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September 2013 Volume 11, Issue 6
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GEOSPATIAL INTELLIGENCE FORUM Features
September 2013 Volume 11, Issue 6
Cover / Q&A
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Cow-Tipping
Eye on Africa
When regions in Africa and elsewhere rise to the level of U.S. national security interest, ISR assets are often well placed to observe activity. However, those assets have traditionally been tasked to collect and report on narrow data points and observables focused on one subset of human actor within the area—the adversary—rather than garnering a broader understanding of all the key population groups. By Faye L. Cuevas
Seeking to highlight its expanding array of analytical services, satellite imagery powerhouse DigitalGlobe has unveiled a website devoted to geospatial analysis of the continent of Africa. The site includes an interactive map of Africa, allowing site visitors to explore DigitalGlobe’s work in a specific country of interest or select only a certain type of analysis. By Harrison Donnelly
17 General Keith Alexander
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Full motion video quality is steadily improving and FMV coverage expanding. But the sheer volume of FMV and complementary sensor data must be managed, and FMV resources are now so large that tools or people need help in selecting files for actual viewing. So while some technologies are dramatically increasing the potential usefulness of FMV, other technologies and common standards are still needed. By Henry Canaday
The proliferation of sensor technologies and other intelligence capabilities in recent years is adding urgency to the quest for a multi-intelligence approach that allows analysts and commanders to combine data from a variety of sources, both real time and non-temporal, to enable decisions to be made on a timely basis. By Peter Buxbaum
National GeospatialIntelligence Agency maps and reward-providing “blood chits” help downed pilots and other isolated warfighters survive and navigate back to friendly territory. The chart, known as an EVC, and chit are produced by NGA in partnership with the Department of Defense Joint Personnel Recovery Agency. By Kathi Ghannam
Tapping FMV’s Riches
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Vice President of Strategy and Business Development General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems
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Commander U.S. Cyber Command Director National Security Agency Chief Central Security Service
“We keep seeing cyberexploitation of American companies and enterprises, and huge amounts of intellectual property being stolen. There are foreign governments targeting the data of American enterprises and citizens….” — Gen. Keith Alexander
EDITOR’S PERSPECTIVE
Geospatial Intelligence Forum Volume 11, Issue 6 • September 2013
The Magazine of the National Intelligence Community Editorial
Managing Editor Harrison Donnelly harrisond@kmimediagroup.com Online Editorial Manager Laura Davis laurad@kmimediagroup.com Copy Editors Sean Carmichael seanc@kmimediagroup.com Laural Hobbes lauralh@kmimediagroup.com Correspondents Peter A. Buxbaum • Cheryl Gerber William Murray • Karen E. Thuermer
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Like generations of American schoolchildren, my perspective on the continent of Africa was originally shaped by the Mercator Projection. Once ubiquitous on classroom walls, the Mercator Projection is a way of drawing a world map that substantially enlarges land masses in the Northern Hemisphere, while shrinking those near and below the Equator— notoriously, making Greenland appear to be larger than the whole of South America. Although you don’t see Mercator maps much anymore, they definitely implanted in the minds of people now of a certain age the idea that Africa was not a very big place, and kind of tangential to the mainstream of Harrison Donnelly world events. Editor As the map on my wall today makes clear, however, Africa is actually the second-largest continent, and also the second-most populous. To be sure, it faces huge environmental, health, economic and political challenges, including the recent turmoil in Egypt. But the wealth of its natural resources and the vibrancy of its people are sure to make it a major force in world affairs in the future, as well as a critical arena for superpower competition. The world is paying closer attention to Africa, and the geospatial and intelligence communities are following suit. As readers will see in this issue of GIF, DigitalGlobe has launched a website devoted to GEOINT analysis and satellite imagery of the continent. Another article argues that Africa is just the sort of place to inspire innovative thinking about the relationship between ISR data and local knowledge about people and places. In light of this, I was disappointed to see news reports that the Pentagon was considering ending the six-year-old U.S. Africa Command, instead dividing the continent between CENTCOM and EUCOM. Given the financial situation facing the Department of Defense, I’m not going to second-guess anyone’s ideas for cutting costs without manifestly endangering national security. But the loss of AFRICOM would be an unfortunate symbol at the very least.
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PROGRAM NOTES
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DoD Revamps GEOINT Training Policy Reflecting the growing needs for geospatial intelligence training throughout the military and intelligence communities, the Department of Defense has issued new policy guidelines that underscore the key role of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency’s National Geospatial-Intelligence College (NGC). Issued this summer by Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence Michael G. Vickers, the DoD instruction calls on the military services to provide GEOINT training under the guidance of NGA and the intelligence office. It also provides for establishment of the Community Geospatial-Intelligence Training Council to act as an advisory body on training issues. The NGC, which already provides GEOINT training for thousands of military and civilian personnel each year, would be designated as “the GEOINT training and educational institution of NGA.” The college offers academically oriented instruction from facilities in St. Louis, Mo., Springfield, Va., and other sites. Among other requirements, the new standards call on the NGC to establish and maintain American Council on Michael G. Vickers Education academic accreditation for courses, thus enabling students to receive full academic credit. The advisory panel, comprising representatives of the services, the National System for Geospatial-Intelligence, and coalition allies, will assess GEOINT training and offer suggestions for realigning programs to improve access to training and consolidate redundant activities.
PEOPLE The list of Army colonels recently nominated for appointment to the rank of brigadier general includes Colonel Patricia A. Frost, who is currently serving as assistant chief of staff, G-3, U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command. The list of Navy rear admirals (lower half) recently nominated for appointment to the rank of rear admiral include Rear Admiral (lower half) Paul B. Becker, who is currently serving as director for intelligence, J2, U.S. Pacific Command. Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Michael Strange, an information operations operator, and Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Jared Day, a tactical communicator, have been posthumously awarded the National Intelligence Medal of Valor. Both men were assigned within naval special operations when they were killed August 6, 2011, in Afghanistan in a
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helicopter crash following a rocket-propelled grenade attack. Twenty-eight other Americans, eight Afghans and a military working dog were also killed in the accident, which caused the largest single loss of American life during the Afghanistan campaign and the greatest single loss of life ever suffered by the U.S. special operations community.
assess, shape and capture new business opportunities across targeted growth areas. Pixia, a provider of highperformance scalable large data access solutions, has hired Gary Newgaard as vice president of U.S. federal sales. Newgaard recently served as director, federal sales for EMC Isilon. Jill Tummler Singer has joined Deep Water Point, a business navigator for federal contractors, as partner. She previously served as chief information officer for the National Reconnaissance Office.
Krisstie Kondrotis
Northrop Grumman has appointed Krisstie Kondrotis as vice president, business development, for the company’s Information Systems Sector, where she will be responsible for leading the sector’s business development efforts to identify,
Lockheed Martin has selected Rob Weiss as executive vice president and general manager of aeronautics advanced development programs, also known as the Skunk Works. His most recent experience was in leading advanced strike and ISR programs for Lockheed Martin Aeronautics.
Frederick Turnman
NJVC has hired Frederick Turman as vice president, program management, where he will oversee the company’s team of program managers to effectively execute customer programs and projects with established processes that meet industry standards for consistent and high-quality performance. Turman most recently was NGA acting west senior executive, working on strategic agency objectives related to business and mission continuity, personnel, facilities, security, corporate relations and planning.
GIF 11.6 | 3
PROGRAM NOTES
Compiled by KMI Media Group staff
Cloud Supports Geospatial Data Sharing in Crises An industry-government team has begun testing the use of an open cloud computing infrastructure to quickly collect, store and share geospatial information to assist emergency responders in a disaster situation. The Network Centric Operations Industry Consortium (NCOIC) contracted with six of its member-companies—The Aerospace Corporation, Boeing, NJVC, Raytheon, Telos and Winthrop Management Services—to produce a real-time simulation for the National GeospatialIntelligence Agency. Using unclassified NGA information, the team is depicting a global, multidisciplinary response similar to the one that took place after the 2010 Haitian earthquake. The effort is designed to confirm interoperability and show how different technologies and data sources from a variety of organizations can support a unified mission. The six companies taking part in the NCOIC Geospatial Community Cloud Concept Demonstration are providing technical applications and services that an international disaster response force could use within a cloud operating environment to efficiently move critical geospatial data and thus meet a wide range of needs. They are also serving as “actors” within the simulation, portraying military, government and civilian response teams from several different countries in order to demonstrate end-user capabilities.
“Each country in the simulation has its own unique communications sensitivities. So an important measure of the success of our environment will be the ability to work within those requirements and protect their data,” said Tip Slater, NCOIC director of business development. The community cloud infrastructure was defined and built earlier this year, and issues including ownership, security, access, bandwidth, latency and portability were addressed in its design. The three-month test phase began in June and will conclude in late summer with a demonstration and report to the NGA. NJVC’s role in the project, for example, is to provide the platform-as-a-service (PaaS) element of a cloud-computing-based humanitarian assistance and disaster response data exchange demonstration. A combined technology solution, known as GeoCloud, will provide trusted connectivity between multiple independent vendor cloud services through the use of this open platform. GeoCloud also will create a virtual organization of response teams so members can easily access critical geospatial data in support of their intertwined missions on a pick-and-choose basis and consume that data on demand. NJVC will leverage its Cloudcuity PaaS to integrate various apps to support the needs of a diverse population of international disaster first
responders into a common complex humanitarian disaster (CHD) management operating environment. In this implementation, the Cloudcuity PaaS extends and complements the Google Maps Engine development PaaS platform. Google will provide massively scalable, critical geospatial data and mapping services to the demonstration participants. The cloud-based Google Maps Engine product lets users create, share, publish and view (via a browser or Google Earth client) purpose-built maps to address key CHD mission requirements. When needed, Google Earth Server will provide an offline geospatial visualization capability on laptops, tablets and smartphones. These technologies will provide participants the ability to use a familiar technology, with the same user experience as Google Earth and Google Maps, to easily exchange geospatial information and data within near-real-time operational constraints. “Through the cohesive PaaS solution to be delivered by NJVC, first responders will have access to the cloud services that they need— whenever and wherever they need them—and all disaster response activities will be managed from one secure interface,” said Kevin L. Jackson, vice president and general manager, NJVC cloud services. “GeoCloud is the glue to bond disparate apps into one powerful virtual community for first responders.”
