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GeoPackage Enables Data
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George Percivall, Lew Leinenweber, Ron
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Standard-driven foundation supports
rapid data exchange aiding mission
success for Geospatial Intelligence
Pg 17
Chairman MP Narayanan
Publisher Sanjay Kumar
Managing Editor Lt Gen (Dr) AKS Chandele (Retd)
Executive Editor Bhanu Rekha
Product Manager Kushagra Agrawal
Sub Editor Sanskriti Shukla
Senior Designer Debjyoti Mukherjee
On the Road with GPS
Sanskriti Shukla
The use of GPS in cabs serves as a
scientific solution to location, navigation
and tracking management.
Pg 20
Robert Cardillo, Director, National
Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, US
Security.
Pg 35
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Implementing Geospatial
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Brig A S Nagra (Retd)
Editor Sanjay Kumar
Geospatial information is crucial
for relevant and updated situational
awareness at all levels whether operating
in hostile environments or in peace time
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Bringing Predictive
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the Battlefield
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Brig Rahul K Bhonsle (Retd)
News..............................................06
Geoint has an important role to
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T
echnological superiority will be the decisive battle winning factor
in future warfare. It is, therefore, imperative to build indigenous
technology capabilities relevant to the needs of our armed forces, both
for conventional and sub conventional conflict. Experience has shown
beyond doubt that availability of desired defence technologies from other countries
cannot be relied upon. Even friendly nations would be reluctant to part with the
latest emerging and critical defence technologies. These would necessarily have to
be developed through indigenous Research & Development (R&D).
Investment in defence R&D by Indian industry is very low. That there are very few
defence related patents filed in India is an obvious manifestation of this malaise.
Our Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), established over
five decades32 ago, with more than 50 labs catering to various defence related
technologies, has virtual monopoly in the field of defence R&D. However, it has
very few successes to show for its relatively high level of staffing and funding,
with most projects having huge cost and time overruns. India’s space, missile and
nuclear scientists have no doubt demonstrated their capability to innovate and
indigenise in the face of technology control regimes, but this unfortunately does
not apply to most other critical defence technologies.
India’s ordnance factories and defence public sector undertakings have so far been
satisfied with manufacturing under licence, weapons and equipment of
foreign origin, without the transfer of critical technologies. With the
recent emphasis on indigenisation and the ‘Make in India’ initiative,
Indian defence industry is being encouraged to partner with foreign
design and manufacturing organisations and obtain transfer of critical
technologies. The liberalisation of FDI limit in defence sector to 49%
is another step in this direction. DRDO, which has the responsibility
of defence technology forecasting, has issued a list of the critical
technologies it requires and an elaborate offset policy has been
promulgated to ensure this. A Technology Perspective and Capability
Roadmap (TPCR) has been issued by the Ministry of Defence, based
on our Long Term Integrated Perspective Plan (LTIPP), with a view
to channelising indigenous R&D in defence technologies, both in the
public and private sector, with the active participation of academia.
Lt Gen (Dr) AKS Chandele PVSM, AVSM (Retd)
Managing Editor
ajay@geospatialmedia.net
Emerging technologies are bound to revolutionise warfare in the years
ahead. Nations that can create sustainable eco systems for nurturing
indigenous emerging defence technologies, synergising the same with
innovative operational doctrines, ensuring organisational adoption and
raising the technical threshold of users, will achieve much higher levels
of relative military effectiveness. For a country like India to be able to
exercise its own independent foreign policy in the interest of its national
security, it should achieve self reliance in critical defence technologies,
enabling it to pursue an independent military strategy while providing
the nation with vital techno-economic strength. Self reliance in emerging
defence technologies should be a ‘National Mission’.
5 | GEOINTELLIGENCE JANUARY - FEBRUARY 2015
Editorial
Challenges Faced in the Adoption of
Geospatial Technologies
GD to Equip LAVs with New
Surveillance System
6 | GEOINTELLIGENCE JANUARY - FEBRUARY 2015
TNE Software Connects US
Military with Defence
General Dynamics C4 Systems’ Trusted
Network Environment (TNE), version
11-S cyber-defence software is now being used by the US Central Command
(CENTCOM) to securely share classified information at the secret-level
among US military organisations and
authorised NATO and coalition military partners. During joint operations,
the TNE multi-level security software
enables greater flexibility and collaboration among organisations while ensuring that higher levels of classified
information moving through the same
tactical network remains secure and
separated from information at lower
security levels.
General Dynamics’ TNE is a cyber
information-sharing solution that
provides military and government
customers improves security and
access to classified data at various security levels from a single enterprise
environment based on a user’s security
credentials and access privileges.
Advanced data-labeling technology
separates classified data so users can
only see what their individual security
profiles allow, without visibility into
other data files or applications. TNE
also enables multilevel web services and multilevel chat capabilities so
users on different network domains
can share the same chat room.
General Dynamics Land Systems
Canada (GDLS-C) has bagged a
contract to supply an enhanced
surveillance suite for the Canadian
Army’s upgraded light-armoured
vehicle III (LAV III) fleet. Under the
USD 254 million contract, the company will supply and install the
surveillance suite on 66 LAV 6.0
vehicles, improving the safety of
soldiers and their ability to detect and
engage threats from much greater
distances than ever before.
The system will be equipped with
a 10m retractable mast and operator
control station, as well as a surveillance
suite, which includes radar, thermal/day and image intensification
sights, laser range finder and a GPS
mounted on a stabilised platform.
The enhancements are expected to
enable superior detection ranges,
on-the-move operation, integrated
silent-watch power management and
the transmission of images through
the communications system.
Leidos Completes At-Sea
Testing of ACTUV Prototype
Leidos has completed a total of 42
days of at-sea demonstrations of the
prototype
maritime
autonomous
system designed to control all of the
maneuvering and mission functions of
the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA) Anti-Submarine
Warfare Continuous Trail Unmanned
Vessel (ACTUV). Using a 32-foot work
boat as a surrogate vessel, Leidos installed autonomy software and sensors
to mimic the configuration intended for
an eventual full-size ACTUV prototype.
Manned vessels are obliged to obey a
set of navigation rules published by the
International Maritime Organisation.
Generally referred to as COLREGS
(collision regulations), those rules
determine in the event of an encounter between vessels, which vessel has
the right of way (the ‘stand on’ vessel) and the appropriate behavior
for both the ‘stand on’ and ‘give way’
vessel to avoid a collision. According
to the company’s press release, the
Leidos strategy to evaluate the prototype ACTUV autonomy system for
COLREGS compliance includes both
simulation and at-sea testing. The
team has completed approximately
26,000 simulation runs of the system.
US Army Orders Training
Support Systems from Cubic
Cubic has secured two contracts to
supply additional tactical vehicle
systems (TVS) and Instrumentable
Multiple Integrated Laser Engagement
System individual weapon systems
(I-MILES IWS) to the US Army. Valued
at USD 51 million, the contracts were
awarded by the Army’s Programme
According to the company’s
press release, I-MILES IWS uses
laser emitters that attach to military
weapons and on-body sensors to
replicate combat and records data
for later review. I-MILES TVS, the
vehicular adaptation of Cubic’s
man-worn
Individual
Weapons
System (IWS), equips Army wheel
vehicles and other tactical vehicles
with lasers, sensors and electronics
used during force-on-force combat
training exercises. It employs Cubic’s
wireless MILES technology to provide real-time casualty assessment
NEWS
GPS Source Bags Order for
GPS Retransmission Systems
GPS Source has received a
USD 7.5 million order for its
GLI-COTTONMOUTH retransmission
kit (GPS) for an international customer
with an armored vehicle application.
According to the company’s press
release, GLI-COTTONMOUTH kits
are available as permanent installs
or man-portable. They provide GPS
coverage within smaller military
ground vehicle or aircraft. GPS
receivers will experience no loss in
signal coverage as they move out
of a ground vehicle or exit an aircraft equipped with a tactical GPS
retransmission kit from GPS Source.
GLI COTTONMOUTH is currently in
use by the US Army and other military entities throughout the world.
GPS retransmission technology is also
utilised within the Canadian LAVIII
and the French DGA SCORPION
programme.
GameSim and NGA Enter
into a CRADA
GameSim
has
announced
its
Cooperative Research and Development
exactView Adds
Three More Satellites
to its Constellation
exactEarth has integrated
three advanced in-orbit AIS
satellites into its exactView
constellation
through
a contract under which
exactEarth purchased one
satellite and is acquiring
data from two more under
license.
The data from the additional AIS satellites is believed to increase the capacity of
exactEarth’s global vessel monitoring service, expand exactEarth’s AIS network
to eight satellites, and further enhance exactEarth’s world-leading AIS message
detection performance from space. With the inclusion of AIS data from three
more satellites and the company’s ground network expansion, the customers
will continue to benefit from the industry leading service that they have come
to expect from exactEarth. The continued expansion of exactAIS based products
and services is part of the commitment to providing customers with the world’s
best space-based global ship monitoring service, expressed Philip Miller, Vice
President of Operations and Engineering at exactEarth.
Courtesy: Michael Favor
Agreement (CRADA) with the National
Geospatial Intelligence Agency (NGA).
According to a spokesperson
from the company, GameSim introduced software product, Conform,
which generates a 3D representation
of an environment from GIS data
(vectors, elevation, and imagery) in
near real-time. The integrated scene
can be viewed in both 2D and 3D, or
exported, into other run-time formats.
The company is planning to modernise their process of fusing together a
single 3D environment by supporting additional data products (LiDAR,
OTW video, and thermal video), to
create a more accurate and rich 3D
environment, while still maintaining
near real-time performance. Access
to NGA through CRADA will provide
GameSim with proper standards and
data validated by NGA. In addition,
GameSim and NGA will research
the creation of a low bandwidth,
browser-based visualisation of that
fused environment.
CAE Provides First Mission
Ready Flight Simulator to US
CAE has delivered the first UH-72A
Lakota flight training device (FTD)
system to the US Army. The device
combines an aircraft-specific cockpit
with fidelity and performance of
a full-flight simulator without the
motion. The devices will help the army
meet a critical training need, and allow
them to efficiently and cost-effectively
begin balancing live and synthetic
training for its new UH-72A primary
helicopter trainer. The UH-72A FTD
features a motion/vibration seat and
a wide 200ºx70º field-of-view display
system driven by next-generation
7 | GEOINTELLIGENCE JANUARY - FEBRUARY 2015
necessary for MILES tactical engagement training in direct-fire instrumented training scenarios. It delivers
superior performance because of
its weapon simulation and casualty
assessment accuracy for vehicles and
fixed structures.
CAE’s simulation. Courtesy: CAE
CAE Medallion-6000 image generator
to immerse pilots in a high-fidelity
synthetic training environment. The
CAE-developed common database
(CDB) was integrated to help enhance
the army’s ability to leverage existing
US government-owned databases
to support their helicopter training
requirements, as stated by the company.
8 | GEOINTELLIGENCE JANUARY - FEBRUARY 2015
Environmental Testing on
MUOS Satellite Completed
Lockheed Martin has completed
thermal vacuum testing on the fourth
satellite scheduled to launch and join
the US Navy’s Mobile User Objective
System (MUOS) constellation. It is
believed that MUOS operates like
a smartphone cell tower in the sky,
vastly improving current secure
mobile satellite communications
for warfighters on the move. MUOS
Wideband Code Division Multiple
Access technology users are expected
to
receive
beyond-line-of-sight
capability to transmit and receive
voice and data using an Internet
Protocol-based system. The launch
of the next satellite will complete the
operational constellation and provide
global coverage.
Iris Bombelyn, Vice President
of Lockheed Martin’s Narrowband
Communications
mission
area,
believes
that
the
successful
completion of thermal vacuum testing
proves MUOS-4 can endure the
extreme hot and cold temperatures
it will experience throughout its
on-orbit mission life. The delivery of
this fixed price vehicle shows a clear
advantage for block buys to drive
down defects and maintain low costs
through learning curve advantages.
Map of the World App
Deployed to Cloud
The National Geospatial Intelligence
Agency (NGA) has become the
first intelligence agency to host an
operational capability within Amazon
Web Services’ Commercial Cloud
Services (C2S) environment after
Lockheed Martin deployed the interactive map for NGA’s Map of the World
to the C2S environment.
According to a spokesperson
from NGA, the Map of the World
initiative acts as an interface for the
agency’s comprehensive and accurate geospatial intelligence data.
Designed for both novice users
and geospatial intelligence experts,
it serves as a platform to explore
constantly-updated content and link
natural and man-made features on,
above and beneath the Earth to intelligence observations. Users can search
for objects like bridges or railroad
depots and know where the objects
are located, as well as intelligence
embedded within each object. It is
believed that the cloud deployment
is an early step in the transformation
of the Intelligence Community’s
infrastructure and will provide the
entire Intelligence Community access
to the Map of the World, which is the
single integrated environment where
all analysts can examine data, record
observations and share all known
information about a threat.
Northrop to Supply SIRS for
SBIRS Satellite
Northrop Grumman Corporation has
been selected by prime contractor
Lockheed Martin to provide its space
inertial reference system (SIRS) for
the US Air Force Space-Based Infrared
System’s (SBIRS) fifth Geosynchronous Earth Orbit (GEO) satellite.
Northrop Grumman will provide its
Scalable Space Inertial Reference Unit
(Scalable SIRU) for sensor pointing/
US Offers Public Geospatial Intel to Help Ebola Fight
The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) has unveiled its first
public website of unclassified geospatial intelligence data, in order to
contribute to the US Defence Department’s fight against West Africa’s deadly
Ebola virus disease outbreak. NGA plans to visually depict and assess situations
on the ground using satellite imagery and other geographically referenced
information.
US Offers Public Geospatial Intel to Help Ebola Fight.
