U.S. Army Yuma Proving Ground (YPG) is at the forefront of Army and Joint Force modernization efforts.
Conducting developmental testing of the Army’s most cutting-edge systems requires a staggering array of high-tech equipment to record, quantify, and verify performance.
From radars and acoustic scoring systems to high-speed cameras and specialized weather-measuring equipment, the YPG Instrumentation Division’s equipment enables testers to collect the data Army decision makers need regarding weapons systems under evaluation.
“Every piece of instrumentation serves a unique role and is part of accomplishing the mission,” said Jason Swain, Instrumentation Division Chief. “Depending on what the test is and what kind of data they’re looking for, we could use a variety of types of instrumentation. For long-range tests, there are more instrumentation requirements that come along with it: everything from geodetics and surveying at the gun position, to sensors on the weapon system itself, to high-speed cameras, to downrange radars and optical tracking mounts and telemetry.”
Now in his 23rd year working at the proving ground, the Oregon native got his first job here using the website Monster.com.
“I had never heard of Yuma,” he recalled. “I had a geographic filter set that included Arizona, and that’s where it popped up.”
During the first 18 years of his time here he worked for the post’s largest contractor in telemetry, and saw technology evolve across the years.
“It’s getting more and more complex every day. It’s amazing how personal computers have proliferated and how much that is incorporated into instrumentation in general. More of it is run by software versus hardware.”
During the multiweek Project Convergence 21, for instance, YPG gathered scores of terabytes of data and provided dozens of live video feeds of various parts of the range that were watched by hundreds of people in real time. The entire instrumentation effort took well over 100 YPG personnel to accomplish.
“It was a challenge, for sure,” Swain said.
YPG relies on multiple radars to gather test data on a variety of systems under test. The largest of the proving ground’s fleet is a MPS-25 radar that sports a 12 foot dish and puts out one million watts of peak power. Remarkably, it has been a denizen of YPG’s ranges since 1976, and was originally designed for use by NASA in 1958. This well-maintained system still excels at tracking a single object, but supporting tests of modern weapons systems capable of firing hundreds of sub-munitions exceeds its capabilities. The Range Radar Replacement Program has been gradually replacing YPG’s aging fleet with modern radars more suited to future test items.
“We’re still maintaining those older assets as they are being replaced by the newer ones,” said Swain. “The majority of our systems will be very new here within the next couple of years, giving us more capabilities and better quality of the track. There will be more power to put on a specific target and track multiple targets at the same time, which will give us more capabilities for future missions we haven’t supported yet.”
Social Sharing