GEOINT Companies Make Major Moves Two major companies in the geospatial intelligence field have made public significant changes in their business operations. TerraGo, a global provider of location intelligence software solutions, recently announced the appointment of Chris Broderick as president and chief executive officer. The TerraGo board of directors named Broderick to manage the company’s continued growth and scale operations as part of a strategic development plan, following a successful round of growth financing. A software industry veteran with a proven track record at early stage companies, Broderick brings to TerraGo more than 15 years of executive leadership managing companies along the growth curve. He was most recently the chief executive officer of GroupLogic, which was acquired by Acronis in 2012. Along with Broderick’s appointment, TerraGo has relocated its corporate headquarters to Washington, D.C., to improve collaboration and optimize support for the company’s strategically important defense and intelligence customer base. TerraGo’s existing offices in Atlanta and Los Angeles will remain engineering centers of excellence. 4 | GIF 11.6
“TerraGo’s future success requires not only new growth capital, but also new leadership with proven strategic and operational experience,” said TerraGo Chairman Dave Ellison. “I am confident that Chris is the right leader to guide the next phase of the company’s growth, while maintaining the excellence in customer service and product innovation for which TerraGo is known.” Earlier, CACI International announced Chris Broderick that it would strategically align its geospatial capabilities by expanding offerings, consolidating production facilities and tailoring capabilities to market dynamics and future needs. CACI’s core geospatial capabilities will be reinforced within its facility in Fort Collins, Colo., following the closure of its facilities in Wooster, Ohio. The company has also made significant investments in its new facility in St. Louis to strengthen interaction with and support for the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. www.GIF-kmi.com
New technology is boosting the potential of full motion video, but new methods also are needed to take full advantage of it. By Henry Canaday GIF Correspondent
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In one sense, full motion video (FMV) is about as rich as it gets for intelligence analysis, showing actual moving pictures of places of interest of even adversaries. FMV quality is steadily improving and FMV coverage expanding. But riches bring challenges. The sheer volume of FMV and complementary sensor data must be managed, and FMV resources are now so large that tools or people need help in selecting files for actual viewing. So while some technologies are dramatically increasing the potential usefulness of
FMV, other technologies and common standards are still needed in order to turn that potential into truly better intelligence. “I come at ISR/FMV convergence from an interoperability perspective,� observed Thomas Conway, senior engineer for the project manager for night vision/reconnaissance, surveillance and target acquisition at the Army Program Executive Office for Intelligence, Electronic Warfare and Sensors. “FMV is only one of many sensor tools that need to come together for a more comprehensive collection, storage, dissemination
GIF 11.6 | 5
Conway acknowledged the need for considerably more bandwidth to make that practical, but likened the bandwidth challenge to the physical logistics of using a given road system: “Some roads are lousy and can’t be changed, so we manage it. We can’t send all the FMV continuously, but we can be smart about using what bandwidth may be available at a given time and place and set priorities.” On the issue of using FMV effectively while improving interoperability and reducing information overload, “The technology piece is absolutely doable, and I am optimistic,” he said. “The Army always seems to get it right in the end.”
High-Definition Sensors
Combining iSpatial with Ubiquity allows solders to be alerted that full motion video is being generated or has recently been generated. [Image courtesy of Thermopylae Sciences + Technology]
and retrieval of the sensor data so that it all can be brought together in a meaningful way.” As a result, Conway said, he has two major aims in exploiting FMV and other data sources: interoperability and reducing the information overload, especially on tactical ISR users. Interoperability is improving, but sensors are proliferating and creating more demand for data. “Efficient dissemination is key to enable better sharing, including getting the right information to the right user to help avoid information overload.” “FMV came to the fore in Iraq and Afghanistan for intelligence and base defense and continued to evolve in theater,” Conway noted. “Now it is in transition as the Army wants to make it more organic.” A 2011 Army acquisition memorandum called for a common operating environment (COE) for this field. The COE is an approved set of computing technologies and standards that enable secure and interoperable applications to be developed and executed rapidly across a variety of computing environments (CE). As the lead for the sensor computing environment under the COE, Conway works closely with vendors, and wants to use commercial standards and technologies as much 6 | GIF 11.6
as possible to continue down this path toward evolving FMV, again in the broader interoperability picture. The technological linchpin for interoperability is a service oriented architecture, which can help achieve this goal by focusing on sensor data services and not forcing specific sensor formats. “But we must do systems engineering first. Each sensor program is at its own point in the acquisition process, and we have to be fair and judicial in how the sensor CE recommendations are implemented,” said Conway. PEO IEW&S also is seeking automated sensor data fusion and processing. “We want to be able to automatically bring together all types of sensors, not just FMV,” Conway said. “We want to be able to combine information from different sensors up front before operators or analysts get it.” This requires, but goes well beyond interoperability, he noted, adding, “We need tools to process and correlate it.” Storage can also be a major FMV challenge. Conway sees a need for pre-processing, so that only important FMV data is stored or transmitted. Another challenge is connectivity and bandwidth. The Army wants to bring analysis of FMV forward from higher-echelon, fixed installations to the tactical edge such as companies and other small units.
Vendors are also optimistic. David Barton, product manager for FMV at Pixia, said the most important technology in improving FMV is the high-definition (HD) sensors that are now being fielded. Some HD sensors can deliver multiple uncompressed HD feeds using high-definition serial digital interfaces at data rates of 1.3 gigabits per second, per feed. Analysts can use HD FMV to gain more precise intelligence. In addition, HD reduces false positives in automated analysis of activity based intelligence (ABI). Upgrades increase FMV quality and color, but also data volume and required bandwidth. Systems that process, exploit and disseminate (PED) FMV will require more processing horsepower. So PED systems must be highly scalable and enable open high-performance data access. Generally, as sensors improve, processing, storage and dissemination must evolve to meet growing volumes. “Systems in the FMV data loop must focus on performance, and not just for one or two FMV feeds. Infrastructure to access hundreds of FMV feeds is rapidly becoming available,” Barton explained, adding that storing and accessing these big-data volumes will be critical. The special operations community has been a leader in fielding HD FMV, and Barton expects that conventional military units will soon start integrating HD sensors into programs of record. Moreover, satellite and terrestrial data links for transporting FMV are increasing in capacity. Technologies that collect and store FMV data with their sensors and allow remote access will become more prevalent www.GIF-kmi.com
as the U.S. reduces its forward footprint and data volumes explode, he said. The big hurdles to all this happening, however, remain data access and interoperability. “Standards exist for FMV transport, file format and content structure, but not for accessing FMV in an interoperable manner,” Barton said. “Manually copying an FMV clip from one system to another is inefficient and will not scale. Lack of open-standard interfaces that let FMV systems communicate with each other is a major hurdle.” Pixia’s HiPER Watch provides a highly scalable archive with intelligence search capabilities for standard definition, HD and uncompressed FMV. HiPER Watch has an open application programming interface, the foundation for interoperability, and the company has been very active on standards. In five years, Barton expects further progress in automating PED. Although humans will still be needed to approve or groom products, Barton foresees FMV analysts becoming more like film editors,
obtaining intelligence from images, FMVderived mosaic imagery and ABI alerts. In addition, FMV analysis will be enhanced with mission-specific socio-cultural expertise. Danny Proko, vice president of U.S. government and defense at 2d3 Sensing, sees the top current FMV technology trends as being object tracking, near real-time 3-D scene reconstruction for mission planning, common ABI data models, and geo-registration of FMV to an accurate digital elevation model for targeting. Proko said he anticipates that future disruptive technologies will identify and index events, places, people and context of FMV with much greater accuracy to assist PED. Unless identification improves, analysts will continue being flooded with false positives, he warned. “Analysts don’t trust or use it, and a bad ROI gets even worse.” One hurdle to progress is the lack of common semantics to label events, places and people and describe their context. Proko seeks commonality across U.S.
agencies and its close allies, all of which would be within a trusted security infrastructure. The case involving Edward Snowden, who allegedly made public large amounts of secret information obtained while serving as an intelligence community contract employee, may have slowed progress toward sharing. Still, he added, “There are too many data enclaves on too many networks to obtain optimal sharing and collaboration on high-value targets.” Proko sees advances in combining sensor capabilities for ABI, but urges that platforms and sensors be designed around the information actually needed by intelligence analysts, and that PED experts be involved in this design. Proko would also like to see if proprietary algorithms can reduce the 20- to 30-percent false-positive rate of automated tracking.
Storage Issues Some observers say that better storage may actually come from older rather than new technology.
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GIF 11.6 | 7
apart. He helped develop processing “We make storage virtualization softtools that detected changes to tip or ware,” said Steve Atkinson, director of cue higher-resolution images with more federal sales at Front Porch Digital, who detailed temporal coverage. argued that there is no need to keep all “That’s where FMV comes in,” Knize video data on spinning disks. “Power explained. “It is not feasible to do perrequirements alone are prohibitive. You sistent surveillance on a wide area with can put it on disks or tape—on the media 32-frame-per-second, high-definition that is right for that level of data.” cameras. The cameras are available, but Front Porch demonstrated to one cusbackend storage can’t store tomer that storing 30 petthat amount of data.” abytes on running disks For FMV itself, Knize cost $330,000 per year in points to research now power alone. The same being done in several amount of data could be domains. First, researchers stored on tapes for $2,200 are trying to find ways for per year. sensors to retain high-res“Cost savings are huge,” olution images, but reduce Atkinson said. “With all the the bandwidth required for new data coming in, there is the same amount of infortoo much data to store it all Steve Atkinson mation. They are looking the same way. We do nearat compression techniques line, not online storage.” using JPEG 2000 and Atkinson also noted that streaming to make that there is not enough bandpossible. width to transport all video “Downlink bandwidth data back and forth elecon a lot of platforms is tronically. “So we do both pretty low,” Knize noted. electronic and physical “It’s like trying to transmit transport. The high-value high resolution over, if you stuff gets there electroniare lucky, a 3G network. cally, while low-value video There are lots of dropped is put on physical media A.J. Clark frames and it degrades over and transported physically.” time.” This hybrid approach Thermopylae works on FMV after both saves money and solves the bandcompression and downlink. “Our domain width problem. “Never underestimate is about how you store FMV, and how you the bandwidth of Federal Express,” he make it easy to search a large volume suggested. of video on a desktop,” Knize explained. Electronic transport could be used for mission-critical video, for example, “when the bad guys are active,” Atkinson explained. “But lots of time there is no activity—even bad guys sleep. You can send that physically.” Atkinson admits all this is not new technology, but rather an old approach turned to new uses. “We are on the trajectory from terabytes to petabytes to exabytes. We will be there in five years.” One federal agency is already using the Front Porch approach, and others are looking at it, Atkinson reported.
