Electronic Warfare: The Army Can Reduce Its Risks in Developing New Radar Countermeasures System
Released: 2001-04-30T00:00:00

Letter

Background

Radar-guided missile systems emit radio-frequency energy, that is, radar signals, which reflect or bounce off the surfaces of aircraft in flight. In essence, all radar-guided missile systems use these reflected signals to locate and target aircraft. The Army currently has two types of radar countermeasure systems fielded on its helicopters to defend them from radar-guided missiles. The first type seeks to decoy the missile away from the aircraft by providing alternative reflected radar signals for the missile to follow. This is accomplished by using a missile warning system that detects approaching missiles and signals countermeasure dispensers on the aircraft to launch chaff in an attempt to confuse the missile’s radar.The second type of countermeasure system uses a radar-warning receiver and radar jammer to defeat radar-guided missile systems. A radar-warning receiver detects radar-guided missile systems so the aircraft’s pilot can navigate out of the missile’s range. If the systems cannot be avoided, a radar jammer emits electronic radio-frequency transmissions to confuse and/or blind the radar-guided missile system.

The Army’s Suite of Integrated Radio Frequency Countermeasures system will include an advanced-threat radar-warning receiver and an advanced- threat radar jammer. (See figure 1.) These components are expected to provide state-of-the-art-radar warning and jamming capabilities and to perform better than the Army’s currently fielded radar warning receivers and radar jammers. The advanced-threat radar-warning receiver will provide enhanced situational awareness by more precisely detecting, identifying, locating, and tracking multiple radio-frequency threat systems. Likewise, the advanced-threat radar jammer is expected to counter multiple and simultaneous modern radio-frequency threats. In addition, the system can be reprogrammed to defeat different threat systems, and its modular open architecture allows for reconfiguring its components so that applications on multiple aircraft types are possible.

For acquiring electronic warfare systems such as the new radar countermeasures system, departmental guidance states that developmental testing provides decisionmakers with knowledge about whether the system is ready to begin low-rate initial production—the next step in the acquisition process after engineering and manufacturing development. Developmental testing begins in a controlled environment by testing individual components of a system in the laboratory. Based on the results of this testing, individual components are modified, improved and/or replaced until they meet component-level performance requirements. After the performance of each component is tested and validated, the developmental test process is repeated at the subsystem and finally system level. The developmental test process continues until the system’s ability to meet performance requirements when installed on a weapon system platform is tested and validated.

According to the Department’s guidance for acquiring systems, low-rate initial production is designed to (1) establish an initial production base for the system and ensure adequate and efficient manufacturing capability, (2) produce the minimum quantity necessary to provide production configured or representative articles for initial operational testing and evaluation, and (3) permit an orderly increase in the production rate for the system sufficient to lead to full-rate production upon the successful completion of operational testing. Operational testing, which follows developmental testing, is designed to determine whether a production- configured system can meet performance requirements in an operationally realistic environment.

Software Modifications Will Be Tested Before Low- Rate Initial Production Decision, But Hardware Modifications Will Not Be

The Army’s contractor for its new radar countermeasures system has substantial software and hardware changes under way to improve the system’s performance and address the obsolescence of parts, reduce cost, and improve producibility. The Army intends to determine that the modified software performs as required in time for the low-rate initial production decision now scheduled for some point from January through March 2002. However, the current schedule does not provide for completion and integration of the hardware changes into the system until June 2002 with testing completed by September 2002.

Software Issues

Beginning in 1999, laboratory testing of developmental prototypes of the new radar countermeasures system indicated that significant software deficiencies had to be corrected before the system could meet performance requirements. Because of these software deficiencies, the prototype countermeasures system could not properly perform any of its major functions; that is, it could not properly detect, identify, track, or defeat threat radars. In response to these results, the Army’s Program Manager directed the system contractor to undertake the major software maturation effort that is now under way.

For the software maturation effort, the Army directed the contractor to follow a disciplined maturation process. This involved breaking down the system’s software into a series of 10 blocks with each successive block introducing more complex functionality (e.g., detect and identify one radar; detect and identify multiple radars; detect, identify and jam one radar; and so forth). To ensure that the contractor adheres to this process, the Army does not approve the introduction of succeeding software blocks into the system until the functionality of the prior block has been demonstrated in the Army’s laboratory at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey.