According
to
Courtesy: NGA
Timothy J Peplaw,
Director of the NGA
Readiness, Response
and Recovery Office,
NGA has a partnership with the State
Department through
the
World
Wide
Human Geography
Data Working Group,
formed in 2011 to focus on the need for human geography global foundation data as a basis better understanding cultures, activities and attitudes. Through that partnership
the organisation has access to a wide variety of unclassified publicly available
data. NGA pulls the data together and offers it up as a service. The Readiness,
Response and Recovery Office provides data and products and makes them
available as a service using an online common operating environment called
ArcGIS from Esri. Products include map atlases that Peplaw describes as
maps and commercial imagery rolled into one.
and soldiers on the execution of their
tactics, techniques and procedures.
Atlas V Rocket Blasts Off with
Satellite Payload
United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V
rocket carrying a payload for the National
Reconnaissance Office (NRO) recently
lifted off from Space Launch Complex-3.
Designated NROL-35, the mission is in
support of national defence. The mission
was launched aboard an Atlas V Evolved
Atlas V Rocket Blasts Off with Satellite
Payload. Courtesy: ULA
Cubic to Supply Operations
Training Solution to Canada
Cubic Corporation has won a USD
12 million contract amendment from
the Canadian Department of National
Defence for the initial phase of the
Urban Operations Training System
(UOTS) capability. The company claims
that the UOTS complements the Weapon Effects Simulation (WES) force-onforce engagement training system deployed by Cubic in 2006 by adding an
urban village training capability in several regions throughout Canada. Under
this first phase, Cubic will complete the
integration and validation tasks for the
system instrumentation utilised in the
UOTS environment.
Under the task orders Cubic
will install hundreds of devices for
high-fidelity tracking solutions to include: grenade and improvised explosive device (IED) simulators, video equipment, video servers, special
effects generators (sights, sounds, and
smells) and targets. Information collected from high-fidelity tracking devices
is routed to a central location where
it is aggregated into a real-time view
of the training scenario and stored for
after-action review, providing detailed
assessment and feedback to evaluators
According to the company’s press
release, JASSM-ER has successfully completed US Air Force Initial
Operational Test and Evaluation
(IOT&E) flight testing.
The company claims that JASSM-ER
provides warfighters with a first day,
first strike capability in an anti-access,
area-denial environment. The missile is
believed to be armed with a dual-mode
penetrator
and
blast-fragmentation warhead, JASSM and JASSM-ER
cruise autonomously day or night in
all weather conditions. Both missiles
share the same powerful capabilities
and stealthy characteristics, though
JASSM-ER has more than two-anda-half times the range of the baseline
JASSM for greater standoff margin. The
2,000-pound cruise missiles employ an
infrared seeker and GPS receiver to dial
into specific target aimpoints.
QinetiQ North America Wins
Two TALON Contracts
Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) 541
configuration vehicle, which includes a
5-meter diameter payload fairing along
with four Aerojet Rocketdyne solid rocket motors attached to the Atlas booster.
The Atlas booster for this mission was
powered by the RD AMROSS RD-180
engine and the Centaur upper stage was
powered by the inaugural flight of the
Aerojet Rocketdyne RL10C-1 engine.
According Jim Sponnick, Vice
President, ULA, the company is
pleased with the first flight of the
new, RL10C-1 engine. ULA has been
working closely with Aerojet Rocketdyne and its Air Force customers
for several years to develop and extensively test the next-generation engine to enable the most reliable and
cost-effective upper stage propulsion
for Atlas and Delta programmes.
USAir Force Approves
Production for JASSM-ER
The US Air Force has approved
full rate production for Lockheed
Martin’s Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff
Missile – Extended Range (JASSM-ER).
QinetiQ North America (QNA) has
won a United States Army contract
to build, refurbish and modernise
QNA’s TALON IV military robots used
extensively in combat in Afghanistan and Iraq. Through the US Army’s
Contracting Command in Warren,
Michigan, QNA won the contract worth
over USD 17.5 million for spare parts
and upgrades to its fleet of TALON robots. The spares will sustain fielded
systems in operation today while the
upgrade and modernisation of the battle tested TALON robot will continue
to provide life-saving support to US
warfighters in both current operations
and future deployments. QNA has also
been awarded a contract through the
Naval Surface Warfare Center under
the Man Transportable Robotic System
(MTRS) programme. The three year
contract provides for purchase of new
systems, reconditioning, upgrades and
spare parts for the MTRS Mk 2 fleet of
TALON robots.
Sierra Nevada Corporation
to Provide MOTS for US Army
Sierra Nevada Corporation’s (SNC) has
9 | GEOINTELLIGENCE JANUARY - FEBRUARY 2015
stabilisation and attitude control on
the SBIRS GEO-5 mission. Northrop
Grumman has also provided its
Scalable SIRU for previous SBIRS GEO
satellites.
Bob Mehltretter, Vice President,
Navigation and Positioning Systems,
Northrop Grumman Electronic Systems,
has expressed that the company is
committed to providing products
that meet the highest performance
and reliability standards for current
and next-generation SBIRS satellites.
The SBIRS programme delivers early
warning of ballistic missile launches,
missile defence, technical intelligence
and battlespace awareness. The SBIRS
architecture features a mix of satellites
in GEO, hosted payloads in highly
elliptical orbit, and ground hardware
and software.
been awarded a USD 17 million follow-on Low Rate Initial Production contract by the United States Army to manufacture Mobile Tower Systems (MOTS).
The contract includes production of
five AN/TSQ-135 MOTS, as well as engineering and sustainment services for
the mobile air traffic service system.
The company claims that AN/TSQ-135
MOTS is a highly mobile, tactical system
designed to rapidly set up and quickly
establish air traffic services during the
initial phases of deployment. It sustains
air traffic services throughout operation and redeployment and includes
all necessary secure and non-secure
communications radios and support
equipment. The equipment is housed in
a rugged Air Traffic Control (ATC) tower with organic 36kW power generators
and meteorological sensors.
It is believed that MOTS is capable of
being airlifted by C-17 aircraft or CH47
helicopter and supports military ATC
operations world-wide by networking with other Air Traffic Service and
Battle Command systems. The MOTS
Sierra Nevada Corporation to Provide
MOTS for US Army. Courtesy: SNC
complies with Federal Aviation Administration/International Civilian Aviation
Organisation regulations, and is also
equally adept in supporting civilian
applications, including disaster relief
efforts, forest fire mobile operations,
and temporary tower operations. Due
to its minimal logistical requirements,
the new AN/MSQ-135 MOTS provides
ATC capability anywhere in the world. It
replaces the Army’s aging AN/TSW-7A
air traffic control tower.
Raytheon Lofts New JLENS
Cruise Missile
JLENS Missile. Courtesy: Raytheon
Raytheon Company has revealed
that the US Army lofted a blimp
equipped with a new cruise-missile
and drone-fighting radar system, high
above rural Maryland, US, for the first
time. The system, made by Raytheon and known as JLENS, consists of
two helium-filled aerostats, or tethered blimps, that float 10,000 feet
above the ground and carry powerful
radars. JLENS can detect potential
threats at extremely long ranges, giving North American Aerospace Defence Command more time to make
decisions and more space to react appropriately.
According to a spokesperson from
the company, as part of the deployment, Raytheon engineers raised one of
the football-field sized aerostats thousands of feet in the air and conducted a
series of tests to ensure it was operating
as designed. The company will continue to test and integrate the radar for
several more days, then turn the first
JLENS balloon over to Soldiers of the
US Army’s A Battery, 3rd Air Defence
Artillery. The second aerostat is scheduled to go aloft in early 2015. During the
operational exercise, information from
JLENS will be used by North American
Aerospace Defence Command (NORAD), the US-Canadian organisation
charged with aerospace warning, aerospace control and maritime warning
for North America.
The MIL Corporation Bags
NAVAIR SATCOM Contract
The MIL Corporation (MIL) has won a
Satellite Communications (SATCOM)
contract with the Naval Air Warfare
Center Aircraft Division (NAWCAD),
Special Communications Requirements
(SCR) Division, 4.11.4. Under the
contract, MIL’s Command, Control,
Communications and Computers (C4)
Integrated Systems (C4IS) Sector will
provide engineering and technical services to the SCR Division in support of the
rapid design, development, integration,
testing, evaluation, installation, fielding,
certification, maintenance, logistics,
and operational support of SATCOM,
RF, Video, and Networking Technologies. According to the company’s press
release, the MIL C4IS Sector provides
project management, engineering,
production, integration, fielding, and
technical services for a wide range of
communications-electronic systems,
subsystems, and equipment.
Harris to provide Falcon III
Radios to Middle East
Harris Corporation has received an
order valued at more than USD 50 million from a nation in the Middle East
to deliver a secure, integrated tactical
area communications solution using
Falcon III wideband tactical radios.
As part of this Integrated Tactical Area
Communications System (ITACS)
solution, the nation is acquiring Harris’ software-defined radios to provide
mobile, net-centric capabilities to its
armed forces. The solution supports
the latest wideband and narrowband
networking waveforms and enables
country-wide voice and data capabilities for critical missions which will
allow forward-deployed teams to stay
in constant communications with
commanders at operating bases and
headquarters.
Brendan O’Connell, President,
International Business, Harris RF
Communications
believes that
the system dramatically improves
situational awareness by creating a
mobile tactical Internet that delivers
Raytheon, Bell Conduct
Missile Launch from V-22
Raytheon Company and Bell Helicopter
have completed two successful launches of the Griffin B missile from a Bell
Boeing V-22 Osprey multi-mission aircraft at Yuma Proving Ground, Arizona.
Mike Jarrett, Vice President of Raytheon’s Air Warfare Systems, reveals that
it’s the first time a forward-firing missile
has been launched from the V-22. It’s an
important aspect of the V-22’s capability
that integrates a simple to operate, lowcost, precision strike missile – something in which the US Air Force Special
Operations Command has shown significant interest. According to Raytheon,
Bell flight test crews launched two Griffin B missiles, scoring direct hits from
both hover mode and during conversion mode at 110 knots. The results highlight the Griffin B’s versatility with its
unique ability to engage static and moving targets through a significant range of
launch speeds. The missile has a significant off-axis launch capability, allowing
aircrews to precisely strike targets to the
left or right of the aircraft flight path.
Griffin B’s successful shots from the Bell
Boeing V-22 Osprey demonstrate that
the missile is flexible and able to integrate on a variety of platforms.
The Akash missile, developed by the
Defence Research and Development
Organisation (DRDO), is a medium-range surface-to-air anti-aircraft
defence system with a strike range of
25 km. It can carry a warhead of 60
kg, has the capability to target aircraft
up to 30 km away and is packed with
a battery that can track and attack
several targets simultaneously.
IAI tests Indo Israeli Barak 8
Missile Defence System
The Israel Aerospace Industries
(IAI), in collaboration with the Israeli
Ministry of Defence (IMOD), conducted a successful test of the Barak-8 Air
& Missile Defence System. According
to Defence Daily, Barak-8 is advanced
groundbreaking air and missile defence system that provides ultimate
protection against a variety of aerial
platforms, both land and naval scenarios. It has been designed jointly with the
Defence Research and Development
Organisation (DRDO) in India and is
used by the Indian defence forces. The
India has successfully test-fired the
indigenously developed surface-to-air
Akash missile from the Integrated Test
Range in Chandipur, India. The test
firing was part of the user trial by the
Indian Air Force (IAF). “The missile
hit the para-barrel target. It was successful,” said MVKV Prasad, Director,
Chandipur ITR.
Indian Army Conducts
Agni-IV Missile’s User Trial
The Indian Army has conducted the first
user trial of the Agni-IV surface-to-surface, nuclear-capable intermediate
range ballistic missile, from Wheeler Island, off the Odisha coast, India.
During the trial, which was conducted
by the Indian army’s Strategic Forces
Command (SFC), the missile carried a
1t dummy warhead and splashed down
near its pre-designated target point in
the Indian Ocean with a high degree
of accuracy, as reported by The Hindu.
Ravi Gupta, Public Interface Director,
DRDO, revealed that the test firing was
successful and the missile crossed over
more than 3,500km.
Weighing 17t, the Agni-IV missile
is equipped with advanced avionics,
including a fifth-generation computer
and distributed architecture, as well
as the latest features to guide itself
during in-flight disturbances. Capable
of carrying a 1t warhead, it has a micro
navigation system and is claimed to be
the most advanced long-range ballistic
missile that is capable of launching
within minutes from a self-contained
road mobile launcher.
Indian Army Receives
ZSU-23-4 Schilka system
Isreli Barak 8 Missile. Courtesy: Times
Surface-to-Air Akash Missile
Test Fired Successfully
of the weapon system to the satisfaction
of the customer representatives.
system includes an advanced Phased
Array digital radar, command and control, vertical launchers and missiles
carrying a highly advanced seeker.
Barak-8 is regarded as an extensive
project by the IMOD and is led by IAI,
the prime contractor, in collaboration
with IMOD’s Directorate of Defence
Research and Development (DDR&D),
ELTA Systems - IAI’s group and subsidiary, RAFAEL Advanced Defence Systems, and other defence industries. The
current test validated all components
Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) has
delivered the first modernised ZSU-23-4
Schilka air defence weapon system
to the Indian Army at its facility in
Bengaluru, India. Under the first phase
of the contract, the company upgraded
a total of 48 tanks, with the remaining
units set be modernised in the second
phase. As part of the upgrade, the radar, analogy computer and engine were
replaced with advanced systems, and
an air conditioning system was added
for crew comfort. The addition of an
electro-optical system that can operate
in parallel with the radar enables accurate identification, acquisition and
tracking of targets while operating in
an electronic countermeasure environ-
11 | GEOINTELLIGENCE JANUARY - FEBRUARY 2015
voice, data and situational awareness
across the country.
ment. According to BEL, the upgraded
Schilkas can fire aerial targets while on
move and can engage enemy attack aircraft and helicopters during day or night
and in all weather conditions.