“How do analysts get web displays when they are moving around? How do we process that data and what techniques do we use for change detection?” Thermopylae has developed algorithms that look for changes that occur in video frames taken seconds apart, rather than hours apart as was the case for static satellite images. Crucial to exploitation of FMV have been standards developed by the Motion Imagery Standards Board. Standard video format and fields are necessary so that video can be exchanged and used by many parties. For example, Key-Length-Value is a data-encoding standard for metadata, such as the annotations that analysts put on frames of FMV. “We look at leveraging those standards,” Knize said. “We take advantage of standard formats to deliver FMV on the web so it can be used by any software like Google Earth, and analysts do not need hours of training on new desktop software.” Thermopylae’s iSpatial software delivers geographically tagged FMV and other data. “All the person has to do is use a standard web browser, log in, hit a URL and run a query over an area, asking ‘What do I have for this?’” Knize explained. FMV tagged for that location will be immediately available, along with annotations made by intelligence analysts. Behind the scenes, Thermopylae is also focusing on storing the massive amounts of FMV data being collected. It is researching a non-relational indexing
Processing Tools Nicholas Knize, chief scientist at Thermopylae Sciences + Technology, recalled once working with low-resolution static satellite images, taken hours 8 | GIF 11.6
Thermopylae Sciences + Technology offers iSpatial software, which delivers geographically tagged full motion video and other data. [Image courtesy of Thermopylae Sciences + Technology]
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strategy for organizing high-dimension, heterogeneous data, and has a program for matching up all kinds of intelligence data, including metadata and wide-area satellite data. The company is also developing tools that will enable analysts on opposite ends of the globe to collaborate with each other in using FMV. A.J. Clark, president of Thermopylae, emphasized the importance of bringing FMV analysis to tactical operations in real time. “We have been working with Army G-2 to change the paradigm, to enable the user on the battlefield to do on-the-spot analysis and obtain situational awareness via smartphone technology,” he said. This requires tying FMV sensors to networks and then to the mobile devices carried by warfighters. Thermopylae has developed Ubiquity, a mobile application service framework that enables users to obtain and create location-specific functions. Users easily obtain different applications and components that change based on what they are doing, where they are, what time it is and other factors smart phones can sense. For example, combining iSpatial with Ubiquity would allow soldiers to be alerted that FMV is being generated, or has recently been generated, on the exact territory they are entering. Easy dragand-drop widgets allow users to add functions, for example a map of the territory on the bottom of the screen while FMV plays on the top, without programming skills. Ubiquity is planned for demonstration of its ISR capabilities at one of the Army’s upcoming Network Integration Evaluations.
Intelligence Integration Integration remains crucial. “The biggest thing going on right now is not how to use FMV, but how to use all the different types of intelligence data together,” observed Michael Grochol, director of SOCOM programs at TransVoyant. “Lots of companies out there are working on how to ingest data in real time. But these data do not come in real time, they have to be processed. And when you have it, you have to analyze it and make the best decisions. That is where the industry is going.” Grochol recalled his own days flying airborne ISR missions, and how he www.GIF-kmi.com
Unmanned aerial vehicles are among the key platforms used to obtain full motion video. In this photo, a Scan Eagle UAV launches from the Navy Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren test range. Officials from the Office of Naval Research, Naval Expeditionary Combat Command and other military commands used the 2008 test to confirm the ability of the Navy Expeditionary Overwatch system, which deployed a UAV to detect and engage adversaries. [U.S. Navy photo by John F. Williams/released]
watched and processed images—for example, what type of observed actions meant that an IED was being set up. “You have to know when to watch it, when something is going to happen, or when something has just happened,” he said, adding that it is best to use non-FMV data to decide when to watch. Other intelligence sources that can trigger close scrutiny of FMV include Ground Moving Target Indicator radar, synthetic aperture radar and signals intelligence. Scrutiny might be automated, but ground commanders may not want to rely on automated interpretation. “We would like to automate this, but it is not good enough for combat if you have errors. There are many algorithms to look at FMV and tell if it needs to be looked at by a person. They are good, but not good enough,” Grochol said. Automation will probably not be sufficient for combat needs within the next couple of years, he predicted, adding, “It’s going to take quite a while to automate that.” A true paradigm shift will come when intelligence managers optimize platforms and networks for the limited amount of bandwidth they have, Grochol suggested. “How can we use on-board processing to send down just the right amount of intel?
The technology to do this is already here, we just need to implement it. We need systems engineers that are operators and vice versa.” Moreover, it is crucial to understand which forms of intelligence should go on a timeline, Grochol said, citing the ABI initiative of Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. “Which information should be combined to discern an outcome? Waiting several hours to combine dozens of data sources can determine a pattern, but not soon enough for the battlefield. We have to decide what we need and what we can do without.” Intelligence analysis requires taking time and doing it right, so it does not need to be done over. “Technology today enables almost everything on our wish list,” Grochol noted. “We just need to slow down and do the systems engineering necessary to achieve it.” O
For more information, contact GIF Editor Harrison Donnelly at harrisond@kmimediagroup.com or search our online archives for related stories at www.gif-kmi.com.
GIF 11.6 | 9
A multi-intelligence approach allows analysts and commanders to combine data from a variety of sources to enable decisions. By Peter Buxbaum GIF Correspondent The proliferation of sensor technologies and other intelligence capabilities in recent years is adding urgency to the quest for a multi-intelligence approach that allows analysts and commanders to combine data from a variety of sources, both real time and non-temporal, to enable decisions to be made on a timely basis. Today’s U.S. military is involved in the full spectrum of operations, perhaps performing a military operation on Monday while engaging in a civil or humanitarian mission on Tuesday. Multi-INT is ideally suited to this new constellation of demands, by enabling warfighters to better understand their adversaries and local populations and discern patterns of life that can help them better anticipate actions, problems and situations. The multi-INT approach seeks correlations and connections among traditional sources of intelligence, such as
10 | GIF 11.6
radar, signal intelligence, human intelligence, imagery, and communications intelligence, as well as newer sources such as full motion video, commercial space imagery, LiDAR, hyperpectral imagery, and cyber intelligence. Websites and social media networks have also been joining the mix of late. The implementation of multi-INT remains is still an early-adopter phenomenon, but military and industry organizations alike are developing capabilities that will likely enjoy widespread adoption in coming years. “Multi-INT includes any form of intelligence that can be aggregated and assimilated to provide a better understanding of what the disparate forms of intelligence don’t provide on their own,” said Mike Manzo, director of motion imagery solutions at General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems (GD-AIS).
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lessons of the Arab Spring. All communications were shut down “While the predominant multi-INT approach involves the except for cell phones. There was a lot going on with Twitter real-time digitization of the spectrum, there is also a place for offthat provided an understanding of what was [happening] on the board, temporally disconnected data, information that you might ground. When this sort of information is married with traditional have ahead of time to fill out the texture,” said John Kelly, direcintelligence sources, you can begin to better infer what is happentor of Advanced ISR Solutions at BAE Systems. ing or is going to happen.” “Multi-INT includes any information that allows you to establish relationships between people, places, things and events,” said Jim Dolan, senior vice president Profusion of Sensors and general manager of Overwatch Geospatial Solutions. “You have to take a view of all forms of The technologies that enable a multi-INT information, classified and unclassified, as well as approach include the many sensors available to open source public records, in addition to tradithe military and intelligence communities, but the tional sources of data and imagery.” list does not end there. Emerging cloud computing “All relevant intelligence data may prove useful infrastructures, along with advanced data crunchnot only in a traditional single-source collection, ing and searching capabilities, are able to tie data but in a complementary multi-source intelligence from different sources together and generate inferanalysis,” said Erik Blasch, a program manager at ences from them. Mike Manzo the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), which is “The multi-INT mentality comes from the proactively researching this area. “Various INTs, when fusion of sensors,” said Kelly. “The abundance of combined and spanning different operations, could different sensor types deployed over the last 10 provide answers to mission questions, coordinate years on tactical theater aircraft has led people to further single-source collections, and/or provide connect data from sensors that can’t be put on a understanding over the data available.” single platform. Sensors abound, so that is not difficult to monitor and understand various parts of the spectrum.” Understanding Behaviors Bundling sensors on a single platform reduces costs, thanks to size, weight and power cuts and a Intelligence sources are combined to develop reduction in the amount of manpower required for a picture that provides intelligence based on the a given mission. “We are also enabling missions, activities of adversaries and others and not merely John Kelly such as ad hoc target discovery, that were not preon the basis of the static location of particular eleviously possible,” said Kelly. “By adding additional ments at a point in time. “It is no longer enough to sensors and a radio-frequency geolocation capabiltake an overhead image of a still target and have ity, we can know how to optimize the flight path analysts write notes,” said Dolan. “You have to be of an aircraft to gain better understandings of fixed able to understand behaviors and deployment pracand mobile entities. This significantly reduces the tices of adversaries to predict where they are going time required to discover targets so that they can next. It’s no longer a static proposition.” be tracked that much faster.” All of this information is tied together in a geoBeyond sensors, the developments advancspatial context. “Understanding geospatial contexts ing multi-INT capabilities include persistent surallows you to optimize collection capabilities and veillance, natural language processing and big maximize your own ability to coordinate you own analytics, according to Blasch. “Persistent surveilmovements and actions,” said Kelly. lance, such as wide-area motion imagery, enables “You need to understand the spatial aspect of Jim Dolan higher resolution analysis for image intelligence people, places, objects and events as well as the assessment. Natural language processing allows temporal,” said Dolan. “We use geospatial data to for a copious collection and refinement of relevant locate objects and activities. It is a fundamental way information from human-derived sources. The of establishing relationships.” access and storage of collected data enhances masGEOINT provides many attributes for missive analytics such as visual and text analytics.” sion planning, sensor collection, platform rout“What has really exploded in the last two years ing and multi-target tracking, according to Blasch. is cloud computing,” said Manzo. “This has been “Understanding the environment enables more disimportant in breaking down traditional stovepipes criminant analysis over when, how, which, and in the existing system and in providing federated what data to collect and exploit. We actively cooraccess to data and more complete aggregation of dinate with the GEOINT community for multi-INT data. The idea is allow more people access to more fusion.” Erik Blasch systems. This becomes a richer experience for the Online activity is an emerging area of intelentire intelligence community.” ligence and can be integrated into a multi-INT Because of its distributed nature, cloud computing can allow approach. “This involves watching what is going on on places like for more data to be processed at the same time. “The more data Twitter, Facebook and internet forums,” said Manzo. “People are the cloud chews on,” said Manzo, “the greater the reduction in far more open online than they understand. That is one of the www.GIF-kmi.com
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uncertainty and the better decisions. The cloud can be regarded as a force multiplier with regard to how much computing power is available.” The basic opportunity afforded by a multi-INT approach, he added, is in reducing errors in intelligence analysis. Increased amounts of data also “make it more difficult for the enemy to hide,” said Kelly. “The more clues we collect in the battlespace, the better we will be able to detect the footprint of a target, whether static or moving.” With their ability to digest greater volumes of data, cloud computing infrastructures have powered a new generation of inference engines able to offer answers based on patterns of life. For example, if a town typically has its busiest market day on Wednesday, but one Wednesday arrives with few signs of market activity, the inference engine might conclude that an insurgent attack of some other significant event is about to occur. “It may just be that it’s about to rain,” Manzo acknowledged. “You can’t get it right every time, but as systems evolve and data sources become richer, you can reduce the level of uncertainty and develop a more realistic view of what might happen. We’re not there yet, but that is really what multi-INT is all about.” Another example of the opportunities created by multi-INT is in the analysis of tracking vehicles. “Using terrain and 3-D urban maps affords the ability to more accurately know where vehicles are traveling,” said Blasch. “If imagery intelligence exploitation indicates that there is no information on a moving target, the assessment could be that the vehicle has stopped or that the vehicle is still moving but is blocked by a building. Target tracking methods can predict where the target might be, based on patterns of life, traffic routes and vehicle dynamics. Associating the previous vehicle movement with the emerging movement after coming around a building is more easily accomplished with 3-D urban modeling.”
