Expanding the Use of Time/Frequency Difference of Arrival Geolocation in the Department of Defense

The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) faces a tightening budget in the coming years. Despite the lean budget years, unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) are expected to be a priority. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta has pledged to maintain or even increase spending in critical mission areas, such as cyber offense and defense, special operations forces, and UAS (Shanker and Bumiller 2011). Due to their usefulness for intelligence collection in irregular warfare (IW) and counterinsurgency (COIN), UAS were quickly fielded and sent to theater without analysis of how their intelligence sensors complemented each other (Isherwood 2011). There are ways for DoD to improve the methods of employment and the integration of multi-intelligence capabilities on assets to better leverage the systems it currently owns. The general aim of this research is to explore an area in which DoD can operate smarter with its proliferating UAS fleet. Specifically, this research investigates how DoD can better leverage UAS and improve multi-intelligence capabilities by expanding its geolocation capacity through the use of time/frequency-difference-of-arrival (T/FDOA) geolocation on UAS. The research sheds light on important questions that need to be answered before investing in T/FDOA-capable UAS. I first demonstrate the potential of T/FDOA geolocation in the context of how we use UAS today. I then show what some of the costs of adding a T/FDOA geolocation capability to UAS might be. Finally, I explore how T/FDOA geolocation could improve multi-intelligence operations.