Supergeo Partners with T&B
Radio Tech in Korea
Supergeo has granted authorisation
T&B Radio Tech, Republic of Korea,
as a certified reseller to promote
SuperGIS in information communication technology and rapid developing
applications. The company focuses on
radio-communication and defence
and aims to apply GIS technologies to
safety management of the country.
According to a spokesperson from
Supergeo, T&B Radio Tech will bring
GIS technologies to campus with their
experiences in educating the youth.
With the technical capability of IT developing, the company is now planning to build a whole new system by
SuperGIS to expand their business.
12 | GEOINTELLIGENCE JANUARY - FEBRUARY 2015
Cabs Plying in and Around
Delhi Mandated to Get GPS
The capital region of India is all set to
mandate the cabs to have GPS devices
installed, and tracking enabled within
a fortnight. The move comes in the
wake of the rape of a 27-year-old finance company employee by the driver of the cab she had hired in Gurgaon
to travel home in Delhi.
An article published on Times of
India, reveals that Gurgaon Traffic
Police directed all Station House Officers (SHOs) to verify every taxi stand
owner and drivers in their respective
areas on priority basis. Police commissioner Navdeep Singh Virk has declared that all operators will be asked
to do background checks of their drivers, focusing especially on their criminal past if any, and ensure that all
cabs are fitted with a GPS. According
to Rajiv Narayan Mishra, SP (traffic),
standing orders have been issued to
cab owners and employers to verify
their drivers’ antecedents and character, and fit a GPS inside the cabs, which
they must monitor. Taxis must display
details of the driver, his mobile number and address.
awareness and real-time intelligence.
In addition, the AN/PRC-152A and
Indian Navy to Strengthen its
Air Warfare Capability
Patriot Missile Defense System.
Courtesy: Raytheon
The Indian Navy is working towards a
new fleet of aircraft and helicopters for
maritime surveillance, electronic warfare and anti-submarine and anti-ship
warfare.
According to Admiral R K Dhowan,
Indian Naval Chief, it was imperative to
expand India’s maritime surveillance
footprint to meet operational requirements with 12 Boeing P-8I long range
maritime reconnaissance (LRMR) aircraft, nine medium range maritime reconnaissance (MRMR) aircraft and 12
Dornier-228 short range maritime reconnaissance (SRMR) aircraft. Dhowan believes that the induction of these
aircraft will provide the Indian Navy
with the required surveillance capability in support of operational roles.
Harris to Provide Wideband
Tactical Radios to Australia
Harris Corporation has received a
USD 38 million order to deliver Falcon
III tactical radios that will provide
Australia’s armed forces with reliable and secure Type-1 tactical voice
and data communications. The order was awarded by the Defence
Materiel Organisation of the Australian Department of Defence to support
project JP2097. The project delivers
enhancements to Networked Communications to meet Special Operations
Command Land Mobility (LM) and
Command, Control and Communications (C3) requirements.
According to the company’s press
release, the Australian Department of
Defence is acquiring AN/PRC-152A
handheld and AN/PRC-117G manpack radios to provide its forces
with wideband tactical networking
capabilities, as well as line-of-sight,
ground-to-air and tactical satellite
communications. The wideband network enables operators to send and
receive tactical voice, video, and data,
resulting in enhanced situational
AN/PRC-117G provide users with interoperability through legacy narrowband waveforms. The company claims
that their radios provide the ADF with
wideband capabilities, a broad suite of
interoperable waveforms, and the ability to easily accommodate future Joint
Tactical Radio Systems waveforms.
Qatar to Use Patriot Air and
Missile Defence System
Raytheon has received a USD 2.4
billion Foreign Military Sales contract
for new-production fire units of the
combat-proven Patriot Air and Missile
Defence System for the State of Qatar.
The acquisition is part of an Armed
Services modernisation and recapitalisation effort. The contract includes
the latest Patriot fire units featuring
increased computing power and radar processing efficiency, improved
man-machine interface and reduced
life-cycle costs.
BSF Plans Laser Walls to Stop
Infiltration from Pakistan
Laser walls may soon be used to stop
infiltration from Pakistan. Indian
Border Security Force (BSF) is planning to explore this idea to implement
more effective border checks. The
laser wall will ensure that anyone ap-
Elbit Develops New Field Artillery Tactical Training
System
Elbit Systems has developed a new mobile simulator in an effort to meet
the functional and operational training requirements of modern artillery
forces. Called artillery tactical trainer (ATT), the virtual-constructive and
networked solution is designed for force-on-force training of field artillery gun crews, ranging from individual vehicles to multiple battalion
formations.
According to the company, the portable simulator features a wide
Training and simulation. Courtesy: Elbit
range of enemy and friendly computer-generated forces, as well as computer models of C4I systems, weapons, munitions and fire control units,
enabling real-time, man-in-the-loop simulation of complex operational and tactical scenarios, and extensive after-action reviews. The virtual-constructive training system delivers a realistic and immersive simulation that reduces training
costs to an absolute minimum, while enabling artillery crews, teams, batteries and regiments to significantly increase
their operational readiness. The ATT also provides a highly flexible and scalable solution that can easily be adapted or
reconfigured to meet specific customer requirements and infrastructures, explained Alon Afik, Vice-President, Elbit
Systems Aerospace Division Training and Simulation Business Line.
ISRO’s Indigenous Radar to
be Ready Soon
The
indigenous
Rs.
240-crore
multi-object tracking radar, which was
developed and built by scientists of the
Indian Space Research Organisation
(ISRO) and some industries of the
country, will be ready for operation
during the first quarter of 2015.
V Seshagiri Rao, SHAR-ISRO
Associate Director and Project Director of the radar, has revealed that the
electronics and mechanical structure
of the radar are ready and integration
of all components will start during the
month-end. This is the first totally indigenous multi-object tracking radar.
The new radar which will operate from
Sriharikota range can track nearly 10
objects simultaneously in a distance
as far as 1000 km in space, while the
conventional radars spot a single object at a time. This is useful in many
ways since it can detect 10 objects at
a time and in case space debris is approaching an Indian satellite, the path
of satellite can be diverted to avoid
collision and damage.
Harris to Provide Falcon III
Radios to Philippines
Harris Corporation has been awarded a
USD 18 million initial order to provide
the Armed Forces of the Philippines
(AFP) with Harris Falcon III tactical vehicular radios and intercom systems.
The Philippine Army will acquire the
radios for its tactical communications
modernisation programme.
Harris will modernise the Light
Armored Division of the Philippine
Army with the latest Falcon RF-7800V
Combat Net Radio integrated into
the RF-7800I Intercom Systems. The
comprehensive solution for in-vehicle voice and data communications
delivers secure tactical network connectivity. The order will accelerate
tactical radio modernisation for the
Philippine Army by providing soldiers with enhanced command and
control and situational awareness for
real-time decision-making. The embedded encryption will provide secure
interoperability with more than 13,000
Harris Falcon radios currently fielded
within the AFP, says Brendan O’Connell, President, International Business, Harris RF Communications.
IAF Gets its First Light
Combat Aircraft Tejas
The first Light Combat Aircraft (LCA)
Tejas was handed over to the Indian Air Force (IAF) by Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar. The entire
project by the DRDO and Hindustan
Aeronautics Limited is estimated to
cost over Rs 30,000 crore.
The Final Operational Clearance
(FOC) is expected by the year-end.
This version of the aircraft lacks the
latest electronic warfare suite, which
was integrated into one of the LCAs
two weeks ago, mid-air refuelling
and long-range missiles capabilities,
among other things that the FOC-con-
13 | GEOINTELLIGENCE JANUARY - FEBRUARY 2015
proaching the border or breaking the
beam in an unfenced zone sets off an
alarm. Other than laser walls in unfenced areas, the force is considering
anti-tunnel ground sensors and thermal sensors in the fenced stretches.
DK Pathak, Director General, believes
that the guarding force is constantly modernising their weaponry and
upgrading defence based on the new
challenges being faced by the country.
Sources have revealed that laser
beams would form a wall in places
such as the riverine parts of Jammu
where fencing isn’t possible. The system will be connected to an alarm
which would go off at any breach. At
present about 15% of the Indo-Pak
border and about 35% of the Indo-Bangla frontier is unfenced. BSF is
also planning to set up a smart fencing
system where thermal sensors would
be installed on fences which would
alert control rooms of any living being
approaching the fence. According to a
BSF officer, system will work as an advance alert system where one would
have time to reach the area where infiltrators might be attempting cut a
fence and enter.
Russia
Test-launches
Bulava Sea-based
Ballistic Missile
Borey class boats Courtesy: Defense News
14 | GEOINTELLIGENCE JANUARY - FEBRUARY 2015
Russia has successfully test-fired a Bulava
submarine-launched
ballistic missile (SLBM)
from
its
Borey-class
Alexander Nevsky nuclear-powered submarine. According to a spokesperson from the Russian
Defence Ministry, the missile was launched from a designated location the
Barents Sea and hit a selected target at the Kura test range on Russia’s Kamchatka peninsula. The three-stage Bulava SLBM carries up to 10 independent
warheads and has a range of 8,000 kilometers (5,000 miles).
Russia currently has two Borey class boats in service — the Yury Dolgoruky
and the Alexander Nevsky. A total of eight Borey class vessels are expected to
enter service before 2020. Despite several test failures in the past, it is believed
that the recent launches confirmed the capability of the missile as the main
armament for Russia’s Borey class submarines that are expected to become
the backbone of the Russian Navy’s strategic nuclear deterrent force.
figuration aircraft will have. The IOC-I
was granted to the aircraft, being built
by state-owned Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), in January 2011.
moved from the post, almost 15 months
before his contract was to end.
AS Kiran Kumar Appointed
as the New ISRO Chief
Asia and the Pacific remains the region
with the highest number of natural disasters, according to the Statistical Yearbook for Asia and the Pacific 2014. During the period between 1994 and 2013,
over 40% of the world’s reported natural disasters occurred in the region.
Published by the United Nations
Economic and Social Commission for
Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), the annual statistics publication reports that
disaster-induced deaths in the Asia-Pacific region rose more than three-fold
between 1994-2003 and 2004-2013,
largely due to a handful of extreme
disasters. Some 28 upper-middle-income and high-income economies accounted for 85.5% of the total economic
damage from natural disasters between
2004 and 2013. However, in terms of
GDP, low-income economies suffered
more from natural disasters.
Among the Asia-Pacific subregions,
South-East Asia, predominantly Indonesia and the Philippines, was hardest
hit by natural disasters with the total
report of 527 incidences and 354,293
Distinguished scientist AS Kiran Kumar
has been appointed as the secretary,
Department of Space and Chairman of
Indian Space Research Organisation.
The Appointments Committee of the
Cabinet (ACC) has approved Kiran Kumar’s appointment for a period of three
years on contract basis.
A Padma Shri awardee, Kiran Kumar
joined ISRO in 1975 and has contributed to Indian space programmes like
the Chandrayaan, Mars Orbiter Mission and also to earlier programmes
like Bhaskara satellite. He received his
Physics (Honours) Degree from National College, Bangalore University in
1971. He obtained his Masters Degree
in Electronics from Bangalore University in 1973 and thereafter M Tech Degree
in Physical Engineering from Indian Institute of Science (Bangalore) in 1975.
The news came after Avinash Chander, Director General, Defence Research and Development Organisation
(DRDO), was unceremoniously re-
APAC Disaster Toll Tripled in
the Past Decade: Report
deaths between 2004 and 2013. During
the same period, the number of natural
disasters occurring in China alone (285
incidences) was more than twice as high
as that in the whole North and Central
Asia (116 incidences), part of the largest subregion in Asia and the Pacific in
terms of the total area covered.
Microsoft to Invest Rs 1,400
Crore in Cloud Data Centers
Microsoft has decided to spend Rs
1,400 crore on setting up data centers
in India. In a filing with the Registrar
of Companies, the US software company revealed that it has started work
on setting up the cloud data centers in
Mumbai, Pune and Chennai. The company is setting up local centres in a bid
to capture the India market, especially
customers in the banking and telecom industries, which have had data
sovereignty concerns. According to
Azure Jason Zanders, Corporate Vice
President for Microsoft, the biggest
cloud data centers owned by the company, are capable of handling 600,000
servers in just one region.
CAE to Provide Simulators to
Polish Air Force
CAE has won a series of contracts
valued at more than CAD 115 million to
provide a range of simulation products
and upgrades as well as professional
and long-term support services. These
include contracts to provide a C295
full-flight simulator to the Polish Air
Force and contracts to support the
New Zealand Defence Force’s SH-2G
(I) Super Seasprite synthetic training
devices. The company believes that
the CAE-built C295 simulator will
support the training requirements of
the Polish Air Force and be delivered
in 2017 to Balice Krakow Air Base. The
Polish Air Force has a fleet of 16 C295
Latvian Army to Use TVS
Training Systems from Cubic
Cubic has won a contract to supply its
multiple integrated laser engagement
system (MILES) individual weapon
system (IWS) to the Latvian Army.
The USD 1.2 million foreign military
sale (FMS) contract from the US Army
Programme Executive Office for Simulation, Training and Instrumentation
(PEO STRI) comprises of an initial capability for the MILES tactical vehicle
systems (TVS), as well as follow-on
logistics support services.
MILES TVS equips High Mobility
Multipurpose
Wheeled
Vehicles
(HMMWVs) and other tactical vehicles with lasers, sensors and electronics used during force-on-force combat
training exercises. MILES TVS uses
Cubic’s wireless technology to provide real-time casualty assessment for
MILES tactical engagement training
in direct-fire instrumented training
scenarios. According to the company’s
press release, Cubic’s MILES IWS is the
US Army’s latest generation tactical
engagement simulation system. The
system offers more effective training
by saving time on setup and calibration so soldiers may spend more time
on tactics. MILES IWS requires less
time to attach a Small Arms Transmitter (SAT) and align a weapon unlike
the previous versions and maintains
alignment during an entire exercise.