Fusion Analysis The AFRL’s initiative, known as Planning & Direction, Collection, Processing & Exploitation, Analysis & Production, and Dissemination eXperimentation (PCPAD-X), has two main thrusts, according to Blasch: “development activity producing novel multi-INT capabilities for emerging Air Force needs, and an objective assessment activity scrutinizing candidate INT tools with respect to the capabilities desired.” Among PCPAD-X’s components, the Sensors Directorate COMPASE (COMPrehensive Assessment of Sensor Exploitation) center develops government-owned algorithms. The Human Effectiveness Analyst Testbed serves as a location for multi-INT evaluation. The Information Directorate Fusion Testbed is the venue for multi-INT fusion analysis. Other AFRL initiatives include the investment “in novel solutions for intelligent agents to determine which, when, and how data should be utilized,” said Blasch. 12 | GIF 11.6
GD-AIS offers Cardinal Point, a multi-INT capability for maritime domain awareness. Cardinal Point fuses billions of data points from maritime sensors, such as the Automatic Identification System and coastal radars, along with text-based data related to the maritime picture, including photographic and geospatial information, to automatically identify anomalies on vessels, cargo, people and related maritime infrastructure. Some other systems focus on locating or tracking only one category of potential maritime threats, such as vessels, Manzo noted. “Cardinal Point holistically fuses and proactively identifies information across the spectrum of maritime anomalies, resulting in a more timely, relevant and integrated picture. Cardinal Point also provides users with the ability to tap into historical data to help confirm the highest-priority threats.” Cardinal Point is built on a service-oriented architecture that enables users to quickly insert new data sources and features. “By automatically fusing vast amounts of sensory and text-based information, Cardinal Point finds anomalies involving vessels, cargo, people and other entities,” said Manzo, “making it easier for to confirm threats and take appropriate action.” Overwatch is also responding to the new needs and opportunities of the market. “We have a longstanding tradition of providing geospatial intelligence and analytic visualization for over 15 years,” said Dolan. “We have recognized the need to address the greater variety of motion imagery sensors and have engineered products to address the emergence of these new sensors.” Because there have been shifts in the areas of interest, for example, Overwatch has reset some of its capabilities related to the analysis and visualization of radar imagery. “Some areas of world rely heavily on synthetic aperture radar [SAR],” said Dolan. “We have added new capabilities to allow users to be more effective in analyzing SAR imagery.” Unlike other radars that send out beams of energy and receive reflections that appear as blips on a screen, SAR systems range for a period of time across a target area, producing a two-dimensional image. Overwatch has also produced tools that correlate different forms of intelligence data. “It’s great to say you can intercept signal intelligence,” said Dolan. “But it may be even more important to know where the emitter is located by viewing imagery and discerning patterns of life.” “The area we are focusing on now is in building knowledge through the processing, exploitation and dissemination model,” said Kelly. “We are working with thought leaders and early adopters, have demonstrated our capabilities to them, and work with them to develop products tailored to their requirements. Users of our multi-INT products get a geospatially registered understanding of fixed and mobile entities in the battlespace with the ability to quickly dive down to related supporting intelligence. They get a much more holistic understanding of what is there.” www.GIF-kmi.com
Open Source Data Looking ahead, Blasch sees open-source INT data (OSINT) and activity-based intelligence to continue to grow in importance. “Examples from Haiti to Egypt have demonstrated the use of OSINT to aid in civil protection,” he said. “Detecting and recognizing activities requires focused or discovery-based activity categorization by assessing movement or changes that require subsequent characterization of meaning.” The Air Force is seeking multi-INT solutions to augment users in their mission accomplishment. “Displays, interfaces and diagnostics are critical to user refinement of the data,” said Blasch. “Future advancements in analytics, information fusion, and production will aid in user refinement capabilities, consistency of information, and continuity of products.” Over the next five years, Kelly sees multi-INT emerging from the realm of early adopters to receive widespread implementation across military and intelligence organizations. “We will see the continued decline in the use of proprietary hardware and data,” he said. “No one has the patience for that anymore, and this will enable the entire community to adopt multi-INT.” As hardware becomes commoditized, companies will have to compete based on the quality of their algorithms and the level of their critical thinking. “The commoditization of sensors and the networks that tie them together will lead to a growth in learning in the area of PED,” said Kelly. “Fusion, tracking and sensor
resource management will provide a holistic ability to develop knowledge from the battlespace. Efforts will focus less on building hardware and more about providing solutions and in imagining new ways of combining sensor streams, exploiting data, and anticipating the needs of users.” As information infrastructures become more distributed, there will be a greater opportunity for intelligence users to gain federated access across all forms of intelligence and to have more ubiquitous access to data, according to Manzo. “There are political roadblocks to overcome, but as we move in that direction, the only way to be successful is to get all forms of intelligence to work together and to make data available to all analysts.” For Manzo, the ultimate goal is to develop an activity-based intelligence capability that can operate in real time. “As more cloud infrastructures are rolled across the intelligence community and are allowed to be integrated at whatever level, analysts will be able to look at all the intelligence and learn what is telling them in real time,” he said. “When we get to the point, we will be able to derive intelligence in real time from observing activities, decision makers will be able to make much better decisions, and uncertainty will be reduced.” O
For more information, contact GIF Editor Harrison Donnelly at harrisond@kmimediagroup.com or search our online archives for related stories at www.gif-kmi.com.
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INDUSTRY RASTER Cloud Solutions Operationalize Data from Sensor to Deployment GeoApps from AeroMetric is a new family of geospatial cloud solutions that operationalize geospatial data and services from their acquisition in any sensor through its deployment within the enterprise. GeoApps leverage AeroMetric’s capabilities in collection, processing, and enterprise GIS to transform traditional mapping deliverables into actionable decision-making and operational tools that are integrated in the client’s work environment. AeroMetric GeoApps consist of ongoing service agreements that can include softwareas-a-service, data-asa-service, and support by AeroMetric staff. Currently AeroMetric is conducting pilot programs with select clients in several areas including emergency response, energy infrastructure and environmental applications.
Solution Aids in LiDAR Data Management I-cubed, a specialist in imagery and geospatial content management solutions, has released DataDoors 3.15, featuring cloudbased light detection and ranging (LiDAR) data management and processing. DataDoors 3.15 introduces important advances in support of the growing LiDAR collections of i-cubed’s commercial, civil and military customers. Adding to its LiDAR archive management functionality, DataDoors now provides the ability to extract, combine, reproject, tile and derive interpreted content surfaces from one or multiple LiDAR LAS files. Along with these new capabilities, derivative products such as DSM, DTM, contours and intensity images, can be delivered from DataDoors as a finished product or as a hosted data stream with a range of endpoints optimized for your GIS and CAD applications. This allows end-users the advantage of automatically processing LiDAR to standard derivative products without having to store, host or manage the product locally. Streaming of derivative products is the next logical step, allowing end-users to focus on analysis, rather than storage, management, and processing of data. I-cubed makes this functionality available via an integration with ENVI LiDAR from Exelis Visual Information Solutions, which provides powerful processing capability from raw LiDAR point cloud data. Jeff Dahlke; jdahlke@i3.com
Platform Combines GPU Speed with GEOINT Applications NVIDIA has launched the NVIDIA GeoInt Accelerator, the world’s first GPU-accelerated platform to enable security analysts to find actionable insights quicker and more accurately than ever before from vast quantities of raw data, images and video. The NVIDIA GeoInt Accelerator provides defense and homeland analysts with tools that enable faster processing of high-resolution satellite imagery, facial recognition in surveillance video, combat mission planning using GIS data, and object recognition in video collected by drones. It offers a complete solution consisting of an NVIDIA Tesla GPU accelerated system, software applications for geospatial intelligence analysis and advanced application development libraries. Key applications in the NVIDIA GeoInt Accelerator include: Luciad Lightspeed, providing situational awareness for mission planning by overlaying image, radar, sensor data for line-of-sight analysis; DigitalGlobe, processing more than 3 million square kilometers of highresolution imagery collected daily by 14 | GIF 11.6
satellites; GeoWeb 3D, delivering native 3-D GIS fusion without preprocessing; IntuVision Panoptes, providing object detection and event-driven alerts by processing multiple real-time HD video streams; and NerVve Technologies, which automatically detects objects in images and video streams. George Millington; gmillington@nvidia.com
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Compiled by KMI Media Group staff
Geospatial Content Management System Increases Speed LizardTech, a provider of software solutions for managing and distributing geospatial content, has launched GeoExpress 9. GeoExpress enables geospatial professionals to compress and manipulate satellite and aerial imagery, and the latest version features a significant performance improvement from previous versions. This latest version is four times faster than before, with support for spanning multiple jobs across multiple cores. This increase in speed enables users to complete projects faster than ever before within the application. This release also introduces intelligent encoding, with the software automatically reconfiguring itself for optimal performance. GeoExpress 9 automatically chooses to encode, optimize or update based on the encoding operations that the user chooses, which results in high performance with minimal training. Justyna Bednarski; jbednarski@lizardtech.com
Unified Platform Delivers Actionable Intelligence TerraGo, a provider of location intelligence, geospatial collaboration and field data collection software solutions, has announced the launch of TerraGo Vision, a unified platform that helps customers discover the most relevant information from any source and deliver actionable location intelligence wherever it is needed most. From place-based discovery and monitoring to the automated integration of feature-rich maps, high-resolution imagery and unstructured data, the TerraGo Vision platform addresses the expanding and evolving needs of global intelligence operations. The platform delivers proven software capabilities that are easily integrated by enterprise customers, software OEMs, intelligence providers and system integrators. TerraGo Vision easily adapts to real-life operational scenarios and supports dynamic workflows to meet the most demanding location intelligence requirements of analysts, decision makers, and field personnel across the enterprise. The platform consists of application services, web services/API, developer tools and client software. Renee Wagner; rwagner@terragotech.com www.GIF-kmi.com
UAS Photogrammetric Mapping Solution Debuts Trimble has introduced its next-generation unmanned aircraft system (UAS)—the Trimble UX5 aerial imaging rover with the Trimble Access aerial imaging application. The new solution builds upon the strengths of its predecessor, the Trimble Gatewing X100, to offer enhanced image quality and intuitive workflows. Combined with the Trimble Business Center photogrammetry office software module, the Trimble UX5 is the first complete UAS photogrammetric mapping solution specifically designed for surveyors and geospatial professionals. Trimble’s UAS for photogrammetric aerial mapping allows surveyors and geospatial professionals to collect data with an unmanned aircraft for large projects. A wide variety of traditional surveying applications can now benefit from aerial imaging by allowing professionals to safely collect large amounts of accurate data in a short time. The new Trimble Access aerial imaging application is field software for planning UAS missions, performing flight checks and monitoring flights—all with intuitive workflows. The Trimble UX5 can provide a safer method to collect data compared to traditional surveying methods. Flights are fully automated, from launch to landing, and require no piloting skills. LeaAnn McNabb; leaann_mcnabb@trimble.com
Integrated GIS/Enterprise Applications Improve Decisions SAP and its independent U.S. subsidiary, SAP National Security Services (SAP NS2), have joined forces with Esri to more deeply integrate GIS solutions with platforms and enterprise applications from SAP to improve customers’ speed, efficiency and decision-making. Esri and SAP NS2 are committed to helping U.S. national security and critical infrastructure customers benefit from integration between SAP solutions and Esri’s leading GIS platform. Through co-innovation between SAP and Esri, end-to-end support for spatial data is planned across SAP HANA, the SAP BusinessObjects
