commanders for the employment of multinational ground MTI and SAR assets.

* Develop or improve existing technologies to achieve technical interoperability among the participating surveillance platforms and sensors. This includes interchange formats, registration, and exploitation algorithms mission planning and tasking tools, and architectures for networked and distributed processing (see Figure 3.). Each ground station is capable of receiving and sharing data in near-real time to provide a common view of the battlefield.

* Conduct annual exercises to evaluate program technology and operational concepts. Integrate these technical and operational capabilities within the supporting commands and architectures of the United States, other coalition nations, and NATO.

Participating Systems

The national platforms participating in CAESAR appear in Figure 4 and a listing of all participants and assets is in Figure 5. The coalition systems participating in the CAESAR Project include the following:

* Canadian Radar Satellite (RADARSAT) system and associated ground stations. RADARSAT 1 is an operational commercial satellite providing 7- to 100-meters resolution SAR imagery, depending on the radar beam mode and incidence angle. RADARSAT 2 is currently in development; when operational, it will provide radar images at better than 3-meter resolution and have an experimental ground MTI capability.

* French Helicoptere d'Observation Radar et d' Investigation sur Zone or HORIZON system and associated ground stations. The targeting radar produces ground MTI and its platform is a Eurocopter Cougar AS-532 UL helicopter.

* Developmental German inter- operable imagery workstation to display and exploit ground MTI and SAR information.

* Italian CRESO (Complesso Radar Eliportato per la Sorveglianza) and associated ground stations. Installed aboard an Augusta Bell AB-412 helicopter, the battlefield surveillance radar provides ground MTI. The platform has an electronic warfare support measures (ESM) capability.

* Norwegian Mobile Tactical Operations Center (MTOC) for receiving and exploiting ground MTI and SAR information. Norway is further demonstrating and integrating MTI and SAR information within the Norwegian command, control, and information system.

* The United Kingdom is developing the ASTOR or Airborne Stand-Off Radar. This system's platform is a modified Global Express airframe carrying a multimode ground surveillance radar (GSR) capable of both ground MTI and SAR imagery.

The standards under development for interoperability through CAESAR will apply to all U.S. platforms and ground station systems providing, receiving, or processing MTI and SAR data. This includes current and future Army systems, including Airborne Reconnaissance Low (ARL), Tactical Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (TUAV), Aerial Common Sensor (ACS), and the Distributed Common Ground System-Army (DCGS-A). U.S. systems currently participating in the CAESAR Project include--