According to the Defense Contract Management Agency, which the Army has engaged to oversee the program, the ongoing software maturation effort, as of April 2001, has been rated as high risk. Laboratory tests indicate that the software continues to have difficulty in properly detecting, identifying, tracking, and defeating threat-radar systems in complex environments where many radars are operating simultaneously. Moreover, according to the Agency, flight-testing on an Apache helicopter has begun recently and a new set of software problems is being experienced because the operating environments of the aircraft and open- air test range are very different than the controlled conditions of the laboratory. For instance, interference resulting from the simultaneous operation of the system with the Apache’s fire control radar is resulting in system resets. Resets are totally unacceptable for countermeasure systems because they refer to instances when the software causes the system to reboot. While the system is rebooting, the aircraft and aircrew are completely unprotected.

Overall, the software maturation effort is 4 months behind schedule, and the contractor has been submitting increasing numbers of unanticipated software change requests each month for the past 6 months as the software blocks are becoming more complex. Change requests have increased each month from September 2000, when they numbered 699, to March 2001, when they reached 923. The need to make unanticipated changes is expected in a software maturation process, according to the Defense Contract Management Agency; nonetheless, increasing numbers of changes result in additional cost to the program and the extension of test schedules. Of the 10 software blocks, blocks 1 through 8a have now been accepted, and the contractor was scheduled to deliver block 9 for testing in April 2001. (Block 8 did not pass acceptance testing at Fort Monmouth, so the contractor had to create block 8a, which was accepted by the Army in March 2001.)

Hardware Issues

While software maturation continues under the original developmental contract, the contractor is addressing hardware improvements under a separate $13.2 million technology insertion program contract to redesign, develop, and test new system components. The contractor plans to complete and integrate hardware changes into the system by June 30, 2002. The Army then plans to determine whether the modified system performs as required by September 2002.

According to the contractor, replacing key hardware components of the current prototype system is necessary to reduce costs, address the obsolescence of electronic parts, enhance producibility and improve system performance. The contractor is developing replacements for such components as the primary computer processor, the tracker used to locate radar sources, and the frequency synthesizer used to produce the electronic responses to hostile radar signals. The contractor is also replacing the analog wide-band receiver used to detect radar signals with an improved receiver based on digital technology. (See figure 2.)

As of April 2001, the Defense Contract Management Agency was rating hardware issues and the system’s readiness for production as moderate risk. According to the Agency, the bases for this assessment include staffing shortages, parts delivery delays, and failures during electromagnetic interference, shock/vibration, and humidity testing, all of which are delaying the contractor’s schedule.

Besides physical changes to the system, hardware changes will cause additional changes to be made to the system’s software. This is because the hardware functions of the system are software-controlled. In order to exercise this control, the software has to be written to “recognize” the behavior of the new components so the right software commands are issued and the hardware will do what it is supposed to do at the right time.

Additionally, while making changes to hardware components and software, the contractor discovered carcinogenic beryllium oxide residue on the system during humidity testing. To address this problem, the contractor is now developing and testing aluminum component casings for beryllium casings that had already been developed. Substituting aluminum for beryllium is troublesome because (1) aluminum is weaker and heavier than beryllium and (2) the weight of the radar countermeasures system was already more than 20 pounds over the Army’s requirement even with use of the lighter beryllium casings.

Department officials told us that the insertion of the hardware modifications is not substantial enough to constitute a significant design change and that little risk is associated with the integration of the new hardware with the software and the aircraft. However, based on test results to date and monthly status reports from the Defense Contract Management Agency, we did not find that integrating the new hardware with the software and the aircraft will be a low-risk undertaking.

According to departmental guidance for acquiring systems, one of the purposes of low-rate initial production is to produce production representative articles for initial operational test and evaluation. In our view, a key to assuring that these articles will be production representative is to first conduct developmental testing of the modified software and hardware together as a system in the aircraft to ensure the design is stable before beginning low-rate initial production. We believe, therefore, that the Department would decrease its risks by deferring the low-rate initial production decision until the hardware modifications are completed and integrated and the system is found to perform as required. Only the testing of the actual replacement components can provide assurance that the system’s design is stable.