business intelligence platform, and SAP Mobile Platform. The companies are aiming to offer organizations the ability to enrich SAP Business Suite applications with geographic content, rapidly process spatial, location and enterprise data using SAP HANA in real time, visualize geographic information in maps, graphs and charts using tools from the SAP BusinessObjects portfolio, and deliver applications for frontline personnel using SAP Mobile Platform. Diane Smiroldo; diane@smiroldocommunications.com
Online Service Links Software and Imagery DigitalGlobe and Esri have announced that ArcGIS Online users will now have access to DigitalGlobe’s Premium Services. The new offering brings expanded geospatial products and solutions to select users of ArcGIS Online on a subscription basis. With this partnership, DigitalGlobe’s Global Basemap, FirstLook and Multispectral Premium Services can now be seamlessly integrated into the workflow of ArcGIS users, allowing them to access the most current imagery and information available directly from the source. The Global Basemap Premium Service provides some of the natural color and panchromatic imagery, available as a cached
tile service with vast coverage of the U.S. and Canada. This service will be regularly updated to reflect new imagery from DigitalGlobe. The FirstLook Premium Service is a disaster and crisis monitoring service populated with imagery when a qualifying event occurs, such as a natural disaster, manmade crisis, political instability, or human interest occurrence. Through this service, users have access to near realtime post-event imagery as well as pre-event imagery for comparison. The Multispectral Premium Service offers access to full resolution multispectral content through an ArcGIS Online interface running on a highly scalable cloud architecture. GIF 11.6 | 15
Cyber Defender
Q& A
Taking a “Whole of Government” Approach to Cybersecurity General Keith B. Alexander Commander, U.S. Cyber Command Director, National Security Agency Chief, Central Security Service Army General Keith B. Alexander is commander, U.S. Cyber Command [USCYBERCOM] and director, National Security Agency/chief, Central Security Service [NSA/CSS]. As commander, USCYBERCOM, he is responsible for planning, coordinating and conducting operations and defense of Department of Defense computer networks as directed by USSTRATCOM. As the director of NSA and chief of CSS, he is responsible for a DoD agency with national foreign intelligence, combat support, and U.S. national security information system protection responsibilities. NSA/CSS civilian and military personnel are stationed worldwide. Alexander was born in Syracuse, N.Y., and entered active duty at the U.S. Military Academy. Previous assignments include deputy chief of staff, Headquarters, Department of the Army; commanding general of Army Intelligence and Security Command; director of intelligence, U.S. Central Command; and deputy director for requirements, capabilities, assessments and doctrine, J-2, for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Alexander has served in a variety of command assignments in Germany and the United States, including tours as commander of Border Field Office, 511th MI Battalion, 66th MI Group; 336th Army Security Agency Company, 525th MI Group; 204th MI Battalion; and 525th MI Brigade. Additionally, Alexander held key staff assignments as deputy director and operations officer, Army Intelligence Master Plan, for the deputy chief of staff for intelligence; S-3 and executive officer, 522nd MI Battalion, 2nd Armored Division; G-2 for the 1st Armored Division both in Germany and Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm in Saudi Arabia. Alexander holds a Bachelor of Science degree from the U.S. Military Academy and a Master of Science degree in business administration from Boston University. Q: General Alexander, let’s start with the foundation. What is the mission of USCYBERCOM, and how does your organization fit with other agencies working cybersecurity in the defense of the nation? A: USCYBERCOM’s mission includes three major lines of effort. First is defense of the nation in cyberspace. We also coordinate and conduct operations in cyberspace in support of the combatant commanders. Finally, we have the continuing effort to operate and defend the DoD Information Network [DoDIN]. We must be prepared to conduct the full spectrum of military cyberspace operations to enable actions in all domains, to ensure our freedom to act in cyberspace and to deny the same to our adversaries. Beyond the USCYBERCOM mission, it takes a ‘whole of government’ approach to protecting our nation’s interests in cyberspace. www.GIF-kmi.com
First is the close working relationship between USCYBERCOM and the National Security Agency. NSA’s technical expertise and unique capabilities to provide intelligence on cyberspace threats are key enablers in accomplishing the USCYBERCOM mission. Similarly, the other members of the intelligence community provide critical information on adversary intentions and capabilities affecting our mission. Our other key mission partner in DoD, the Defense Information Systems Agency [DISA], is key to operating and defending the DoDIN and providing support globally. In addition to our DoD partners, we work closely with the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI, both of which have significant roles in the domestic aspects of protecting the nation in cyberspace. To better accomplish our missions and in keeping with DoD’s strategy for operating in cyberspace, USCYBERCOM and NSA are working together on assisting DoD in five priority areas of effort: building trained and ready cyber-forces; implementing a defensible architecture within DoD; establishing global shared situational awareness to enable action; refining cyberspace command and control and operational concepts; and defining clear rules of engagement, policies and authorities to execute our assigned missions. So, first, building trained and ready cyber-forces: Our nation needs a fully trained, organized and immediately available force to accomplish our missions in cyberspace. We cannot wait until a crisis occurs to begin this essential task. We have established consistent, high standards for educating, training and certifying our personnel, and are working to get those with the right talents, both within DoD and beyond, into these important positions. GIF 11.6 | 17
Above the individual level, we are building a Cyber Mission Force composed of teams collectively organized, trained and certified to operate in our three main mission areas as I stated above. This is providing the highly capable, cohesive forces needed to operate and prevail in cyberspace. Second, a defensible architecture: Today we work to defend an array of disjointed legacy networks that often lack a strong security foundation. It is increasingly difficult for our personnel to provide assured support and counter the scope of modern threats in such indefensible networks. Implementing resilient, data-centric enterprise architectures, engineered from the ground up for defensibility, will serve as a cyberspace force-multiplier and allow for assured support for DoD missions. The Joint Information Environment [JIE] will provide just such a defensible architecture throughout DoD. Third, global shared situational awareness: We need visibility across networks as these are critical to the success of our mission. Ensuring USCYBERCOM and leaders across DoD have a clear, common understanding of the threat environment and what’s happening on our networks will greatly improve our ability to respond and support combatant commanders and national priorities. In a domain with so many complex relationships, we have to be sure that we see the whole picture to coordinate operations globally and counter threats not restricted by agency, service or COCOM areas of responsibility. Fourth, cyberspace command and control and operational concepts: We need to go beyond the technical and tactical level and further refine the operational art for the cyberspace domain. Key to this is defining command and control relationships and integrating cyberspace operations with those in the land, sea, air and space domains, all of which are being worked at the DoD level now. Finally, but not least, as we achieve these priorities, we need clear rules of engagement, policies and authorities in place to accomplish our missions. Cyberspace is a domain that moves at the speed of light; complex command relationships and long approval processes can prevent us from responding in time to counter adversary action. Making this process more streamlined will greatly improve our ability to respond and defend the DoDIN and the nation. Q: Would you elaborate on cyber-forces in addition to what you’ve said in recent testimony and other public forums? How do the Cyber Mission Forces fit into the larger cybersecurity efforts? A: I told the Senate Armed Services Committee last March that U.S. Cyber Command will address these operational focus areas with the Cyber Mission Force [CMF]. The CMF has three main elements: National Mission Teams help defend the nation against national-level threats; Combat Mission Teams will be assigned to the operational control of individual combatant commanders to support their objectives; and Cyber Protection Teams help operate and defend DoD Information Networks. We will also have support teams to provide technical assistance. From the operational perspective, the objective of cybersecurity is to deny the adversary opportunities to exploit and/or attack our systems. That requires us to protect ourselves from known and unknown threats, harden our networks, defend our networks, 18 | GIF 11.6
and leverage all instruments of national power—both inside and outside our own networks. Last December, DoD endorsed the force presentation model we need to implement this new operating concept. Now we are establishing cyber mission teams in line with the principles of task organizing for the joint force. USCYBERCOM is moving forward with a new force structure that will improve DoD’s ability to defend and respond to malicious cyber activity. To summarize, the Cyber Mission Forces are being created to perform three separate mission areas as I outlined prior: defend the nation from a foreign cyber-adversary; support the combatant commanders; and defend and operate DoD Information Networks. This will incorporate roughly 6,000 personnel into teams provided by the services, which will be separate entities from the Cyber Command staff. The goal is to establish one-third of the forces each year until the end of FY15. Q: What challenges do you face in achieving these priorities and objectives you’ve just outlined? A: Our progress only continues if we can train our people to the highest standards. To elaborate on my prior response, we need trained, certified and ready forces. DoD endorsed the force presentation model we needed to implement this new operating concept last December. Each of these cyber mission teams is being trained to common and strict operating standards so that they can operate online without putting at risk our own military, diplomatic, or intelligence interests or those of our allies. One of the challenges we’re facing when standing up this new construct and ensuring our forces are trained and ready to defend this nation is that the services were not all trained to the same standard. We recently developed training standards and encourage the services to adopt them, which would make for more consistent and secure network operations, especially since cyber is a joint venture including every service and whole-of-government partners. Unit-level and team-level qualifications are being set, so that each of the CMF teams will be ready to operate at the same consistently high level to accomplish the mission. Many of these folks already have relevant training in their services; we are working out equivalencies to make sure that the various training translates into the right skill sets. Ultimately, developing trained and ready forces will have to be something DoD has to do consistently across the services, and the success of these teams will rely on it. Q: What keeps you awake at night when you consider the broad mission of U.S. Cyber Command? A: We are very concerned about the possibility of cyber-attacks against our economy and critical infrastructure. Such attacks have already happened in other countries. As I mentioned earlier, for instance, cyber-attacks such as those on Saudi Aramco and RasGas could happen here. I believe it is only a matter of time before adversaries try to use these kinds of tools to make some political statement. A lot of actors out there do not care about the collateral damage. The United States is already a target. Networks and websites owned by Americans and located here have endured intentional, state-sponsored attacks, sometimes because they happened to be en route to unrelated targets. www.GIF-kmi.com
Let me note another serious threat. We keep seeing cyber-exploitation of American companies and enterprises, and huge amounts of intellectual property being stolen. There are foreign governments targeting the data of American enterprises and citizens—even some of the gold standard companies in the cybersecurity sector. Even companies that protect their information have partners that are soft targets. The collective damage is profound. It means missed opportunities for U.S. companies and lost American jobs. Q: How do you work with the rest of the federal government and the intelligence community against these threats?
communications platform—it will be important that we no longer separate our forces based on medium. Now we have people who are doing the SIGINT mission who are separate from communications, who are separate from IT. We are starting to see the point where those are no longer isolated mediums, and our warriors will need to have the skills to work across those domains, as they will all intersect. These teams are moving toward that direction, as they will have multiple skill sets represented so the personnel on those teams will be able to learn new skills and understand how they all work together instead of just being one or the other. Q: What do you see for resources in the future?