Saab to Supply Simulators
to France
Saab has won a contract by the French
Ministry of Defence procurement
branch, the DGA (Direction Générale
de l’Armement), to supply the Roquette
Nouvelle Generation, (Roquette NG)
next-generation shoulder-launched
weapon system for the French armed
forces. The contract also incorporates
deliveries of outdoor training simulators from Saab.
The Roquette NG is a general
purpose weapon system which will be
employed by all three branches of the
French armed forces (Army, Air Force
and Navy). The new weapons are believed to be a part of the proven AT4CS
family and build upon Saab Dynamics’
modular 84-mm product range including the renowned Carl-Gustaf multi-purpose reloadable weapon system
and the AT4 family of disposable weapons. Three AT4 variants are included in
the contract: AT4CS ER (anti-armour
extended range), AT4CS AST (anti-structure and breaching), and AT4CS
HE (high-explosive anti-personnel).
The weapons provide multi-purpose
direct fire support with confined space
capabilities.
Airbus Defence and Space
Bags Falcon Eye Contract
Airbus Defence and Space has
signed a contract with the Armed
Forces of the United Arab Emirates
(UAEAF) for the development,
manufacture and launch of Falcon
Eye, a high-performance optical
Earth-observation satellite system.
The contract includes manufacture of two satellites offering
high-resolution optical capabilities
and a ground system for monitoring,
receiving and processing images, as
well as a training programme for the
engineers from the United Arab Emirates who will control and operate the
satellites once in orbit. According to
François Auque, Head of Space Systems, the Falcon Eye high-performance Earth-observation satellite
system will provide an unrivalled
observation capability to the Emirate’s Armed Forces. Auque believes
that the wide-ranging cooperation
programme along with the Yahsat
communication satellite system,
is an example of the sustainable
cooperation between Airbus Defence
and Space and the United Arab
Emirates.
Germany to Use Virtual Battlespace 3 Software
Bohemia Interactive Simulations (BISim) and eurosimtec have signed an agreement with German Office of Simulation and Testing to grant Virtual Battlespace
3 (VBS3) licenses to German Armed Forces. Claimed to be the most widely used
virtual simulation software for military training in the world, VBS3 provides an
immersive virtual environment that enables soldiers to train on tactics, rehearse
for missions and practice standard operating procedures. The software also features an after-action review tool to help soldiers learn to think, make decisions
and improve communications before heading to the field for live exercises.
The agreement also covers the supply of TerraTools 5 simulation
environment development toolkit, eurosimtec’s VB-Edit product line and
SimCentric Technologies’s VBS2Fires and VBS2Strike for call-for-fire and
close air support mission training.
Virtual Battlespace 3 Software Courtesy: BISim
15 | GEOINTELLIGENCE JANUARY - FEBRUARY 2015
aircraft used for national and international transport operations.
Gene Colabatistto, CAE’s Group
President, Defence & Security, has expressed that the company is happy to
add new platforms such as the SH-2G
and Tiger helicopters to their portfolio.
GEOSPATIAL STANDARDS
in Mobile Apps
Standard-driven foundation supports rapid data exchange
aiding mission success for Geospatial Intelligence
16 | GEOINTELLIGENCE JANUARY - FEBRUARY 2015
G
eospatial
Intelligence
capabilities are increasingly integrated with
applications on mobile
devices. Due to the increasing use
of augmented reality, the expansion
of
unmanned
aerial
vehicles
(UAVs), the evolution of in-vehicle
technologies and mobile control
centers, and the development of
wearable technologies, the volume
of location enabled content data
available for use on mobile devices
for geospatial intelligence is rapidly
growing. However, until now there
has not been an extensible, modern
standard for exchanging file-based
geospatial data. The new OGC
GeoPackage standard has been developed to fill that gap. GeoPackage
is a platform-independent SQLite database that contains vector and raster
data and metadata tables with specified definitions, integrity assertions,
format limitations, and content
constraints. Government geoint managers can save money and at the same
time provide their stakeholders with
improved capabilities for sharing
geodata by calling for solutions that
Emailing Data
implement the OGC GeoPackage
standard.
The Need for Geospatial
Intelligence
The geoint ecosystem of policymakers,
warfighters, intelligence analysts, and
first responders need to share geospa-
Website Publishing
Mobile
Applications
Sharing Spatial Data
on a Pen Drive
File-based
access
GeoPackage provides
many options for sharing
spatial data.
GeoPackage
Because it is based on the widely
implemented SQLite open source
database, GeoPackage is easy to implement for use on a wide variety of
mobile platforms.
bilities used for military activities to
address domestic concerns such as
disaster recovery. Mobile technologies
transform the mission space for
search and rescue from manual to
automated, including data collection.
Advanced analysis combines with
mobile applications to expand the
capabilities of first responders.
In an open letter to the industry,
newly appointed Director of the US
National
Geospatial-Intelligence
Agency (NGA), Robert Cardillo
wrote, “All of our efforts should be
focused on providing our customers with the insights, understanding,
foreknowledge, and meaningful results
that allow them to succeed in their mission.”
Mission success requires the
rapid acquisition, analysis, and
sharing of best-available information.
Geointelligence regularly involves
people and things that need to
be communicating location and
location-related properties such as
proximity and adjacency, area and
volume, path and trajectory, spatial
probability, signal strength, and line
of sight. All of these properties also
have a temporal dimension — speed,
rate of change, and history. Using a
plethora of mobile devices, sensors
and processing applications can
Mobile
technologies
transform the
mission space for
search and rescue
from manual
to automated,
including data
collection
17 | GEOINTELLIGENCE JANUARY - FEBRUARY 2015
tial data at the right time, at the right
place, and in the right format. These
participants also need to collect geospatial data quickly and efficiently
from large numbers of diverse devices
that are increasingly mobile and connected. In addition, sophisticated mobile display applications are critical to
positive mission outcomes.
Geoint is the basis for all other military
and disaster response intelligence.
Geospatial information augmented
with other information sources allows
warfighters, commanders, first responders, citizens, and policymakers to
have the best situational awareness for
decision support.
Warfighters in the field need
intuitive apps and the latest
information, including geoint data, on
their mobile devices. The next step for
mobile technology on the battlefield
is immersion — living within the
data and using technologies such
as augmented reality (AR). National
governments often repurpose capa-
GEOSPATIAL STANDARDS
18 | GEOINTELLIGENCE JANUARY - FEBRUARY 2015
A military apps
marketplace
is intended to
enable faster
innovation to
meet user needs
based on direct
collaboration
between
developers and
end-users
make rapid analysis challenging, but
the challenge can be met if all the
components use common spatial/
temporal data encodings.
Each of the following geoint trends
requires mobility, connectivity, and
rapid geospatial data sharing:
► Modelling and Simulation
► Augmented Reality
► UAVs
► Geospatial Big Data
► 3-D Geospatial Analysis
► Predictive Analysis for Security
► Crowd-sourcing and social Media
Government partnerships with
industry drive the innovation in mobile
geoint. The geoint agencies must be
agile to be relevant, which involves
taking advantage of private sector
advances. The geoint industry also
increasingly works with the public.
Disaster response often involves geoint
people, data, and technologies. Yet,
frequently due to the lack of standards or policies dictating the use of
standards, the required connections
are often more complex than necessary,
not automatic, and prone to failure.
Enabling Agile Geospatial
Intelligence
The geoint community uses a variety
of sensor platforms (satellites, UAVs,
cameras, etc.) and has a strong interest
in taking better advantage of a web
of sensors and mobile devices, often called The Internet of Things
(IoT). Today, most IoT sensors have
proprietary software interfaces defined
by their manufacturers. Integrating
with sensors can require significant
development investment. New IoT
sensors or projects involving multiple
systems often necessitate development
efforts to connect with the providers
of other sensors, gateways, portals, or
observation services. Standardised
interfaces for sensors in the IoT permit
the proliferation of new high-value
services with lower overhead of
development and wider market
reach. Standards also lower the cost
for sensor and gateway providers and
these savings may be passed on to end
customers. IoT integration depends on
having an open standards platform. The
geoint community clearly has a stake
in seeing commercial development
and deployment of open standards for
the IoT.
The OCG GeoPackage Standard
is an open standard for sharing
geographic data across modern
applications. It provides the kind of
functionality provided by shape files
plus much more. Thus, GeoPackage
gives application developers an easy
mechanism for rapidly accessing
needed data of various types in a
format and data package size that can
be used directly by mobile devices
such as smartphones and wearables.
Officials involved with public safety,
public works, transportation, disaster
management, and other field endeavors
know that limited network access or
network failure compromise access to
mission-critical geospatial data. When
the network is known to be not reliable,
map data must be loaded and stored on
mobile devices. With GeoPackage, it is
straightforward to develop applications
that enable warfighters, mobile work
force, or first responders in the field,
where Internet connectivity may be
absent or intermittent to:
► Store a small region-specific subset
of data
► Make changes or additions to that
data
► When
connectivity
becomes
possible, synchronise the newly
collected data with the enterprise
data stored in a remote server.
Conclusion
Existing geoint applications often rely
on unique, proprietary, and expensive
map data solutions that do not readily
support sharing. GeoPackage helps
solve these problems. Developers
who are not geospatial experts can
implement this standard to provide
less expensive, simpler, and innovative
location information solutions.
At least one military organisation
is using early commercial and
open source implementations of
GeoPackage. The US Defense Advanced
Research Projects Agency (DARPA)
Transformative Apps program, or
TransApps, is developing militarily relevant software applications (apps). A
military apps marketplace is intended
to enable faster innovation to meet user
needs based on a direct collaboration
between developers and end-users.
Two TransApps using GeoPackage:
► PanthrTiles creates SQLite tile
sets from source imagery and is
implementing OGC’s GeoPackage
format.
► Tile Generator will support
GeoPackage as an available output
format.
GeoPackage Version 1.0 was
released in early 2014. OGC members
developed the standard with additional
participation by interested developers
on GitHub, the web-based hosting %
for software development projects. All
OGC standards are free and publicly
available. Work continues by the
GeoPackage Standards Working Group
(SWG) on enhancements, extensions,
and additional documentation such as
an implementation guide. geoint industry players can benefit by participating
in the ongoing development, of
GeoPackage and by implementing and
deploying it in geoint systems.
By George Percivall, Chief Engineer,
OGC
Lew Leinenweber, Director of
Interoperability Programmes, OGC
Ron Exler, Senior Consultant, OGC
GEOBUIZ.COM
All the BUZZ about Geospatial BIZ
VEHICLE TRACKING SYSTEMS
20 | GEOINTELLIGENCE JANUARY - FEBRUARY 2015
The use of GPS in cabs serves as a scientific solution to location,
navigation and tracking management. By Sanskriti Shukla
G
lobal Positioning System
(GPS) tracking is a method
of finding the exact position
of a person or a vehicle. A
GPS tracking system, for example, may
be placed in a vehicle, on a cell phone,
or on special GPS devices, which can
either be a fixed or a portable unit. GPS
works by providing information on
exact location. Its tracking system can
be used by a company to monitor the
route and progress of a delivery truck,
or even to monitor high-valued assets
in transit.
How GPS Works
GPS tracking system uses the Global
Navigation Satellite System (GNSS)
network. The network assimilates a
range of satellites that use microwave
signals that are transmitted to GPS
devices to give information on
location, vehicle speed, time and
direction. The system can potentially
give both real-time and historic
navigation data on any kind of journey.
GPS provides special satellite
signals, which are processed by a
receiver. These GPS receivers not
only track the exact location but can
also compute velocity and time. The
positions can even be computed in
3D views with the help of four GPS
satellite signals. These GPS signal
monitoring stations help in tracking
signals from the GPS satellites that
are continuously orbiting the earth.
Space vehicles transmit microwave
carrier signals. The users of GPS have
receivers that convert these satellite
signals so that one can estimate the
actual position, velocity and time.
According to Patrick Bertagna
of GTX Corp, the operation of
the system is based on a simple
mathematical
principle
called
trilateration. Trilateration falls into
two categories: 2-D Trilateration and
3-D Trilateration. In order to make the
simple mathematical calculation the
GPS receiver must know two things.
Firstly, it must know the location of
the place that needs to be traced by at
least three satellites above the place.
Secondly, it must know the distance
between the place and each of those
Space Vehicles. Units that have
Benefits of GPS System
Over the years, GPS has become
very advanced and ubiquitous at
the same time. Vehicle tracking GPS
devices are being used in a wide
range of industries. Companies
use it to better organise movement
of vehicles and goods. It helps in
efficient management of trucks, buses, cars, or any other type of vehicles.
GPS navigators are able to provide
is the safety that it can bring to both
the driver as well as the passenger.
Whenever the taxi is experiencing
problems or emergencies, the GPS
navigator allows the driver or the
passenger to call for help through the
dispatcher, making it easier for them
to get to the location of the taxi since
they know exactly where they are.
It results in saving time and money
because drivers do not waste time in
finding destination. They stay on the
route and cannot bill incorrectly. In
From a
commercial
perspective, GPS
devices are
used to record
the position of
vehicles while
they are on
the road
21 | GEOINTELLIGENCE JANUARY - FEBRUARY 2015
multiple receivers pick up signals from
several GPS satellites at a same time.
These radio waves are electromagnetic
energy that travels at the speed of light.
From a commercial perspective,
GPS devices are generally used to record the position of vehicles while they
are on the road. Some systems will
store the data within the GPS tracking
system itself (known as passive tracking) and some send the information to
a centralised database or system via a
modem within the GPS system unit on
a regular basis (known as active tracking) or 2-Way GPS.
