Leidos Blue Devil program team wins Joe Sciabica Innovation And Collaboration Award
By Loren Blinde
October 21, 2014
Leidos, a national security solutions company, and a group of subcontractors and government agencies, received the Joe Sciabica Innovation and Collaboration Award for its advanced multi-intelligence (MULTI-INT) sensor technology work on the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) Blue Devil program.
The award was presented at the Ohio Innovation Summit on October 7 in Dayton, OH.
Blue Devil Prime Leidos and a team of subcontractors integrated all payload components and provided services to support deployed warfighters with an advanced MULTI-INT Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) sensor system including wide area EO and IR cameras, high resolution full motion video, and SIGINT.
“The collaboration with a diverse team of experts on the Blue Devil program led to providing innovative capabilities to the warfighter,” said Leidos Group President John Fratamico. “The program successfully demonstrated that fusing multiple sources of intelligence effectively in near real-time is a significant force enabler.”
The AFRL Blue Devil is a follow-on to the Angel Fire electro-optical sensor operational program. After a successful evaluation of the military utility of this integrated, multi-INT set of wide area, video, and SIGINT surveillance technologies, the Blue Devil program transitioned from a test and evaluation program to an operations and maintenance mission support program.
Blue Devil contributions were highlighted and recognized by supported end-users in various mission areas such as battle preparation, force protection, identifying improvised explosive device events and monitoring areas for activity.
The innovation of the Blue Devil system is the output of all of these sensors coming together in a single site for exploitation by a single team of multi-disciplined analysts using a common visualization application and a common set of analytical aids. While the characteristics of the advanced sensor technology are distinctive, it is the teamwork that led to innovation.
“The Blue Devil team were problems solvers working together in the same room and, when faced with challenges, were able to implement innovative and timely solutions resulting in mission success. The unique capability of the MULTI-INT sensor technology and the lessons learned will continue to be leveraged by Air Force leaders for long-term planning of future ISR programs,” said Michael Zywien, vice president and senior program manager at Leidos.