A: No federal department or agency is solely responsible for addressing the cyber-threat—there’s no one cyber-lead. They all bring their own authorities, resources and capabilities to the joint effort. Cybersecurity requires a team approach. Leadership and support roles change depending on the nature of the threat and the response. Total collaboration allows us to understand what is happening in the domain. We are working with DHS and NSA, the FBI and the other federal agencies on a framework for cybersecurity functions and information exchanges. Successful operations also depend on collaboration between defenders and operators. That needs up-to-date intelligence. I see greater understanding of this synergy, although we still have a way to go.
A: We hope this picture will improve. We can take budget hits to infrastructure and programs, but I fear the effects that cuts might have on our workforce. It is not a cliché to emphasize that our people truly are our most important capability. We have incredibly valuable contributions made by our workforce every day in securing our networks, supporting the commands, and collecting intelligence. We have to protect them. The current environment makes hiring talent tougher, and I fear it will drive good people away to the private sector. Both our Cyber Command and NSA workforces, regardless of the funding stream, are essential to the whole.
Q: We have heard a lot about Cyber Command exercises; would you tell us more about those? Are these exercises related? Who participates, and what are the objectives?
Q: Leaks to the media and a full plate of developments have kept you very busy these last few weeks. Is there anything in particular you want to mention before we close?
A: We are conducting a lot of exercises with state, international and private partners. Cyber Command now sponsors two important exercises, Cyber Flag and Cyber Guard. The former is our major command-level exercise. Last year it brought in international partners to practice force-on-force maneuvers in cyberspace, and it will be even bigger this fall. Cyber Guard was the one we ran over the summer. It had over 330 participants, including more than 200 from the National Guards of 18 states and Reservists. They exercised state- and national-level responses in a virtual environment, with newly established cyber mission force teams, learning from each other and figuring how to respond if an adversary attacked our critical infrastructure in cyberspace.
A: Not getting the facts straight has impacted our operations and our people. We will continue to address erroneous reporting and reporting that lacks context, but I’d also like to take this time to give you a sense of our people, who defend this country, support our troops in combat, and save lives … working every minute of every day to do so. Over 6,000 NSA employees have deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan in recent years. Twenty lost their lives. Each person who paid the ultimate sacrifice was helping other deployed soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines and civilians get the required intelligence that saved lives and enabled our U.S. forces and allies to go after the adversary. These noble Americans take the oath to uphold and defend the Constitution—and these are also the same people who run our NSA programs. The mindset of our people, along with our interagency partners, is to defend the nation and save lives.
Q: Is the Department of Defense’s new Joint Information Environment related to this? A: Definitely, both for NSA and Cyber Command. NSA, for example, is building a cloud architecture that is the basis for the new Intelligence Community Information Technology Enterprise [IC ITE]. It is a little more complicated on the DoD side. DoD has seven million networked devices and thousands of enclaves. Cyber Command and NSA are helping the department build JIE, comprising a shared infrastructure, enterprise services, and a single security architecture. The DoD chief information officer, Joint Staff J6, and other agencies are working the JIE implementation, supported by U.S. Cyber Command. The JIE will save resources for DoD and improve our information security. Our legacy architecture is un-defendable. We have to move beyond it. As we move toward a world that has converged communications—that is, where analog and digital are joining to create our www.GIF-kmi.com
Q: We have heard a lot about dual-hatting, in which the commander of USCYBERCOM is also the director of NSA. Will this continue? A: From my perspective it needs to, and I think a lot of people recognize that imperative. The dual-hatting unifies the capabilities for full-spectrum cyber-operations under a single official, leverages NSA’s cyber-capabilities, and provides unity of effort in cyberspace for DoD. It helps deconfliction of operations between both organizations. The people under my command and direction at USCYBERCOM and NSA work in concert but always under their respective authorities. This relationship has been beneficial, and we would have to re-invent a lot of wheels if we no longer had it. O GIF 11.6 | 19
Cow-Tipping The future of global ISR lies in using an in-depth understanding of all indigenous aspects of an operational environment to increase the value of
ISR collection.
By Faye L. Cuevas The scene opens with an elderly man steering a large herd of long-horned cattle along a path well worn by animal tracks. It is dry season, and the cattle are being driven down the same path similar herds have migrated along for centuries following the river. The herd and herdsmen move deliberately but cautiously against a backdrop of dense tropical rainforest and low African grasslands. An open-air market bustles with activity in a nearby village. As the camera pans further north along the cattle trail, a criminal gang can be seen on foot with rifles and recently poached ivory slung across their shoulders. When it zooms out over the canopy, we catch a brief glimpse of an insurgent leadership ring breaking camp. The sound of a Ugandan military helicopter gunship can be heard in the distance ‌
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No, this isn’t a teaser from the next big Hollywood blockbuster, it’s the view through an airborne Department of Defense ISR platform or remote imaging sensor over central Africa. In complex regions of Africa, violent extremist organizations, insurgent groups and hybrid threats operate within a mosaic of cultural, tribal, economic and historic complexity. When these regions rise to the level of U.S. national security interest, DoD ISR assets are often well placed to observe activity. However, those assets have traditionally been tasked to collect and report on narrow data points and observables focused on one subset of human actor within the area— the adversary—rather than garnering a broader understanding of all the key population groups present within an operational environment. As the drawdown in Afghanistan Studying changes in everyday patterns of life, such as the routes taken by African cow-herders, can provide key evidence for deciding where and how to focus ISR resources. [Image courtesy of Pixia] continues, the U.S. military, both special operations forces and conventional forces, has plans to realign and rebalance operations focused on countering regional insurgent area, addressing root causes of instability, and winning the threats before they become global. In the near future, AORs “hearts and minds” of the population. The U.S. Army put like AFRICOM will become more the operating rule than the these principles into practice to address population-centric exception in defining how the U.S. leverages its ISR capabilichallenges in Afghanistan with the integration of human terties to counter insurgencies and violent extremism. rain teams with tactical units. Due to various operating restrictions and personnel caps At the height of the surge, the Army had 20 human terin Africa, solutions to ISR challenges can’t always be solved rain teams deployed providing socio-cultural knowledge to with more platforms. These realities necessitate new thinkmore than 100,000 U.S. combat personnel on the ground. ing and new approaches to get more value from existing ISR. These teams have seen successes in building cultural awareIn particular, those assets supporting current counter-insurness at the tactical Army unit level. gency (COIN) operations. As those operations continue to scale down, however, Future roles for ISR, particularly airborne full motion there is an opportunity to leverage ISR capabilities to take video (FMV) platforms, can effectively support mission sets the socio-cultural focus beyond the tactical realm. This line outside of kinetic operations. But processing, exploitation of effort will become increasingly important in AORs like and dissemination (PED) support must scale to new, unfaAFRICOM, where ISR allocation and the U.S. military presmiliar and complex environments, such as those presented in ence on the ground are exponentially smaller than what Africa. To do that, FMV exploitation functions should expand we’ve grown accustomed to in Afghanistan and Iraq. beyond traditional PED nodes and traditional “threat-cenUnderstanding populations and the root causes of instatric” activity to focus on development of the physical, social, bility in conflict areas in order to negate them represents cultural, religious, economic and environmental context of a tough charge for the U.S. military alone. However, root the area of operations as well. causes cut across multiple narratives that can trace back centuries. Although perspectives are multiple, subjective, often irrational, and cloaked in value judgments, they are all COIN Strategies important in developing an understanding of the operational environment. Over the last several years, much has been written and FMV sensors capture images of activity—human, anidiscussed about how the U.S. government should pursue mal, environmental—that can serve as building-block inforCOIN strategies focused on populations within insurgent mation to assist operational commanders and intelligence affected areas. Defense strategic guidance was issued, new personnel to infer perspectives based on observed activity. To COIN doctrine was written, and various studies were combring that level of meaning to the collected FMV, we need to missioned and results published. make it available to experts in these various elements in a way Common themes throughout those writings include the that they can contribute their analysis to it. importance of understanding the human geography of an
www.GIF-kmi.com
GIF 11.6 | 21
Incorporating these expert observations earlier in the process and in parallel to traditional PED functions brings richer context to the video, which can be searched and discovered by other users. In turn, a more comprehensive picture of the operational environment reveals itself. To accomplish this, DoD should open up access to FMV to a broader audience, allowing traditional PED nodes and nontraditional “exploiters” alike to develop a multi-layered narrative that marries nontraditional socio-cultural observations with traditional fused intelligence to provide greater context of an operational environment. This process will generate a more nuanced understanding of events, actors, and their relationships within their environments. In turn, patterns of human activity are revealed and baselined to serve as proxy indicators of security in areas important to U.S. national interests but lacking in U.S. presence on the ground. One of the core lessons proffered by the PED model for ISR supporting counter-terror operations is the importance of adversary pattern of life (POL) development. Under the traditional PED model, POL is exploited and fused with other intelligence sources to provide important context to observable adversary activity to determine vulnerabilities, analyze reasons for deviations from pattern, and “predict” movement based on pattern, which supports a kinetic planning cycle. The success of POL development under the traditional model is heavily reliant on ISR persistence, or sustained coverage, and a robust tipping and queuing environment. These dependencies aren’t available at that scale outside of Iraq and Afghanistan.