VEHICLE TRACKING SYSTEMS
There are various
benefits of using
vehicle tracking
GPS system. These
benefits include:
• Receiving alert message if the
vehicle deviates from its route
• Finding the position of a stolen
vehicle
• Keeping clients informed about
the position of their goods
• Efficient inventory
management
• Company knows exact position
of goods, vehicles, drivers and
passengers
• Driver can easily find the
nearest emergency center or
service station
• Company knows exact position
of goods, vehicles, drivers and
passengers
22 | GEOINTELLIGENCE JANUARY - FEBRUARY 2015
• Receiving unit can prepare
better for the arrival of goods
addition, intelligent route planning
systems utilizing GPS signals estimate
traffic congestions and even offer a
detour to the driver. Thus, it helps in
reducing fuel wastage too. In industrial
logistic operations, goods are
delivered on time and various things
like sales, delivery and inventory can
be coordinated more efficiently.
How Accurate is GPS?
A typical civilian GPS receiver provides
60 to 225 feet accuracy, depending
on the number of satellites available
and the geometry of those satellites.
More sophisticated and expensive
GPS receivers, costing several
thousand dollars or more, can provide
accuracies within a centimeter by
using more than one GPS frequency.
However, a typical civilian GPS receiver’s accuracy can be improved to fifteen feet or through a process known
as Differential GPS (DGPS). DGPS
employs a second receiver to compute corrections to the GPS satellite
measurements. How are these corrections provided to a GPS receiver?
There are a number of free and subscription services available to provide
DGPS corrections.
The US Coast Guard and US Army
Corps of Engineers (and many foreign government departments as
well) transmit DGPS corrections
through marine beacon stations.
These beacons operate in the 283.5
- 325.0 kHz frequency range and are
free of charge. The only cost to use
this service is the purchase of a DGPS
Beacon Receiver. This receiver is
then coupled to a GPS receiver via a
three-wire connection, which relays
the corrections in a standard serial
data format called ‘RTCM SC-104.’
Vulnerabilities of GPS
One factor affecting GPS accuracy is
satellite geometry. In simple terms,
satellite geometry refers to where
the satellites are located relative to
each other (from the perspective of
the GPS receiver). If a GPS receiver is
locked onto four satellites and all four
of these satellites are in the sky to the
north and west of the receiver, satellite
geometry is rather poor. In fact, the
GPS receiver may be unable to provide
a position reading. This is due to all the
distance measurements coming from
the same general direction, which
means triangulation is poor and the
common area where these distance
measurements intersect is fairly large
(i.e., the area where the GPS receiver
thinks the position covers is a large
space, so pinpointing a position is not
possible). In this scenario, even if the
GPS receiver does report a position,
accuracy will not be very good (maybe
off as much as 300-500 feet).
If those same four satellites are
spread out in all directions, position
accuracy improves dramatically.
Suppose these four satellites are
separated equally at approximately
90-degree intervals. Now satellite
geometry is very good since distance
measurements are from all directions.
The common area where all four
distance measurements intersect is
much smaller, meaning there is much
more certain where an exact position
is. In this scenario, accuracy may be
within 100 feet, or better.
Satellite geometry also becomes
an issue in Telematics. When
using a GPS receiver in a vehicle, near
tall buildings, or in mountainous or
canyon areas, the GPS signals can be
blocked from several satellites. The
relative position of the remaining
satellites will determine how accurate
the GPS position will be (and the
number of remaining satellites will
determine if a position can even be
determined). As buildings or terrain
obstructs more and more of the sky,
it becomes increasingly difficult to
determine a position. A quality GPS
receiver indicates not only which
satellites are available for use, but
where they are in the sky so it can be
determined if the signal of a given
satellite is being obstructed.
Propagation
delay
due
to
atmospheric effects can affect
accuracy as well as internal clock
errors. In both cases, the GPS receiver
is designed to compensate for these
effects and will do so quite efficiently.
But, very small errors due to these
items can still occur. Propagation delay
is the ‘slowing down’ of the GPS signal
When using a
GPS receiver in a
vehicle, near tall
buildings, or in
mountainous or
canyon areas, the
GPS signals can
be blocked from
several satellites
Tracking Mechanism of
Cabs in India
After a young woman in New Delhi
accused the driver of a premium cab
‘aggregator’ service, Uber Cabs, of
sexual assault last week, passenger
safety provided by taxi companies in
India has come under close scrutiny
— especially, the tracking mechanism
used by the firms to see where their
vehicles and customers are.
A closer scrutiny showed how cabs
have been flouting the security norms
and instructions. For instance, in case of
Uber, the driver simply had to switch off
the mobile device provided by the company, to vanish from ‘mandatory’ GPS
tracking. And the Uber driver who is
accused in the Delhi incident had done
precisely this. If Uber would have had
installed an in-cab GPS tracking system,
the issue could have been avoided.
Another cab service provider, OLA
Cabs, too follows Uber’s mechanism.
However, media reports suggest that in
the light of the recent crackdown by the
police, OLA is currently busy initiating
a dual layer GPS tracking mechanism.
It should also be pointed out that OLA
allows its passengers to share their real-time information of their rides with
anyone by sharing a link that tracks the
cab on a map. However, prima facie this
was a method of social media marketing rather than security protocol.
Ola Cab’s mobile application. Courtesy: Ola Cab
Meru Cabs, on the other hand, follows
better security measures. The company has installed GPS tracking systems
in the cars to track the location and to
ensure that drivers aren’t speeding.
And like Olacabs, Meru too allows its
passengers to share their ride information with a person of their choice.
In addition, the Meru Cab
App that was released a while
ago offers an emergency feature. It is a small button that
can be pressed by the passenger in case of emergency.
Meru claims that in 10 seconds, an emergency alarm
will be triggered to two trusted
people of passenger showing
the location of the passenger. The map sent would use
the reverse geocoding algorithm and provide the location of the cab. However, a
study found that not many
passengers are aware of such
facility. TaxiForSure, another radio taxi service operator, too offers similar service.
Taxi providers have tapped
navigation technology provider MapmyIndia to install
GPS and tracking devices in
their cabs, as part of measures to make travel more secure. According to Rakesh
Verma, Managing Director,
MapmyIndia, the company
has installed tracking systems
and GPS in about 10,000 taxis, adding that demand is fast outstripping
supply. Verma believes that the company provides world class tracking
systems and applications that make
travel convenient and secure for
passengers. “From application soft-
23 | GEOINTELLIGENCE JANUARY - FEBRUARY 2015
as it passes through earth’s ionosphere
and troposphere. In space, radio signals travel at the speed of light, but
they are significantly slower once they
enter the atmosphere.
According to a study conducted
by Emory University, US, multipath is
another source of error. Simply put,
multipath is the result of a radio signal being reflected off an object. With
GPS, multipath occurs when the signal
bounces off a building or terrain before reaching the GPS receiver’s antenna. The signal takes longer to reach
the receiver than if it traveled a direct
path. This added time makes the GPS
receiver think the satellite is farther
away than it really is, which adds error
to the overall position determination.
VEHICLE TRACKING SYSTEMS
24 | GEOINTELLIGENCE JANUARY - FEBRUARY 2015
MapmyIndia’s vehicle
tracking system
ware to good quality hardware, our
company makes sure that we offer the
best to our customers. Our tracking
systems are the only tracking systems
that provide house level data that
is accurate and certified. We stand
behind our products,” says Verma.
The clamour for GPS tracking
facility is not new. Expressing concern
over the large number of rape and
murder of call centre employees
by the cab drivers, the Associated
Chambers of Commerce and Industry
(ASSOCHAM) had suggested the
Government to make installation of
GPS mandatory in all the cabs being
employed by industries where women
work in night shifts.
ASSOCHAM secretary-general D
S Rawat had then told media that the
installation of GPS in cabs would help
provide fool-proof security to the women workers. “Installation of GPS in all
pick-and-drop vehicles would help
in monitoring their movements and
check any diversion,” he said.
Rawat said the Government
should make installation of the GPS
mandatory not only for call centre
cabs but also in the vehicles of other
industries where women worked in late
night shifts. According to ASSOCHAM
estimates, there are nearly 7,500
vehicles involved in ferrying workers
in Delhi and other neighbouring cities.
In all, ASSOCHAM had estimated that
there were nearly 30,000 such vehicles
in which GPS should be installed.
The Way Ahead
The US Department of Transportation
(DOT) recently released the results
of a study assessing the vulnerability
of the national transportation
infrastructure that relies on the GPS.
The study found that GPS is
susceptible to unintentional disruption
from such causes as atmospheric effects, signal blockage from buildings,
and interference from communications equipment, as well as to potential deliberate disruption. It contains
a number of recommendations to address the possibility of disruption and
ensure the safety of the national transportation infrastructure.
The study identified the need to create awareness among the aviation, maritime and surface user communities of
the vulnerability of GPS and the need to
reduce degradation or loss of the GPS
signal. A result of this was recently seen
when eLoran made a comeback in the
US amidst fears of GPS outage. While,
the implementation of eLoran was restricted to maritime operations, it is important to also study and create a counter measure for the use in other means
of transportation that are dependent on
GPS signals.
Governments across the globe are
currently working on implementing
systems to monitor, report, and locate
unintentional interference to GPS.
The scope of such work also extends
to identification of backup systems,
and developing integrity warning,
or operational procedures for each
safety-critical application.
While encouraging the development of low-cost systems as backups
to GPS is one way out from the situation, the US’ ongoing GPS modernisation programme is focused on developing higher GPS broadcast power
and the eventual availability of three
civil frequencies.
In addition to the review of backup
systems, the findings from the aforementioned research will initially be
used by DOT’s operating administrations to strengthen safety-critical areas that have an impact on aviation,
maritime, railroads, and intelligent
transportation systems. DOT will work
with DOD to take appropriate steps to
address GPS vulnerability in order to
assure safe, secure transportation.
Sanskriti Shukla, Sub Editor,
Geointelligence Magazine
sanskriti@geospatialmedia.net
TECHNOLOGY
Implementing
Geospatial Intelligence
in Defence Forces
Credit: www.sc2mapster.com
Geospatial information is crucial for relevant and updated
situational awareness at all levels whether operating in hostile
environments or in peace time
H
istorically, terrain has
played a defining role
in the outcome of any
armed conflict. Clever
exploitation of the terrain enables
an inferior force to defeat a more
powerful enemy as the ignorance
of the battlefield effects of terrain quickly nullify combat power.
Geospatial Intelligence (GEOINT) is
an intelligence discipline which has
emerged out of the convergence of
geospatial and imagery information.
Geospatial Intelligence represents one
of the most important developments
TECHNOLOGY
Access Networks (Technology)
User Community
Governance Policy
Data
Standards
26 | GEOINTELLIGENCE JANUARY - FEBRUARY 2015
Spatial Data Infrastructure. Courtesy: Cardinal us
in intelligence gathering and usage
for conducting not only military
operations but also countering asymmetric threats.
Any strategic decision concerning
movement of assets is empowered by
geospatial information. Commanders
can create scenarios for positioning of
their assets, to ensure easy accessibility
and speedy mobilisation of resources
in case of outbreak of hostilities or in
situations like natural or man-made disasters, acts of terrorism or insurgency.
In spite of the availability of
advanced
software
applications
and sophisticated hardware, the full
potential of geospatial products and
solutions has not been realised by
the defence forces and number of
challenges have been identified which
need to be addressed by defence
customers/Geoint industry.
Capabilities of Existing
Geoint systems
A Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI)
has the potential to distribute, share
and to collaborate on geospatial data
with large number of relevant stakeholders and communities. The existing Geo Systems provide the following
capabilities to the defence forces:
• GIS as a Collaborative Tool: In the
past, people thought of geographic
information systems as a tool
handling things such as scanned
maps and scanned images — basic
information about terrain and
perhaps elevation data. Presently,
the GIS technology is not just about
making maps with visual dots on
them — it is far more than that,
allowing people in a networked
environment to bring together
large quantities of information.
Users can now create their own
products and share data amongst
themselves, so GIS becomes a powerful collaboration tool amongst
agencies.
• Multi Intelligence Framework: GIS is moving from traditional
geographic intelligence towards
a multi-intelligence framework,
integrating information from a large
variety of sources. What we have
now is that there are other types of
intelligence tools that can be added
to basic geographic formats to look
for relationships and patterns. In
turn, this information can be used to
alert and queue other surveillance
and reconnaissance assets with
the objective of improving decision
making.
• Full Motion Video: Amongst the
data, not only is imagery becoming
available, but much more than
that in the form of full motion video and a variety of streaming data.
This streaming data could come
from any number of sensors —
possibly scanning for things such as
chemical, biological or radiological
material.
• Shared Situational Awareness:
With
the advancement in
technology,
geo-referenced
geospatial intelligence can be
collected rapidly and precisely which is then analysed and
displayed for everyone on the
battlefield. This ensures that all the
decision makers, from the lowest
tactical level to politicians, have the
same accurate and timely data. With
this shared situational awareness,
all military operations become more
effective and accountable.
• Availability of Accurate Geospatial
Information: For many years
one of the main challenges was
the availability and geospatially
accurate imagery from which the full
spectrum of geospatial intelligence
products and services could be produced. These restrictions have now
evaporated with the availability of
new and very capable radar, Hyper
spectral and electro-optic imagery.
• Enterprise
Service
Oriented
Architecture (SOA): To overcome
growing demand for time-sensitive
information about specific areas of
the world, a modern service-oriented architecture based system has
been developed to speed up deliv-
GIS is moving
from traditional
geographic
intelligence
towards a
multi-intelligence
framework,
integrating
information from
a large variety of
sources
Joint Common Operational Picture. Courtesy: Defense Media Network
specific purpose. As technology
advanced, it became much easier and more practical to create 3D
graphics and the routine use of
these models has increased accordingly. In recent years, technological
advances have made it possible to
add a fourth dimension to these
3D geospatial products, time.
