Distributed ELINT Collection Marrying Electronic Warfare with Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance to Broaden Collection and Provide Global Situational Awareness

Today's Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) collection and distribution architecture has evolved from disparate developmental efforts from the services and Intelligence Community. Interoperability and responsiveness problems in this architecture were highlighted in 1991, during Operation DESERT STORM. For the past 15 years, the Department of Defense and Intelligence Community have undergone many improvement efforts. These improvements are leading to greater interoperability, greater bandwidth, and greater sensor technology. Improvements in information sharing provide an essential foundation for a new approach to ELINT collection. The efforts made in improving connectivity, interoperability and sensor capability enable a new Electronics Intelligence (ELINT) collection architecture.