Directorate, woman-owned business become 'Silent' partners
St Petersburg , Florida , May 4, 2001.
CECOM's Intelligence and Information Warfare Directorate (12WD) recently awarded
a $12 million contract to Custom Manufacturing & Engineering™ (CME™) of
St. Petersburg, FL. to develop the silent warrior next generation, unattended ground
sensor architecture and "leave behind", prototypes for the U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM).
USSOCOM and CECOM's 12WD have jointly developed a plan to replace aging, fielded sensor systems, with new hardware that will provide the Special Operations Forces (SOF) with the next generation distributed sensor systems.
This plan was formalized as a White Paper that was well received by congress, culminating in a congressional "plus-up" for the Silent Warrior program.
Under the contract, CME will develop a system of networked, miniaturized unattended sensors. the Silent Warrior program will leverage the latest developments in remote sensors and signal processing from DoD, Defense Advance Research Projects Agency and commercially available programs to create a state of the art unattended ground sensor "system of systems".
The foundation of the Silent Warrior development concept is the use of knowledge gained from existing programs as technology enablers for the Silent Warrior architecture. 12WD envisions Silent Warrior as having applications to Army programs in addition to providing key technologies for the Objective Force.
The Silent Warrior development program is structured as a two-phase effort. Under the first phase, Block 1, CME is tasked with defining the overall system architecture and developing Silent Warrior laboratory demonstration prototypes.
Testing of these lab demonstrators will determine the feasibility of integrating the latest developments in advanced unattended ground sensors and distributed communications.
Using the knowledge gained from the lab demonstrator experiments, CME will refine the Silent Warrior design and develop three additional prototypes suitable for field testing by the SOF elements.
Field testing of these prototypes in an operational setting will enable the SOF intelligence community to assess Silent Warrior's functional capabilities as well as its interoperability with USSOCOM legacy and emerging intelligence and data distribution systems.
Block II of the Silent Warrior development program will begin with an intensive advanced technology study phase. One of the main goals of this study phase will be to identify those technologies that are state of the art, but sufficiently mature for them to be integrated into the Silent Warrior architecture without creating an unacceptable level of program risk.
Development of a system that will have the broad functionality envisioned for Silent Warrior is no easy task.
The Silent Warrior management team is now working closely with CME on the overall system architecture and leveraging opportunities for the program. In order to ensure that the Silent Warrior architecture will satisfy the requirements of all its intended users, a joint Army/SOCOM Program Management Integrated Product Team (PMIPT) has also been established to help guide the program.
The PMIPT, chaired by Bob Doto, 12WD director, met for the first time in December at 12WD,
After two days of productive discussions on a variety of issues with representatives from 12WD, PM Prophet, TSM Prophet, Space & terrestrial Communications Directorate, Night Vision Electronic Sensors Directorate, SOCOM and CME, everyone was able to agree on one point:next year's winter meeting would be held at USSOCOM headquarters in Tampa, FL.
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