This dimension provides several
capabilities. First, it adds motion to
a 3D image, enabling analysts to create interactive products. This provides the warfighter and intelligence
analyst with a more realistic picture
of the threat or mission environment, including the effects of factors
such as speed, tides, direction, wind,
and changing daylight. Second, it is
easier to integrate information from
other intelligence sources for a more
comprehensive picture. Third, the
element of time serves as another
tool to support predictive analysis.
• Availability of Social Media: The role of social media is an example
of how
Geoint has developed
and matured. The intelligence
community always used Open
Sources (OSINT) data. There were
many sources of this data and it was
key to understanding many complex
intelligence problems. As Geoint
developed, the GIS community understood the importance of ‘crowd
sourcing’ and the GeoInt social
media. This has now become to be
known as Geoint OSINT. It is vital
for many intelligence and Geoint
problems.
Major Implementation
Challenges
Modern wars operate at three distinct
levels — strategic, operational and
tactical. Geospatial information
The Intelligence community always
used Open Sources (OSINT) data.
There were many sources of this data
and it was key to understanding many
complex intelligence problems
27 | GEOINTELLIGENCE JANUARY - FEBRUARY 2015
ery of data and products to defence
customers and empowering them
with the best tools to build custom
products themselves. The geospatial
technology-based enterprise SOA
quickly serves oceanographic data,
models, and products and provides
an easy-to-use interface for finding
information and requesting advanced analysis that also manages workflow processes, enforces
laid down metadata standards,
and stores data in a centralised
geodatabase.
• Enhanced
Imagery
Analysis
capability: The most modern
imagery analysis suites like ERDAS
IMAGINE provide true value by
consolidating remote sensing,
photogrammetry, LIDAR analysis,
basic vector analysis and radar
processing into a single product.
These
technologies
support
enterprise
enabled
geospatial
image processing that utilises a
centralised relational database to
store geospatial information.
• 3D Visualisation: For decades,
analysts have used these graphics
and layered information to create
3D models by hand which were
time and labor intensive to build
and thus were usually made only
in special circumstances or for a
28 | GEOINTELLIGENCE JANUARY - FEBRUARY 2015
TECHNOLOGY
is 5 for an intelligent and updated
5 awareness at all levels whether
operating in hostile environments
or in peace time. Any strategic
decision concerning movement of
assets is empowered by geospatial
information. Commanders can create
scenarios for positioning of their
assets, to ensure easy accessibility
and speedy mobilisation of resources
in case of outbreak of hostilities or in
situations like natural or man-made
disasters, acts of terrorism or
insurgency.
In spite of the availability of
advanced
software
applications
and sophisticated hardware, the full
potential of geospatial products and
solutions have not been realised by
the defence forces and number of
challenges have been identified those
need to be addressed by defence
customers/GeoInt industry. Major
challenges faced in exploiting the
GeoInt capabilities are as under:
• Seamless Interoperability: During
recent military operations, it became
clear that all defence partners did
not use the same accurate and
current geographical information in
their weapons, command and control, intelligence, and logistic systems. In most cases a complex conversion was needed to make the data
fit for purpose. Besides the lack of
using standards, the insight of what
information and data are available,
is still not commonly shared. The
Joint Common Operational Picture
((JCOP) and Shared Situational
Awareness (SSA) were therefore not
up to date and lacked consistency,
which can lead to collateral damage
and fratricide.
• Availability of Geospatial Capability
at tactical Levels: Geointelligence
tools are getting more sophisticated and powerful than ever, but
these tools are frequently tailored
to upper-echelon command centres, which house the expertise, the
bandwidth, and the infrastructure
to delve deep into advanced geospatial analysis. The challenge is to push
geospatial capabilities as far down to
the tactical level as possible — giving
Technology needs to strike a balance
between giving those users the data
they need, yet not overwhelming them
with information that is not tied to
their mission
those users just the right data to make
quick, confident decisions based on
up-to-the-minute data. But doing so
is difficult, for a number of reasons:
→ Front-line users need systems that
are intuitive, user-friendly, and that
require little training. If a new technology takes too long to learn or to
use, it will quickly be abandoned in
favour of a reliable old standby.
→ Technology needs to strike a balance
between giving those users the data
they need, yet not overwhelming
them with information that is not
tied to their mission. That extra
data not only clouds their picture
of operations, it wastes precious
bandwidth and network capacity.
→ New tools can’t realise their full
potential if they are just one-way
streets. These systems need a
networked collaboration backbone,
creating a web of users that can
connect critical dots in real-time.
• Joint
Common
Operational
Picture: National security interests of a country can only be protected if Defence brings its land
and maritime geospatial information together, so that all services
— Army, Navy and Air Force, have
a single authoritative view of the
littoral zone. Traditionally, this information has been managed in silos, with topographic data stored by
the Army held completely separate
from the hydrographic data held by
the Navy. Without viewing all this
data together, services struggle to
be effective in the littoral zone as
they can’t access information vital
to their mission. This is particularly
the case in an amphibious conflict,
where forces must have complete
visibility over all environmental
and coastal factors such as the
water depth, navigation channels,
ingress and egress points, coastal
features and significant landmarks.
Defence already has the majority of the GIS technology needed
to integrate its land and maritime
data. By integrating and mapping
information from multiple sources, GIS technology creates a ‘single point of truth’ for missions
for all personnel — regardless of
which service they’re operating in.
There’s a requirement for leadership to institute a change in people,
process and data dimensions and
ensure that the defence forces’ existing technology investment can be
fully optimised. An enterprise-wide
approach to GIS technology would
facilitate this capability and the littoral planning functions required
to ensure successful amphibious
operations.
• Requirement of Skilled Specialists:
The accuracy of today’s precision
weapon systems and the proliferation of surveillance and armed
unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV)
demand creation of new geoint
products and services. While the
demand for accuracy continues to
increase, the human dimension
has also become more challenging.
There’s a need for highly trained
geospatial professionals.
• Costly
Technologies:
One
of the main challenges while
implementing geospatial technology in the defence forces is the availability of accurate imagery from
which can be used to produce geospatial intelligence products and
services. These restrictions have
evaporated with the availability
of new improved radars and electro-optic imagery. The current challenges are based on time, space and
resources:
▶ Majority of remote sensing data is
purchased by governments.
▶ Most governments are reducing
resources.
▶ Time consuming for customers to
search the various websites for data
sources
▶ Cost of storing massive amounts of
imagery
▶ Timeliness of some types of imagery
to support maritime surveillance
▶ High cost of remote sensing data
• Inefficient Legacy systems: The
abundance of barely connected
legacy systems for collecting,
managing, analysing and disseminating geospatial information no
longer suffice. The existing systems
cannot handle the full volume of
incoming data. Built on outdated technology, these systems are
often incompatible with each other. Defence forces require modern, enterprise-level information
technology (IT) infrastructure
built on IT standards for handling
and working with geospatial information. Recognising GIS as a
fundamental technology, the new
geospatial solution should provide:
→ Improved commercial off-the-shelf
(COTS) tools and hardware
→ Decentralised geospatial data
management at each headquarter
with centralised quality control.
→ Standardised GIS production and
dissemination tasks.
→ An improved interface with
functional services that manage
logistical
and
operational
information within the Common
Operating Picture (COP).
• Information Overload: Today, there
is too much data and not enough information which is a huge challenge.
There’s a need to figure out best
practice to manage datasets of analysis
and visualisation of data to convert it
into proper information. This is one of
the issues that mission managers face.
The current collaborative will need the
assistance of enhanced data discovery
capabilities, driven by improved
metadata and standard-based access
to underlying geospatial content. The
information will have to be organised
and prioritised in a way that makes
data sharing and retrieval both
efficient and relevant. Given bandwidth and device limitations that
will continue for some time, GeoInt
delivered to the warfighter needs to
include ‘just enough’ content to serve
the mission and not be burdened
with unnecessary data. Geoint big
data distribution will also have to be
tailored to meet the characteristics
and limitations of end-user devices.
• Bandwidth
Limitations:
The
intelligence community and military
services are facing a growing need
to extend geospatial intelligence
sharing all the way out to the tactical edge. Yet as the amount of
intelligence that’s available for
sharing relentlessly swells, the
challenge of moving multiple terabytes of information to end users
— from office-bound analysts to
front-line warfighters — threatens
to overwhelm existing distribution
channels. As sensors, databases and
other information resources continue to expand, so does the number of
fixed and mobile end-user devices.
As a result, the challenge facing
system and network developers now
extends from the front end to the
back end of the chain — from how
geospatial intelligence is collected
to how it is displayed to analysts,
warfighters and other geoint users.
Such an environment will definitely
include support for a wide variety
of factors, such as smartphones,
tablets, laptops, wearable gear and
other Internet-enabled devices, such
as sensors and other data collection
and reporting components. The
ability to collect massive amounts
of geospatial data real-time from
systems and sensors needs to be balanced with delivering rich sets of geospatial information to the widest set
of users possible, but in appropriate
formats and representations which
best suit the devices and missions.
Providing the ability to run real-time
data analytics as Web services, which
can deliver meaningful results in
summary fashion to decision makers, will also be critical.
Conclusion
The degree of superiority of the
Geoint has a dominating effect on
planning and successful conduct of
military operations. The incredible
advancement in software applications
coupled with the increased demand
for rapid generation of geospatial
products has allowed or even pushed
the forces to move towards geospatial
intelligence
enterprise
solution.
The geoint community is marching
towards a more joined-up enterprise
approach. If the pace of using all types
of imagery and data – which includes
space-based data, all types of air
breathing, handheld, crowd sourcing
and other open source Geospatial
Intelligence can be accelerated, then
world class Geospatial Intelligence
products can be provided to the entire
customer base.
By Brig A S Nagra (Retd)
asnagra55@gmail.com
29 | GEOINTELLIGENCE JANUARY - FEBRUARY 2015
Defence forces
require modern,
enterprise-level IT
infrastructure built
on IT standards
for handling
and working
with geospatial
information
TRENDS
Bringing Predictive
Transparency
and Targeting to the
Battlefield
Geoint has an important role to play in transparency in the form
of not just intelligence preparation of the battlefield but also
providing information based on a predictive model
30 | GEOINTELLIGENCE JANUARY - FEBRUARY 2015
T
he operational plans of the
Indian Armed Forces are
dictated by what is known as
the Raksha Mantri (Defence
Minister’s) Operational Directives. As
per the Second Report of the Standing
Committee on Defence released in
December 2014, “the directions given
by the RM to the three Chiefs that
they have to prepare for a war where
vis-à-vis @@, they should be able to
dominate @@, whereas vis-à-vis @@,
the instructions are that they should be
able to reach a deterrence level”. While
the objectives of preparedness for war
have been deliberately blanked @@ it is
obvious that these denote domination
vis a vis Pakistan and deterrence vis
a vis China. This also forms the basis
of the ‘Two Front War,’ scenario that
the Indian armed forces have been
deliberating upon for the past few
years. This was reiterated by National
Security Advisor (NSA) Ajit Doval,
while speaking on future threats at the
Hindustan Times Leadership summit.
To face a diminutive yet aggressive
Pakistan and an informationised
People’s
Liberation
Army
simultaneously, adequate operational
planning and preparations would
be required. Transparency of the
battlefield in such a scenario will
assume importance to exploit synergy
in the networked paradigm that the
Indian armed forces intend to operate
by the turn of the decade.
PTT on the Battlefield
Predictive transparency and targeting
(PTT) is a new concept and thus may
need some discussion. Predictive
transparency is driven by the more
popular concept of ‘Predictive
analytics,’ that is used in a variety of
civilian fields ranging from customer
intelligence to decision support
systems, data mining, fraud, security
intelligence, risk management and
increasingly in operations. While this
has been used through creation of predictive algorithms to target for exam-
ple tax evasion or identify prospective
customers, the requirements for
the military though not dissimilar
are far more rigorous. For instance
a predictive algorithm used for tax
evasion collects data at various
points of a person’s transactions to
identify fraud which is then used by
tax officers to carry out specific audit.
This involves three stages collection,
analysis and usage.
At the same time unlike detection of
tax evasion, in the military field much
of the data can be pre-selected thus
easing predictive analysis while well
developed prognostic algorithms can
assist in scrutiny and decision making.
The complexity and volumes of data
required for the purpose may be
exponentially larger than those in the
civilian field while the margin of error
is also very restricted thus requiring
high level of fidelity in systems,
sensors and software involved. Geoint
based PTT can address a number of
these issues.
The Sukhoi Su-30 MKI. Courtesy: Sorruno
Geoint based PTT can address a
number of issues. For instance terrain
mapping on the battlefield through
tools provided by Geoint provides a
degree of accuracy that is exponentially
higher than other means
the Northern and Western borders of
the country. This is no doubt a herculean tasks by any standards but is possible during the pre hostility period.
Prioritisation and identifying critical areas over which surveillance is
necessary such as the Qinghai Tibet
Railway (QTR) across the Tibetan
plateau with its various choke points
such a geographic base through accurate geoint tools can further reduce
volumes. NATO forces deployed in
Afghanistan have created such geoint
based maps of critical areas of operations such as the Helmand Valley
identifying each object that would be
of operational or tactical importance
in a skirmish with the militants. While
the details required for a conventional
war fighting scenario are far more, this
is not impossible to achieve given Big
Data tools available today provided
this is done well in time.
