ADAPTING PICOGRID PLATFORM AS A PLATFORM FOR ACTIVE PROTECTION AND RECONNAISSANCE (PAPR)

Today, crucial large-scale infrastructure is typically monitored by manual patrols—two guys in a pickup truck. As a result, the systems that underpin everyday life including military bases, power infrastructure, and fire-prone wildlands suffer from gaps in coverage, long response times, and high operating costs. Our Phase I feasibility study demonstrated that end-users across theaters and enterprise programs have a mission need for a lower-cost and more scalable solution for distributed ground surveillance over vast areas, both domestically and abroad. Legacy ground surveillance systems lag behind the private sector in the use of artificial intelligence, are built as siloed IT systems that do not support real-time distributed decision making, and each unit costs millions of dollars which makes them unsuitable for long-term deployments at large scale. The Air Force will address that mission need by adapting Picogrid’s existing commercial technology as a defense-specific variant: Platform for Active Protection and Reconnaissance (PAPR). PAPR combines highly scalable, cloud-native C5ISR software and artificial intelligence with low-cost ground-based surveillance hardware to deliver cost effective ground surveillance over wide areas. Through its innovative communications system, PAPR enables over-the-horizon transmission and independent operation across thousands of locations. The objective of the proposed effort is to ruggedize and optimize the commercial variant for Air Force’s requirements to deliver highly resilient ground based surveillance over wide, remote, and hostile areas for approximately one-tenth of the cost of existing alternatives.