Conclusion

The Army has identified software and hardware modifications needed for its new radar countermeasures system. The Army expects that future tests will enable it to determine whether the modified software performs as required before the planned low-rate initial production decision in early 2002. However, the testing of the modified hardware is not scheduled for completion until September 2002. By deferring the low-rate initial production decision, the Army would reduce the risk of incurring unanticipated costs to retrofit articles if the system does not perform as required.

Recommendation for Executive Action

We recommend that the Secretary of Defense direct that the Army defer the low-rate initial production decision until software and hardware modifications are completed and the Army determines that the integrated system, as modified, performs as required.

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation

Although the Department of Defense concurred with our finding that the Army’s radar countermeasures program has faced technical challenges both in software and hardware, it did not concur with our recommendation. The Department stated that our draft report was incorrect in finding that hardware modifications were being made to correct performance deficiencies. It maintained that the contractor’s hardware modifications are necessary to address cost, parts obsolescence and producibility issues, and the changes are only more technologically advanced form, fit, and function replacements for existing components.

We recognize that the purposes of the changes include addressing cost, parts obsolescence and producibility issues. Nevertheless, program documentation provided by the contractor and the Defense Contract Management Agency indicates that these changes are also necessary to meet system performance requirements for several components, including the wide-band receiver and the system processor. We also recognize that any replacement component for a system must be form, fit, and function compatible; otherwise it cannot be successfully installed or expected to work in the system. It cannot be automatically assumed, however, that developing these replacement components is low risk simply because they are planned to be form, fit, and function compatible.

After receiving the Department’s comments, we acquired updated data from the Defense Contract Management Agency to provide the most current information on the risks associated with the ongoing software and hardware modification process. After reviewing the additional data, we continue to believe that the Department would decrease its risks by deferring the low-rate initial production decision until the hardware modifications are completed and integrated and the system is found to perform as required. Although the Department may well be confident in the ability of the contractor to successfully develop replacement components, it cannot conclude on the basis of the performance of existing hardware components that different, replacement components will be satisfactory. System development has been ongoing for seven years. In our view, it is prudent to take the extra several months to test the actual replacement components with the software and in the aircraft so that the Army can assure itself that the system design is stable before it proceeds to low-rate initial production.

Scope and Methodology

To determine whether the Army’s decisionmakers will have sufficient knowledge about the readiness of the Suite of Integrated Radio-Frequency Countermeasures system to enter the low-rate initial production decision as planned in the second quarter of fiscal year 2002, we analyzed the Army’s modernization, acquisition, and fielding plans for the system and the contractor’s performance reports and other program documentation produced by the Army and the Defense Contract Management Agency.

To ensure that we understood the documentation we utilized, we interviewed officials of the Office of the Secretary of Defense, Washington, D.C.; the Department of the Army, at Arlington, Virginia; the Program Executive Office for Army Aviation, and Missile and Space Intelligence Center at Redstone Arsenal, Alabama; the Communications and Electronics Command at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey; and the Army Aviation Directorate of Combat Development at Fort Rucker, Alabama. We also interviewed representatives of the Suite of Integrated Radio- Frequency Countermeasures contractor, International Telephone and Telegraph, Avionics Division in Clifton, New Jersey. We conducted our work from September 2000 through April 2001 in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards.

This report contains a recommendation to you. The head of a federal agency is required under 31 U.S.C. 720 to submit a written statement of actions taken on our recommendations to the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs and the House Committee on Government Reform not later that 60 days after the date of this letter and to the Senate and House Committees on Appropriations with the agency’s first request for appropriations made more than 60 days after the date of this letter.

We are sending copies of this report to interested congressional committees; the Honorable Joseph W. Westphal, Acting Secretary of the Army; and the Honorable Mitch Daniels, Director, Office of Management and Budget. Copies will also be made available to others upon request. If you have any questions regarding this report, please contact me at (202) 512-4841 or Charles A. Ward at (202) 512-4343. Key contributors to this assignment were Dana Solomon and John Warren.

Appendix I: Comments From the Department of Defense