Conversion of the geoint to
navigational data and feeding the
same into sensors is the next stage to
achieve predictive transparency and
targeting. A perfect data fit would
involve pre-fed information of say
defiles on the QTR in sensors of Su 30
MKI fighters and newly tested hyper
glide bomb of the DRDO which has
a standoff range of 100 kms. With the
seamless sensor shooter interface established in the pre hostility period
task of targeting unfriendly movement
31 | GEOINTELLIGENCE JANUARY - FEBRUARY 2015
For instance terrain mapping on the
battlefield through tools provided by
Geoint provides a degree of accuracy
that is exponentially higher than other
means. Importantly Geoint allows digital feeding of data with an interface
between the sensor and the shooter,
where conversion is achieved by dedicated software for this purpose such
as GPSoft which uses MATLAB based
solutions for navigation simulation,
analysis and data processing. MATLAB
enables numerical computation, visualisation and programming and can
also analyse data, develop algorithms,
and create models and applications.
There is other software available which
can also be exploited for this purpose.
Importantly software as MATLAB
enables conversion of geographical
data into surveillance and navigation
data which can be pre-fed into sensors and shooters and not just rest on
the screens in war rooms of various
headquarters as is the normal case.
For this the first requirement will be
geo-mapping the entire area of operations. In the Two Front War scenario
for India this will entail feeding inputs
of thousands of square kilometers on
TRENDS
Conversion of
the geoint to
navigational
data and feeding
the same into
sensors is the
next stage to
achieve predictive
transparency and
targeting
can be eased considerably. In a net
centric warfare scenario there would
be a number of sensors and shooters
that will have the same information
The Nasr missile. Courtesy: One Half 3544
providing numerous strike options
and reducing response time. The system is flexible as while transparency
will be on a constant turn-on mode,
targeting can be when operationally
desired thus avoiding scope of unintended escalation in a machine ruled
automated battlefield. This simple
example outlines the potential of predictive transparency and targeting
through Geo-int tools at the operational level.
PTT and the Set Piece Battle
The application of the PTT model in
the tactical domain assumes relevance particularly in the context of
a set piece battle such as the Ditch
Cum Bund in the plains sector in
Punjab on the Western front. With
mapping of each critical terrain and
tactical feature through Geoint a
comprehensive geographic picture
can be created which in turn
will be converted into a
navigational one for
sensors and targeting by the shooters.
Fire power plays an important role
in a set piece battle both in the defence and attack. Shooters fed with
predetermined data which can be
further corroborated through sensor acquisition in real time can bring
down a high volume of fire on an enemy advancing to attack on a Ditch
Cum Bund. Further precision can be
achieved by other means including
ground observation and laser designation and so on wherein intensity
and volume of fire would be enough
to break any attack. Vectoring counter
attack forces where an area is lost to
the enemy can also be carried out with
great precision thereby ensuring full
support from shoulders of the breach.
Collateral damage and losses from
friendly fire can be avoided in such a
scenario wherein high degree of accuracy is achieved.
Turning to a reverse scenario of
an offensive, major advantage to an
attacker is to have predetermined lay-
out of the defender in a fixed defensive
model as the Ditch cum Bund or others
in the Indo Pakistan or Indo China battlefronts. PTT will not only enable advanced mapping but modifications to
the fire plan can be factored in real time
through latest details acquired through
sensors. A high degree of coordination
is required in fire and movement in any
attack. At present this is either timed
or through voice control by fire control
officers moving along with attacking
columns. Such a system is archaic and
the PTT model can bring about greater
accuracy by employ gin multiple sensors to feed information of movement
and co-relate the same with fire in an
automated mode.
PTT & The Maneuver Battle
Given the fluidity of the maneouvre
battlefield it may be presumed that the
PTT model has limited relevance in this
context. However this may be far from
the truth. Employed creatively to fit into
various tactical scenarios envisaged,
this can provide the combat commander or even the team leader accurate information to vector on to the enemy
with effect causing heavy casualties.
In a simplistic paradigm a maneouvre
battle is conducted based on pivots —
pre geo-mapped pivots can be used to
advantage by the commander in the
field to shape the battlefield to advantage and turn the tide on the enemy.
This will have greater relevance in the
context of the desert terrain where lack
of landmarks poses a challenge not just
for navigation but also for shaping the
battlefield by the commander. Geoint
has the potential to provide artificial
pivots in such a scenario that can be
used to advantage to literally ‘make the
enemy run around in circles,’ before
destroying him.
PTT and Critical Enemy
Assets
The role of PTT in detection and targeting of critical assets assumes considerable significance. In the context
of India’s adversaries these could be
classified as the Nasr tactical rockets
with nuclear potential in the case of
Pakistan. The Nasr battlefield rocket is
seen by the Pakistan Army as a game
changer virtually negating the possibility of a Cold Start operation by India which is expected in the wake of
a major terrorist attack by Pakistani
sponsored terrorist groups as the
Lashkar E Taiyyaba. India is expected
to launch a series of shallow penetration attacks on a wide front by multiple battle groups followed by a series
of short sharp retractable penetrations
that would cripple the Pakistan military in critical areas where it would
hurt. Given the nuclear overhang this
is the best course option that India is
With mapping of each critical terrain
and tactical feature through Geoint
a comprehensive geographic picture
can be created which in turn will
be converted into a navigational one
for sensors and targeting by
the shooters.
33 | GEOINTELLIGENCE JANUARY - FEBRUARY 2015
An example of advanced mapping for military by NGA. Courtesy: Business Insider
TRENDS
34 | GEOINTELLIGENCE JANUARY - FEBRUARY 2015
expected to undertake. With the introduction of the Nasr battlefield deployable rockets Pakistan expects to
push India to the nuclear threshold
and pose a major strategic dilemma at
the highest level given India’s nuclear
doctrine of second strike with massive
retaliation.
PTT based predictive analytics can
provide options to the Indian armed
forces to identify possible deployment positions for the Nasr, carry out
constant surveillance of the same and
target these areas in case movement
is detected in proximity. PTT can also
provide the option of automated targeting by relevant shooters based on
preprogrammed target profile. This
will further reduce the circuit of deployment for the Nasr rendering it relatively ineffective.
On the Chinese front, a recent unconfirmed report has outlined some of
the deductions of a war game held by
the Chengdu Military Area Command
(MAC) with India as the enemy. The
report stated that as per the PLA the
greatest advantage against India is
the highly accurate medium range
ballistic missiles Dongfeng-16 in Yunnan and Guizhou provinces. Predicting the likely locations, constant surveillance and effective targeting pre
launch can be achieved by the PTT
model as was identified for the Nasr
hitherto fore.
PTT Informationised to
Knowledge Based Paradigm
At the heart of the PTT model is a shift
from information to knowledge based
paradigm where superior information
based on preparation and planning is
used to advantage to checkmate the
enemy even before the battle is joined.
This will ensure achievement of the objectives of the Raksha Mantri’s directive
outlined before and assumed as dominating Pakistan and deterring China.
In some ways this would be the antithesis of force accretion based deterrence
sought by the Indian armed forces
through raising of 17 Mountain Corps
and attended air force component.
While cost benefit analysis of the PTT
versus the 17 Mountain Corps would
require a detailed analysis on the face
of it this appears to be a highly economical option. Used in combination
this will considerably beef up the deterrence quotient. Most importantly
extraordinary weapons of the enemy,
is it the Nasr or the DF 15 can best be
defeated or deterred through the PTT.
Limitations
Predictive algorithms are based on
programming by humans. Thus a high
level of expertise would be necessary
which may not be available perhaps
across the World today. Developing
algorithms for predicting customer
behavior is relatively simple than for
war fighting where permutations and
combinations are numerous and developing programmes for the purpose
will require extensive military professional expertise. In the final analysis
what a system performs depends on
capability of the developer. Similarly
putting the same to use will also depend on commanders in the field who
will decide how benefits derived from
predictive analytics can be operationally leveraged. Time taken to develop
such systems and shift to the paradigm
may appear long but investment must
commence both in term of human resources and money. As the discipline
of Geoint continues to expand costs
will come down and human expertise
required will also be nominal, thus
these factors should not deter us to
make the right decisions.
Road Map Ahead
Putting the PTT model into practice
would require sustained efforts to
firstly sell the concept to the defence
community, carry out detailed analysis
and review, prepare an outline framework, and create a test bed and full
scale implementation. On the other
hand project based approach would
facilitate faster adaptation through a
similar process. Integrating the PTT
into the NCW paradigm adopted by
the Indian Army is another option.
At the recent annual Defence
Communications Seminar held at
Manekshaw Centre, New Delhi, Vice
Chief of the Army Staff, Lt Gen Philip
Campose stated that the Indian Army
was expected to be fully net centric by
end of the decade. This entails in the operational context information superiority that will generate exponential combat
power by networking sensors, decision
makers and shooters for achieving operational objectives with higher degree of
synchronisation, precision and lethality.
Tactical
Command,
Control,
Communications and Information (Tac
C3I) is the back bone of network centricity with Tactical Communications
System,
Geographical Information
System and Indian Regional Navigation
Satellite System (IRNSS) providing
the support. Tac C3 I comprises of
a number of sub systems to include
the Command Information and
Decision Support System, Battlefield
Management
System,
Battlefield
Support System, Artillery Combat
Command and Control System and
the Air Defence Control and Reporting
System. As GIS is considered a part of
the Tac C3I there is sufficient awareness
of the same across the board facilitating
easier assimilation of the PTT concept.
Most of the components of Tac
C3 I are in development stage and
integrating the PTT can be envisaged
particularly with the BSS, the ACCCS
and the ADC & RS. While this is an
army centric system expanding the
same to other services including
strategic strike platforms would
have to be envisaged to derive full
benefits and economies of scale in
development.
Brig Rahul K Bhonsle (Retd)
rkbhonsle@gmail.com
‘A Faster Way to
Digest All the Information’
The centerpiece of our focus will be an effort called ‘Map of the
World’ — an interface for all our customers, whether they are in
WHO, in the military or in the State Department. Robert Cardillo,
Director, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, USA
Y
ou have recently assumed
a new role at NGA. Would
this change the outlook of
the organisation as well?
The NGA I was fortunate enough to
inherit from Director Letitia Long, is
very much moving in the right direction
with the right objectives. I do think that
we need to accelerate in a few areas and
focus our efforts on lesser things and do
them better. I’m planning to work on
changing our speed and our focus. The
35 | GEOINTELLIGENCE JANUARY - FEBRUARY 2015
INTERVIEW
INTERVIEW
36 | GEOINTELLIGENCE JANUARY - FEBRUARY 2015
We become a
fabric that other
people can
overlay their
information
and data in.
This makes us
an integrative
vehicle, we turn
into a place
where everyone
can put their
information
centerpiece of that focus will be an effort
we call ‘Map of the World.’ This will be
an interface for all of our customers —
be it the customers in the World Health
Organisation (WHO) or officers in the
military or in the State Department. We
want to give them an easy and faster way
to digest all our information. In order to
achieve that, we have to create standards
for all our data and they have to be metadata tagged in the same way. It’s not the
exciting work we usually get involved
in, but if we don’t do this baseline work,
we won’t be able to give an effective
experience to those customers through
Map of the World. So, from products
we are moving to providing dynamic
proactive persistent intelligence, Map of
the World is at the heart of that.
What are NGA’s organisational
priorities?
We are a member of the United States
intelligence community — we work
against the priorities that are set by our
customers. Those customers are in the
White House, the State Department,
the Defense Department and of course
the deployed forces around the world.
We are increasingly working with first
responders. These maybe communities
in the United States or around the
world that we can work with if we have
a federal lead agency sponsor to help
them in cases such as a hurricane or
a tornado. We will always be in the
business of providing support to those
customers. In addition, because the
world is so different now and because
of the explosion in technology,
another priority for us has to be ‘how
do we accommodate all of these new
technologies?.’ Twenty five years ago
the world was simpler because the
inputs were few. So you could take your
time and be careful and rigid in your
processes. That won’t work in today’s
scenario. It’s a priority of mine that
we have an architecture that’s open
to non-traditional sources and we
accept outside data as well as develop
our own.
At your elevation, James Clapper
said that the position would
“elevate information sharing and
collaboration between those who
collect intelligence and those who
analyse it”. How is this falling in line?
The reason he said what he said about
NGA is because of the natural ability
of geospatial information, a map or a
chart to accommodate other sources
of information. We become a fabric
that other people can overlay their
information and data in. This makes
us an integrative vehicle, we turn into
a place where everyone can put their
information. This way we can drive the
integration that the DNI described and
expects from us. If you came to NGA
looking for a service, you would do that
through Map of the World. We would
provide both our information, whether
we produced it or not, for example, we
could overlay authoritative data and give
you a fulsome picture of the areas along
with the opportunities present in that
particular area and the risks/threats.
What kind of role is NGA playing
in international intelligence
operations?
NGA is playing a key role. For example,
whether it was the tsunami (Asian)
a couple of years ago or the typhoon
that struck the Philippines a few
months ago, NGA, in response to the
US deployment of assistance, relief
and recovery efforts, sent analysts,
geographers, and computer specialists
to provide assistance. They would
support not just the US relief workers
and the combat forces going in to
provide supplies and materials, but
also support to the local governments
whose ability to know where the
damage is and how to deploy their
resources to the areas most affected.
We have been doing this for years now
and have been busy of late because of
all the disasters happening. However,
one can’t know exactly where and
when the next disaster will happen. So,
we are currently working on creating
a flexible capability so that we can
employ wherever and whenever it is
needed. The Map of the World is the
key conduit vehicle to provide that.
Geointelligence encompasses not
only the intelligence aspect but also
several other factors whether it is
food security or energy security and
several other dimensions. Is NGA
also incorporating all these?
