Replacing the aging Guardrail, the HADES jet leverages high-altitude sensors and edge computing to track enemy movements across 6,000 miles, transforming how commanders process real-time battlefield intelligence.
By Kris Osborn, Warrior
The Army is surging into a new era of high-altitude, fixed-wing surveillance technology with accelerated development of a next-generation, AI-enabled reconnaissance “jet” able to fly faster, farther and longer than the decades old, retiring RC 12 Guardrail turboprop aerial intelligence aircraft.
Emerging as an extremely high-tech, militarized Bombardier Global 6500 business jet, the now emerging High Accuracy Detection and Exploitation System (HADES) ISR aircraft will not only surveil high-values areas from 40,000 ft with high-fidelity, long-range sensors but also perform high-speed, AI-enabled computer analytics and threat data processing at the edge of combat.
Unlike the lower-altitude 1970s-era RC-12 Guardrail turbo prop, HADES will leverage a new generation of sensing and computing technology to acquire high-resolution threat data at nearly twice the altitude. Of equal or greater significance, the HADES aircraft will “triple” the range of fixed-wing surveillance for the Army with the ability to travel 6,000 miles.
“With the ability to fly higher, farther and faster in the various target areas that we’re looking at, we get vast amounts of data every mission that we fly. It is vastly different because we are able to stay in an area for a longer dwell time,” said Sgt. Bryden Jones, a mission manager for ARES with the 104th Military Intelligence Company, PED Battalion, 116th Military Intelligence Brigade, said in an Army essay on HADES. “These capabilities allow us to provide things like pattern-of-life; it allows us to see up and down time locations, potential troop movement or anything else you can think of.”
HADES will integrate new applications of classic Synthetic Aperture Radar which generates a rendering of the terrain below using electromagnetic “pings” traveling at the speed of light. Electromagnetic signals bounce off the terrain below and deliver a return signal, painting a picture for on-board personnel performing command and control. The aircraft also uses AI-enabled, at-the-edge computing and data processing along with a technology called Ground Moving Target Indicator, a specially-engineered sensor designed to detect enemy ground movements. The HADES platform will bring new multi-domain, long-dwell sensing and data exploitation to the joint war effort, bringing combatant commanders an ability to share time-sensitive intelligence data across air, land, space and surface platforms.
The foundation for HADES is the Army Theater-level High Altitude Expeditionary Next Aerial ISR (ATHENA) – specifically the ATHENA platform that has been performing operationally for over 18 months. The performance of the ATHENA platform has exceeded expectations. Given this performance, ATHENA is seen as a lasting platform and integral to the long-term HADES strategy for the Army. Not only does ATHENA use the same Bombardier business jet platform as HADES, but the ATHENA radar offers the upgradeable technological radar and sensing background intended to integrate into the HADES platform as it emerges. The idea, as explained by U.S. Army essays, is to make ATHENA-R the foundational start to integrate an upgradeable, AI-enabled sensing technology able to verify radar choices and “data workflows” to then become the underpinning of the HADES fleet.
ATHENA is already providing training to the HADES workforce to give the Army a head start on the program which will then inform and be integrated into the HADES program. The training and workforce integration happening on ATHENA is informing the ability to aggregate, assimilate and analyze new combat relevant data will remain vital to future missions. Therefore, it makes sense that Army weapons developers intend to continue to upgrade ATHENA and integrate its capabilities into HADES.
“By leveraging lessons learned from ARES, ARTEMIS and ATHENA platforms and integrating best practices, we’re evolving the training pipeline to meet the demands of next-generation ISR,” Julie Isaac, Project Director for Sensors Aerial Intelligence said, in an Army essay. “The Army uses the ongoing ATHENA missions to build a trained workforce for the HADES rollout. Sensor operators and data analysts practice processing intelligence from 40,000+ feet using ATHENA equipment.”
As part of this, ATHENA’s high fidelity radar technology will continue to be fortified by AI-enabled data collection “at the forward edge of combat.” The ability for software to support data processing and transmission, particularly when supported by AI-generated analytics, will help high altitude fixed wing surveillance technology keep pace with the fast-growing volumes of data collection modern sensors, computers and radar are capable of. Specifically, with more data arriving, advanced AI-enabled algorithms are needed to support PED, Processing Exploitation and Dissemination. In tactical terms, this means that, as opposed to purely “collecting data” at the edge, processing is increasingly critical to finding points of “relevance” amidst a seemingly limitless amount of data. The ATHENA radar supports this process with its forward-operating processing and analytics.