Crops and Cattle In Central Africa, by contrast, cows, elephants and park rangers literally represent the queuing environment. Pastoralist cattle herders veering from traditional migratory routes or travelling without family members, live elephants avoiding areas in a national park where other elephants were slaughtered by poachers, and fluctuations in open-air market activity are all observable by ISR. Seasonal changes, crop conditions and vegetation are all also observable. Not only are all of these elements visible, but they also are critical, often survival-level, factors affecting stability in the area. As is true in other AORs, when a DoD ISR asset is collecting over an area in Africa, that probably means that the location is host to an active insurgent or violent extremist group presence that has achieved the level of U.S. national security interest. Unique to Central Africa, these groups often use large cattle herds to conceal movements and escape detection from partner nation military patrols. Where the insurgents are not visible from the air, the cattle they hide among are observable. Experts at other federal agencies, or an academic institute with programs in agriculture, hydrology, or animal husbandry in this example, arguably have far deeper regional knowledge than DoD, which could provide enriched context of unique indicators such as cattle migration that could change how we define tactically relevant information.
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If the cattle are following a traditional route, or not following the route, that information could be used to predict future herd—and, by proxy, potential adversary—movement. In the same vein, it is widely known that insurgent groups and armed militias have increased animal poaching activities in Central African national parks. Not only does this constitute wildlife crime, which the U.S. has pledged by recent executive order to ban and discourage, but also money from poaching provides a significant source of revenue for the insurgencies. Wildlife conservation groups or African park rangers would be able to provide important context on elephant activity observed by ISR, but not easily understood by someone without such expertise or intrinsic familiarity with the park. By enabling interaction between traditional PED nodes and nontraditional entities as part of a collaborative FMV interpretive approach, we can increase the value of ISR collection in complex areas of the world where ISR assets are scarce and U.S. military footprints are small. All the observables within a frame of imagery or FMV have the potential to provide building-block understanding of the operational environment, which can by proxy shed light on adversary actions as well. Population groups and other actors that share the same geography with an adversary interact with, observe, avoid, support and provide shelter, which creates observable behaviors and patterns when the activity is viewed by analysts or algorithms with the right skill sets. Those patterns can then be exploited not only to build understanding, but also to indirectly determine and potentially predict adversary actions and movements. But to do this effectively, ISR PED processes should look to leverage those who understand unique and nuanced aspects of these environments. O
Faye Cuevas
Faye Cuevas is general counsel for Pixia Corp. and serves as an Air Force Reserve intelligence officer. She also co-chairs the recently established U.S. Geospatial Intelligence Foundation Africa Working Group.
For more information, contact GIF Editor Harrison Donnelly at harrisond@kmimediagroup.com or search our online archives for related stories at www.gif-kmi.com.
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New DigitalGlobe website offers geospatial information and analysis on vibrant, tumultuous continent. By Harrison Donnelly GIF Editor Seeking to highlight its expanding array of analytical services, satellite imagery powerhouse DigitalGlobe has unveiled a website devoted to geospatial analysis of the continent of Africa. The site (http://digitalglobe.com/showcase-africa) includes an interactive map of Africa, allowing site visitors to explore DigitalGlobe’s work in a specific country of interest or select only a certain type of analysis. It also features DigitalGlobe’s Human Geography Information Surveys, which are geographic datasets that describe population groups by specific attributes, such as religion, language and cultural affiliation. The launch of the site follows DigitalGlobe’s acquisition earlier this year of imagery rival GeoEye, which among other benefits included a strong analytical capability based on GeoEye’s earlier acquisition of a company called Spadac, a specialist in predictive analytics. Facing the prospect of constrained federal spending on geospatial imagery in the future, which was a key factor in the merger with GeoEye, DigitalGlobe executives are pursuing both expansion into international and commercial markets and a greater emphasis on analysis and managing geospatial “big data.” As Casey McCullar, senior manager of solutions marketing, observed recently on the company blog, “While we are renowned for our industry-leading satellite imagery, the analytical work we do that delivers valuable insight to decision makers is less well known. That’s why we put this site together. “Africa is a region facing unprecedented growth over the next few years, but vexed with unique problems that put that expansion at risk,” McCullar continued. “Africa has seen rapid inflows of foreign direct investment recently, and estimates show that Africa is likely to experience GDP growth that outshines [that of] developed countries over the next few years. Combine that with its growing population and abundance of natural resources, and Africa is well positioned for advancement. However, instability and violence within the region threatens to hinder this expansion.” In a recent interview, Ken Campbell, vice president of national security solutions for DigitalGlobe, sounded similar themes. “Africa is a place with a lot of unique opportunities and challenges. Its economic growth is becoming recognized as something we need to pay attention to, and there is a range of issues that have everyone’s attention, including issues associated with national security concerns, commercial interests, energy and environment, and food and water security. We want to be involved with addressing those issues for our customers, since Africa is a place that we should be focusing more attention on,” Campbell said. www.GIF-kmi.com
“I run the analytics programs that service our defense and intelligence community customers, and there definitely is strong interest in everything related to the stability of the continent,” he continued. “There are conflicts and instability in the Egypt/ Libya/Tunisia region, the Horn of Africa has been problematic over the past decade, and Nigeria has been experiencing an uptick in extremism and instability. We have been focusing a lot of our attention to meet customer requirements to better understand the nature of these issues for those U.S. government clients.” Africa is the first continent to be highlighted in terms of the company’s analytical work, he said, adding, “It remains to be seen what we will do in the near term, but I would expect that we will also be showcasing some of the work and capabilities that we have for other regions of the world. “I think the exciting thing for us is that we are looking at new ways to exploit our pedigree in imagery and geospatial information production, and the tools, methods and processes that we have to do what we call geospatial-based predictive analytics. We use that information and tools to provide our customers with better information for course-of-action decision making as they work on a variety of issues, including commercial and national security,” Campbell said. O
DigitalGlobe’s website devoted to geospatial analysis of the continent of Africa includes an interactive map that allows site visitors to explore different countries or select various types of analysis. [Image courtesy of DigitalGlobe]
For more information, contact GIF Editor Harrison Donnelly at harrisond@kmimediagroup.com or search our online archives for related stories at www.gif-kmi.com.
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NGA maps, “blood chits” help downed pilots and other isolated warfighters survive and navigate back to friendly territory.
By Kathi Ghannam
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Imagine a U.S. pilot on an aerial reconnaissance mission over hostile territory when the engines of his aircraft shut down. He ejects and lands safely in unfamiliar enemy terrain. Suddenly, he’s very grateful for the evasion chart and “blood chit” stowed in the pockets of his flight suit. The chart, known as an EVC, and chit are produced by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency in partnership with the Department of Defense Joint Personnel Recovery Agency (JPRA). The EVC helps the pilot survive and safely navigate to an area where friendly forces can reach him, and the blood chit contains messages written in multiple languages that call on local civilians to help him. Since the early 1980s, NGA and its predecessor agencies have worked with JPRA and its predecessor agencies to build functional and accurate products to help isolated personnel get back into friendly control, said John Fristoe, functional manager of the DoD evasion chart program and chief of JPRA’s Evasion Aids division. Because of the work the agencies do, today’s pilots carry EVCs and chits made of a highly versatile and durable material. They can be used to hold water, haul food, stay warm, block the sun and cover wounds. EVCs cover all sorts of terrain, like jungles, deserts, islands and mountains. Pilots carry those most suited to the areas over which they will be flying. On the chart, the pilots will find some fairly common features, like a map with a legend, time zone information, contour interval information, and instructions on orientation and navigating, day or night, without a compass. www.GIF-kmi.com
The history of the evasion chart goes back to charts printed on rayon during the 1940s, and to cloth “blood chits” printed in various languages that identified American airmen and offered rewards for safe passage during World War ll and the Korean and Vietnam conflicts. Produced by NGA, the charts are 1:250,000 scale and cover different geographic areas of the world. The current product line was developed for the Air Force Intelligence Service in 1990, on behalf of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to assist military personnel in survival, evasion, resistance and escape.
Joint Operations Graphic The EVC is derived from a standard NGA product, the Joint Operations Graphic, and contains details such as lakes and tributaries, which enable users to recognize features while on foot. EVCs are produced on a strong, moisture resistant polyester material (spin-bonded olefin). The material does not stretch or crack, and is not sensitive to temperature changes. It is displayed on camouflage pattern background. The chart includes a variety of survival information, including: navigation and travel information; celestial navigation aids; climate of the region; a list of edible and poisonous local plants and animals (complete with descriptions and/or photos); food preparation instructions; sources of water; first aid procedures; and environmental hazards. Sized to fit in an aircrew flight suit pocket, the EVC can be used to catch rain for drinking water; as a shade, wind and rain, shelter, cape and/or blanket; as a bag to haul and purify large quantities of water or food; as a liner in a hole to serve as a wash basin; as a ground cloth on moist ground; as camouflage when sleeping; to wrap clothing in when swimming or fording streams; to wrap sleeping gear in during foul weather; or to splint a broken bone. The charts also have many features not found on traditional maps, like advice for preventing hypothermia, dehydration and other exposure-related ailments, and instructions for placing a limb with a compound fracture in traction to set the bone. There is also a list of edible and nonedible plants and animals, step-by-step instructions for testing foods to see if they are poisonous, a list of predatory animals and other dangerous species indigenous to the areas the charts cover, and instructions for treating snakebites. The charts are the results of tremendous teamwork, said Karl Knirr of NGA West’s EVC production team. NGA and JPRA routinely update the EVCs to help ensure those who use them have the best chances for survival. JPRA is in direct contact with users in the commands and in the field to glean the details of what they need. Then, JPRA informs NGA of any necessary changes. Knirr and other members of the NGA West EVC production team and JPRA began redeveloping and transforming the EVC into a digital product just before the September 11, 2001, attacks, he said. Since 9/11, the EVC production team and the chart have changed dramatically, said Knirr. Before digitization, EVCs took up to four months to create, were only available in 1:250,000 scale and had only one type of camouflage pattern. Back then, JPRA would send NGA mock-ups, or layouts, of how the charts www.GIF-kmi.com
should fit together and detailed lists of indigenous plants, animals and other marginal data to include on the chart. Now, the EVC team uses the latest digital information and imagery to best fit the user’s needs when making or updating a map, said Knirr. The NGA EVC production team has visited the Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape (SERE) School to learn the survival uses of their products to ensure a greater understanding of the user’s needs, said Meri Ford, former NGA liaison to JPRA. There is also ongoing interaction between instructors at the NGA College and students at JPRA’s SERE school in Spokane, Wash., and the Personnel Recovery Education and Training Center in Fredericksburg, Va. JPRA personnel routinely attend basic GEOINT classes at NGA’s East campus in Springfield, Va., said Ford. NGA and JPRA have a crucial relationship, and NGA is involved in nearly every aspect of JPRA operations, said Len Kerney, JPRA deputy director for intelligence. The crews sent to rescue those in peril also use GEOINT provided by NGA to plan and execute their missions.
