Establishing Military Utility of Non-traditional Sensing

America’s ability to rely on traditional sensing systems providing vital intelligence information from within anti-access / area denial (A2/AD) environments is at risk. Adversaries are hardening their A2/AD defenses by developing capabilities to destroy, deny, degrade, disrupt, and deceive (D5) our traditional sensing systems. Furthermore, traditional sensing systems continue to suffer from an inherent lack of architecture resiliency and interoperability. Perhaps most important, these vital traditional systems will continue to be burdened with skyrocketing lifecycle costs. These three challenges leave our future sensor viability in doubt on modern battlefields and hold at risk our nation’s ability to make sufficiently informed and timely national security decisions. To mitigate the risk of unavailable or inadequate traditional sensing systems and networks, thus helping ensure resilient awareness within A2/AD operational environments by the year 2040, the US must seek and exploit proliferative, non-traditional (NT) sensing systems offering military intelligence utility comparable to traditional sensing systems, while simultaneously augmenting the capabilities of traditional sensing and providing redundant backup in order to minimize capability losses if traditional systems are compromised. This paper first describes the difference between traditional and non-traditional sensing systems. It then gives examples of how commercial companies use non-traditional sensing systems to provide valuable information for themselves and their customers. Next, it explains the construct forming the three necessary sub-systems constituting militarily useful non-traditional sensing systems. Using examples of military applications, this paper describes how the Air Force may similarly use NT sensing systems to provide militarily useful information from within A2/AD environments. Finally, it concludes with some suggestions that would allow the Air Force to harness the strategic benefits from NT sensing.