Future Advanced Army Reconnaissance Capability Demos at AUSA

Attendees to this year’s Association of the United States Army (AUSA) Annual Meeting and Exposition in Washington, D.C., witnessed the Army’s future cutting-edge reconnaissance mapping capabilities during live demonstrations.

Product Lead Combat Terrain Information Systems (PL CTIS), in partnership with the Formation Based Layered Protection (FBLP) Capability Directorate (FCD), successfully completed a three-day technology showcase to demonstrate the capabilities of the future Advanced Reconnaissance Kit Family of Systems (ARK FoS).

ARK FoS is a capability under development for automated/semi-automated, deliberate and hasty route, area, and zone reconnaissance operations and represents a significant modernization of the Instrument Set, Reconnaissance and Surveying (ENFIRE) system. ARK FoS will include integration of state-of-the-art capabilities and military systems support.

PL CTIS Deputy Product Lead Katy Kash said the showcase illustrated the art of the possible with ARK FoS integration with other technologies.

“ARK FoS will have the ability to connect to and transmit collected data over the Next Generation Command and Control (NGC2) network via C2 Transport and provide commanders with the ability to remotely detect, identify, and map hazards across the operating environment across echelons,” said Kash.

The AUSA showcase featured ARK FoS surrogate equipment, highlighting its advanced capabilities in 3D data capture, visualization, analysis, and route reconnaissance. A key feature of the showcase included live demonstrations with a voice-controlled drone that will provide critical information to ARK FoS capabilities.

“ARK FoS consists of core, common, map-based federated COTS [Commercial Off-The-Shelf] software and hardware that will support numerous Army formations and wide array of reconnaissance missions,” Kash said. “Near real-time reconnaissance data gathered by ARK FoS will provide increased time and space for Commanders to make proactive, risk informed decisions and increase situational understanding.”

The hands-on nature of the showcase also allowed attendees to directly interact with the equipment and ask pertinent questions. Attendees gained a significant understanding of how ARK FoS will modernize and standardize reconnaissance to multiple formations, enable commanders to make proactive, risk-informed decisions, and increase Soldier protection by removing them from hazardous environments.

“One of our core values for ARK FoS is that we take the Solider out of the hazard,” Kash said.