Rescue Aids GEOINT is also used to determine the most reliable and accessible materials in each area of operations so people will know how to aid in their own rescue if necessary, said Ford. Toward that end, NGA recently created the first comprehensive standardized manual of distress signals for use by isolated personnel and rescue forces. Ford also established a database of ground-to-air signals specific to various areas of responsibility to ensure operators can use indigenous materials to aid in their recovery, she said. For instance, laying out a tarp or space blanket or starting a fire will draw attention to an area that might go otherwise unnoticed. Each member of the team constantly looks for ways to improve the customer’s product and reduce costs, said Yates. For example, simply reducing the number of times the EVC is folded during production, from 32 to eight, saves thousands of dollars per product run. The material is pliable enough for users to fold so it fits in their uniforms. A team also manages the requirements and fulfillment process to ensure the right amount of stock is on hand or on order. This saves money by reducing excess inventory that must be destroyed when it becomes obsolete, said Monique Yates, NGA deputy National System for Geospatial-Intelligence operations executive. Together, the products NGA and JPRA produce aid U.S. efforts to recover and return isolated, missing, detained or captured personnel. And true to the JPRA motto, they help ensure “that others may live … to return with honor.” O
Kathi Ghannam is with the NGA Office of Corporate Communications. This article appeared originally in the Summer 2013 issue of Pathfinder, the magazine of NGA. For more information, contact GIF Editor Harrison Donnelly at harrisond@kmimediagroup.com or search our online archives for related stories at www.gif-kmi.com.
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ISR VIDEO UPDATE
Compiled by KMI Media Group staff
(Editor’s Note: Following are some of the products for managing and exploiting ISR video that were highlighted by exhibitors at the recent AUVSI Unmanned Systems conference in Washington, D.C.)
Multiviewer Offers Ultra High Definition Images RGB Spectrum has announced a partnership with AVAD and JVC Professional for the distribution of RGB Spectrum’s SuperView 4K Multiviewer in conjunction with JVC’s new 84-inch 4K LCD monitors. The SuperView 4K processor is a real-time multiviewer designed specifically for “Ultra HD” monitors with a native resolution of 3840x2160, four times that of HD video. Based on RGB Spectrum’s
real-time architecture, users can display and manipulate native 4K images, a combination of 4K and high-definition (1920x1080) windows, or up to eight HD graphic or video windows (scaled or unscaled) on a single Ultra HD device. When combined with a JVC ProVérité 84” 4K monitor, the result is a remarkable eight-megapixel multiviewer, with unprecedented multi-window clarity and resolution.
Video Encoder Improves FMV Delivery The 6820R 2-Channel HD/SD video encoder from Delta Digital Video answers the ISR community’s need for additional video channels without increasing size, weight, power and costs. The unit continues Delta’s commitment to improving full motion video (FMV) delivery by adding a second channel in the same mechanical configuration as its predecessor, at the same power and cost. The new encoder maintains all of the MISB compatible metadata and transport stream multiplexing features of the company’s Joint Interoperability Test Command-certified products, while adding support for composite standard definition video, resolutions to 1080p60, and a fully configurable, lower bit rate, secondary stream for each channel.
Encoder Addresses Demanding ISR Video Challenges Designed for airborne and mobile ISR, Makito Air from Haivision combines the performance and low latency of the company’s commercial H.264 encoder with a completely ruggedized form factor with full KLV/CoT metadata support. The unit addresses the most demanding ISR video challenges by delivering H.264 video up to 1080p60 with metadata, encoding latency as low as 55 milliseconds, and end-to-end latency as low as 70 milliseconds when couples with a Makito decoder. It can support constrained data links found in challenging operating environments by reducing the spatial resolution of the video without affecting image aspect ratios.
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Portable FMV Appliances Tested for Harsh Conditions VITEC, a provider of advanced video solutions, has announced a military-grade family of portable full motion video (FMV) encoding and streaming appliances tested in full compliance and certified for harsh mechanical and environmental specified under the MIL-STD-810F and MIL-STD-461. Designed for extreme applications, the Optibase line of portable Media Gateway (MGW) encoders include MGW Premium, a highly dense HD/SD encoder with best-in-class capacity of two HD or five SD channels; the MGW Nano, a versatile compact appliance with HD-SDI and HDMI inputs and advanced processing capabilities such as real-time motion stabilization; and the pocket-size MGW Pico—the world’s smallest military-grade H.264 HD encoder with KLV metadata support. VITEC’s comprehensive offering of portable encoding and streaming products feature a unique design with no moving parts, silent operation, small footprint and ultra low power consumption ideal for integration into mobile platforms.
Data Access Solution Organizes FMV in Cloud Architectures Hiper Watch from Pixia is a data access solution used to catalog, organize and share large volumes of full motion video (FMV) within a cloud-based architecture. Hiper Watch provides SaaS applications and access to FMV data using RESTful web services. Using Pixia PaaS technology as a core foundation for high performance and scalability, consumers can access data at speeds beyond standard disk I/O. Hiper Watch enables cloudbased architectures to scale to enormous volumes of FMV data, maintain consistent storage I/O speed regardless of the number of requests, send only relevant data from disk to application, and catalog and organize thousands of raw feeds or clips into consolidated layers. Other features include the ability to transform feeds into MPEG-compliant transport streams; multiplex MPEG streams and KLV metadata; injection of metadata into non-compliant streams, enabling search and discovery; open API to integrate with existing exploitation tools; and multiple transcoding options for quality and data rates. The solution provides support for a wide variety of SD and HD electro-optical sensors, such as MC-12W Liberty, Reaper/Predator, CCTV, UAS, remotely piloted aircraft and mobile surveillance systems.
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GIF RESOURCE CENTER
Compiled by KMI Media Group staff
Advertisers Index
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September 16-18, 2013 Air and Space Conference National Harbor, Md. www.afa.org
October 21-23, 2013 AUSA Annual Meeting Washington, D.C. www.ausa.org
September 24-26, 2013 Modern Day Marine Quantico, Va. www.marinemilitaryexpos.com
October 29, 2013 SAP NS2 Solutions Summit Falls Church, Va. www.sapns2.com
October 13-16, 2013 GEOINT 2013 Symposium Tampa, Fla. http://geoint2013.com
January 21-24, 2014 Defence Geospatial Intelligence London, U.K. www.wbresearch.com
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GIF 11.6 | 27
INDUSTRY INTERVIEW
Geospatial Intelligence Forum
Nadia Short Vice President of Strategy and Business Development General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems With more than three decades of experience in the defense and intelligence communities, Nadia Short has been with General Dynamics since 1996. In her current leadership role she is responsible for General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems’ strategic planning, business development, technology and innovation, marketing and public relations, customer and corporate relations, and philanthropy program. Previously she led the creation of the cyber systems division for General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems and served as its vice president and general manager. Before joining the General Dynamics team, Short served in the U.S. Army for 14 years. Q: What is GDNexus? Why was it created, and why now? A: The focus of GDNexus is on our customer’s mission. GDNexus is our customer-centric business model come to life. It is a way to match state-of-the-art solutions to validated customer requirements rapidly and efficiently through an online community of technology providers. The goal of GDNexus is to partner with diverse technology companies to help enhance mission capabilities, reduce risk, increase cost savings and deliver innovation directly to our customers. GDNexus extends our successful open teaming model to an online portal, allowing us to assess and capitalize on emerging technologies, helping our customers explore and evaluate developed products and ultimately to integrate relevant solutions that meet specific evaluation criteria into today’s mission. GDNexus also strengthens our role as an “honest broker” of the best solutions industry has to offer. This secure, agile environment allows us to open doors for companies that might not otherwise supply to the government. Q: What type of mission requirements does GDNexus work to address? 28 | GIF 11.6
A: GDNexus works to address our customers’ mission needs. In today’s dynamic threat environment, with cybersecurity remaining a top priority for our customers, GDNexus efforts are initially focused on meeting our customers’ growing demands in the cyber domain. In the near term we plan to expand our focus to the geospatial and maritime domains, where GDNexus will evolve and strengthen to meet our customer’s fast-changing mission requirements. Q: Does GDNexus have an impact on the government’s formalized, and longstanding, request for proposal (RFP) process? And if so, how? A: GDNexus can enhance the government’s RFP process. With the official RFP serving as the basis, GDNexus is a nimble, flexible program that works within the procurement process to help deliver the right technology directly to our customers. We will issue Need Statements based on specific mission needs of our customers. Through the GDNexus online portal, registered users can submit responses that we vet through a comprehensive and objective review process, culminating in the selection of a proven solution. GDNexus helps our customers reduce acquisition risk and accelerate the time it takes to go from the procurement phase
of the RFP process to the mission execution phase. The time and focus we spend with the customer upfront to understand and define needs ensures the selection of a relevant solution, minimizing the risk of integrating and deploying something new to the mission. Another benefit is the reduction in evaluation time. We have established a process and timeline through which we advance only the most relevant submissions. With a philosophy of “innovation through collaboration,” GDNexus also enables us to keep pace with our customer’s programs as they shift from an RFP state into actual execution. Because needs and requirements may change throughout the life of a contract, GDNexus allows us to respond accordingly to ensure our customer’s mission success. GDNexus also helps to take the guess work out of the RFP process for companies who are not well-versed in government procurement. The great thing about GDNexus is that it is accessible to big and small, government- and non-government-focused technology providers. Q: Where do you see GDNexus in the next three to five years? A: GDNexus will continue to grow and be a robust, all-inclusive virtual environment that encompasses the various domains of the diverse missions of our customers. From cyber to space to air, land and sea, GDNexus will help us meet the growing needs of our customers across the board. Moving forward, GDNexus will be the foundation of how we address customer mission needs, in that it allows us to be more nimble, reflexive and responsive. It truly is a new, and better, way of doing business. With the flexibility to quickly respond and support our customers— from unmanned to geospatial to space electronics—with GDNexus the possibilities are limitless. O www.GIF-kmi.com
October 2013 Volume 11, Issue 7
ISSUE
Cover and In-Depth Interview with:
Letitia A. Long
Director National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency
Features: Visualization Technology Since acquiring information through visual media is quicker and more efficient than doing so through the other senses, visualization tools are gaining increasing prominence in the field of geospatial intelligence.
GEOINT R&D NGA’s InnoVision Future Solutions Program provides support to perform path-breaking scientific research and transitions innovative concepts and capabilities required to solve the intelligence community and Department of Defense’s most complex problems.
Managing Big Data Full motion video and other ISR and GEOINT technologies represent some of the biggest of “big data.” So industry is working hard to develop new ways for the military and intelligence communities to manage and exploit it.
Training for Intel Analysis With shortfalls looming in the workforce of trained intelligence analysis professionals, programs are striving to provide both technical expertise and the ability to “think like an analyst.”
Bonus Distribution GEOINT 2013 Symposium October 13-16, 2013, Tampa, Fla.
Insertion Order Deadline: September 23, 2013 • Ad Materials Deadline: September 30, 2013