The U.S. Army is seeking new sensor technology that can fly on a balloon or a glider plane at an altitude of at least 60,000 feet and facilitate target jamming, C4ISRNET reported Wednesday.
Col. Daniel Holland, capability manager for electronic warfare at the Army, said at AFCEA's TechNet Augusta event that the service is considering the idea of integrating a light payload on a high-altitude platform to place effects on a target using electronic attack or radio frequency-enabled cyber mechanisms.
The branch refers to the concept as High-Altitude Extended-Range Long Endurance Intelligence Observation System (HELEIOS) and aims to test HELEIOS through Project Convergence, a series of exercises slated to take place at Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona this fall.
“The idea is blanketing the deep area with low-cost attributable sensors to enable deep sensing and deep effects,” Holland was quoted as saying.
The Army awarded other transaction agreements to Raytheon Technologies and L3Harris Technologies in June to develop sensor prototypes for first phase of the Multi-Domain Sensing System program.
HELEIOS will serve as a component of the MDSS suite, according to the report.