We are indeed, and as a matter of fact
those non-traditional parts of our
business really do fall right into our
capabilities. Talk about water scarcity,
energy security, the movement
of refugees, all these things have
geospatial base to them. We’ve been
able to employ our capabilities with
traditional providers of worldwide
energy outlook or the UN’s effort
to ensure water security or food
security going forward. So it isn’t our
expertise on food security but we will
provide a framework to understand
both a threat and risk, and also the
solution. We can be a venue where
people will see how to address these
problems. Essentially we look to
provide a framework, platform and
data (wherever we can) as well for
the bigger conversation that needs
to happen.
Flow of Spatial Information from
Battle Space Sensors to Warfighters’
G
eointelligence Brasil 2014,
organised by Geospatial
Media and Communication, was held at Sheraton
Rio Hotel & Resort, Rio de Janeiro, from
November 13-14, 2014. The conference
is renowned for its thought provoking sessions from eminent speakers
from military, industry, academia and
importantly, individuals at the policy
formulation level. The theme of this
year’s event was ‘Geospatial for Modern
Warfare’. Emphasising on the importance of technology in defence and
security, Lt Gen Chandele explained
Gen Div José Orlando Ribeiro
Cardoso Ministério da Defesa (Apoio
a Sistemas de cartografia de Logistica
e Mobilização), Brasil,
how it gives us an edge over potential
adversaries in terms of dominant
battle-space awareness and effective
application of combat elements at the
point of decision to achieve victory at
the fastest pace and at least cost.
During his presentation he described
the dimensions of warfare and the global
geo political scenario and outlined
the technological
developments,
particularly in electronics and IT
that have led to the concept of Network Centric Warfare-NCW; GIS
enables NCW by providing an infrastructure for flow of spatial informa-
tion from battle space sensors to the
warfighters across challenging network
environments, enabling storage, manipulation, analysis and display of
geographically referenced data; challenges for warfare-interoperability,
security, adaptability, scalability, cost &
complexity and bandwidth.
Gen Div José Orlando Ribeiro
Cardoso, Ministério da Defesa (Apoio
a Sistemas de cartografia de Logistica
e Mobilização), Brasil, highlighted the
importance of Geoinformation for
Defence, interoperability and its applications within the defence ministry at
John Day, John Day, Director-Global
Defence, ESRI, USA
Gen Bda Pedro Soares da Silva Neto
Director of Geographic Service
(DSG) Brazil
37 | GEOINTELLIGENCE JANUARY - FEBRUARY 2015
The third edition of GeoIntelligence Brasil was held in
Rio de Janeiro recently
REPORT
38 | GEOINTELLIGENCE JANUARY - FEBRUARY 2015
Delegates at Geointelligence Brasil 2014 conference
the Brazilian armed forces. “National
Defence Strategy (END) predicts use of
geoinformation for application in security and defence activities in the country,
with emphasis on Amazon region, borders, defending the strategic infrastructure of the country and major peace operations,” said Cardoso. He presented
the Register of the National Aerospace
Surveys Territory (CLATEN), which
is a repository of information about
the projects aerial survey conducted
in Brazil; CLATEN participation of the
National Spatial Data Infrastructure,
INPE, the construction of the Spatial
Data Infrastructure in the area of defence IDE/DEFENCE; systemic view of
Geoinformation in the activities of the
Ministry of Defence.
He also presented SEGMA-Control
and
Authorisations
Aerosurvey;
aerial surveys in the country and the
Legislation of the Ministry of Defence
use, with emphasis on the 953/MD April
15, 2014 on the Adoption of aerial survey
procedures for activity in the National
Territory; production of information and
knowledge to support joint operations
with the UN, Foreign military, Brazilian,
big events, joint operations with the national intelligence agencies and other
spheres; he presented the available database in the army-BDGEx/BDGEx Op.
During his presentation, John
Day, Director-Global Defence, Esri,
USA, touched upon the fundamental
problems of sharing data across
agencies and organisations while
talking about extending critical
infrastructure
protection
and
activity-based intelligence to the
cyber infrastructure. Day explained
the importance of integrating and
analysing data to provide actionable
intelligence, deploying mission-based
(easy-to-use)
applications
for
all disseminating information to
multiple devices and the role of GIS
in Critical Infrastructure Protection
(Physical Security)+Multi-Intelligence
Fusion and Analysis leading to
Critical
Infrastructure
Protection
(Cybersecurity). He elaborated on
his talk by presenting the Case Study
of Port of Long Beach, which was
a multi-agency, multi-jurisdiction,
shared
situational
awareness,
integration of business systems/data,
mission continuity project. Day’s
dialogue brought out the importance
of geography for integration and
alignment of cyberspace with other
data. “GIS Platform can integrate
Gen Div Eduardo Jose Barbosa Deputy
Commander of Land Operations,
COTER, Brazil
Dr Tania Maria Suasen Editor
Latin America, Geospatial Media &
Communication
Prof Guy Thomas, C-SIGMA
Pierre Dusquene, Director de Geo-Intelligence, Airbus Defence and Space,
Brazil,
Covert Surveillance and Monitoring
System which aims to equip the land
forces with means for effective presence
in areas of interest of the country,
particularly in the Frontier Strip,
supported by a complex Command
and Control and Decision Support System whose pilot project is being developed in the State of Mato Grosso; Project F-Ter systematic mapping in scales
1:25,000 and 1:50,000, to meet the immediate demands of the Land Forces,
use of geoinformation for large events
(Olympic Games 2016) existing databases with generation of 2D and 3D products of specific interest. He also presented a general overview of specific BDGEx,
(http://www.geoportal.eb.mil.br/mediador/) generally assisting the population and specifically the armed forces.
He stressed raising DSG standardisation
to the scale of 1:250,000 and larger; he
informed that DSG recently launched,
in the form of a CDROM, Standard
Technical Specification for Products
Geospatial Data Sets (ET-PCDG).
Defence and Internal
Security
Gen Div Eduardo José Barbosa, Deputy
Commander of Land Operations,
COTER, Brazil, began his presentation
with an institutional Video on COTER
and made a presentation on the
Command Center COTER-Terrestrial.
“COTER provides ability to coordinate,
monitor and if necessary, command
military operations. It acts as a center
James Steiner, Vice President,
Oracle, US,
for crisis management,” said Barbosa.
He presented the new configuration of
the command and control room and
new concepts introduced in operation
of COTER that revolve around
integrating space capabilities.
Barbosa elaborated the use of
smartphones and apps like WhatsApp
to resolve issues. He presented
the Peacemaker Programme — a
collaborative post by Army staff with
photos and messages posted in its
own system. He presented SISCOMIS
— location of satellite terminals
nationwide. He also presented and
commented on other projects like
SISFRON (Frontier-midwest pilot),
which was opened on the same day
(13th Nov) at the centre of the city
Dourado. He highlighted the need
for monitoring by Remote Sensing in
Project PROTEGER aimed strategic
structures and connecting with other
organs including civilian agencies. He
emphasised that this must have other
purposes besides the military, the
environment for example.
While
speaking
on ‘Risk
management and Disaster Response’,
Dr Tania Maria Sausen, Editor
Latin America, Geospatial Media &
Communications, revealed that one
of the main utilities of using remote
sensing data for disaster events is basically to get them quickly and accurately
at the time of the tragedy. But for them
to be useful to assist the rescue team
or decision makers in the planning of
Lt Gen AKS Chandele, Managing Editor
Geospatial Media & Comunication
39 | GEOINTELLIGENCE JANUARY - FEBRUARY 2015
cyber with other mission data for
Critical Infrastructure Protection.
Multi-jurisdictional response to cyber
improves
mission
effectiveness,”
said Day.
Gen Bda Pedro Soares da Silva
Neto, Director of Geographic Service
(DSG) Brazil, provided a peek into DSG
(Directorate of Geographic Service) – its
mission, history, assignments and structure. He informed the attendees that the
DSG is the regulatory organ for technical
support of the Department of Science
and Technology of the Army, and for that
it is responsible for overseeing activities
related to: the images; the geographic
and meteorological information, the
preparation of cartographic products
and the supply and maintenance of
technical equipment of its management.
Among the duties of DSG is the systematic mapping of the Brazilian Geographical Space for the Army, while also
serving other institutions of government
and society. The DSG technically manages the System Images and Geographic
Information Army (SIMAGEx).
Gen Neto highlighted the challenges
of systematic mapping and index map
of the various mapping scales and their
coverage. He also gave details about the
Project Radiography of Amazon, which
will soon be available in Geographical
Data Base Army-BDGex.
He presented other projects of
systematic mapping, such as the State
of Bahia and Amapá. Gen Silva Neto
described the SISFRON Project — A
40 | GEOINTELLIGENCE JANUARY - FEBRUARY 2015
REPORT
prevention and disaster risk reduction
and vulnerability mapping, it is necessary to be careful with the selected data
type, or that the sensor used to acquire
them generate important information
and suitable for any of the stages of
disaster management, independent of
the resolution of the data they are useful
and often the only option for reporting
a disaster event. Thus, the select remote
sensing data for each of the steps of the
risk management and disaster response
must be considered: the speed with
which the data can be obtained and received by the end user; the interference
of cloud coverage in obtaining data and
how this can influence the result of the
analysis or generation of information;
the data accessibility (free or paid); the
data temporality (archive or near real-time), the various resolutions (spectral, temporal and spatial) available
and how to take advantage of them;
the cost of obtaining and processing of
the data and how this can influence the
generation of information; the Brazilian
municipalities have to generate contingency plans and maps of risk areas
and vulnerability maps, they have the
capacity to use remote sensing data and
generate information that is useful and
keep it updated; as the field teams that
act in the salvage and rescue using the
information generated from the data,
sensing data; are they prepared for this?
While giving a presentation on
“Airbus Defence & Space solutions for
Defence & Security”, Pierre Dusquene,
Director de Geo-Intelligence, Airbus
Defence and Space, Brazil, spoke
about the constellation Pleiades,
which has three satellites. He showed
characteristics of satellite and examples of images and explained acquisition modes. Dusquene also informed
the audience about TerraSAR-X system
feature, which guarantees collection anywhere on earth, and detects
suspicious activity in the morning and
evening. “The northern half of Brazil is
covered by this system, and available on
shelf,” said Dusquene, while revealing
that the SPOT 6 and SPOT 7 satellites
will be launched in late June, which will
make it possible to integrate information about meteorology and has a spatial
Attendees at the conference’s exhibition booth
resolution of 1.5m. “The collection plan
is updated every four hours, has large
agility, stereo and tri-stereo collections
in one pass,” added Dusquene.
Geospatial Data
Infrastructure
Contra-Almirante Roberto Gondim
Carneiro da Cunha, DGePEM, Marinha
do Brasil, Brasil, pointed that 95% of
Brazilian foreign trade is handled from
the ports by sea as he spoke on the
Strategic Projects of the Brasilian Navy.
“The daily oil production at sea is close
to USD 190 million. In 2013 the country
moved, via inland waterways, about
78.6 million tons and maritime tourism
provides about 800,000 passengers per
year,” said Cunha.
He also spoke briefly about projects
of the Brazilian navy including: Nuclear
Navy Programme (PNM)-Domain Fuel
Cycle and Construction LABGENE
Laboratory of Electricity Generation
nucleoli; CONSTRUCTION OF NAVAL
POWER CORE program of submarine
development, construction and the
Shipyard Submarine Base in Itaguai;
NAVAL COMPLEX OF 2nd SQUARES
AND 2nd FFE; MANAGEMENT
SYSTEM BLUE AMAZON-SisGAAz
for monitoring information received,
intelligence data, weather information,
statistical comparison and legacy
systems.
While speaking on C-SIGMA’s
Collaboration in Space for international
Global Maritime Awareness Pathway to
Global Maritime Security Cooperation,
Prof Guy Thomas gave a brief
introduction about space systems,
facilities and advantages for monitoring.
Thomas also spoke about S-AIS, which
is now 26 Satellites in Orbit (from 6
Organisations) and revealed that ORBCOMM is ready to launch 11 more
satellites, taking the total number to
16+ globally disbursed ground stations.
He expressed that S-AIS was created
to provide maritime security to USA,
but has now expanded its functions to
environmental protection, maritime resource protection, safety, commodities
trading and route planning. “Sophisticated DDA systems, of the satellites brings
out pattern analysis indicating where to
image with radar and optical systems
comparing ships detected by S-AIS tells
analysts who may be trying to evade detection or is in trouble,” said Thomas.
James Steiner, Vice President,
Oracle, US, highlighted the current
trends in location based technologies
that are using big data, simplified IT
and deep analytics, on cloud. All of
which are interoperable with other key
platforms and software available in the
market. He concluded his talk by highlighting cases from various defence and
security agencies.
Day 2 of the conference ended with
technical sessions where presentations
were made on topics including: risk
management & disaster response; geointelligence enablers; sensors. The exhibition, showcasing different geospatial technologies, evoked keen interest
and provided users an opportunity to
interact with industry leaders and subject experts.
EVENTS
African Security: The East African
Maritime Security Summit
February 17-19, 2015
Djibouti, Africa
www.afsecevent.com
Border Management Summit
February 23-25, 2015
Washington DC, US
www.bordermanagementsummit.
com
Military Radar Summit 2015
February 23-25, 2015
Arlington, Virginia,
US
www.militaryradarsummit.com
Seville, Spain
www.airmissiledefenceevent.com
GeoIntelligence Asia 2015
March 17-18, 2015
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
geointworld.net
LIMA 2015
March 17-21, 2015
Langkawi, Malaysia
www.lima.com
Future Artillery 2015
March 23-25, 2015
London, UK
www.future-artillery.com
APRIL 2015
Avalon 2015
February 27-1, March 2015
Geelong, Victoria
Australia
www.airshow.com.
Sea Air Space 2015
April 13-15, 2015
National Habour, MD,
US
www.seaairspace.org
MARCH 2015
LAAD Defence & Security 2015
April 14-17, 2015
Rio de Janeiro,Brazil
www.laadexpo.com.
Global Security Asia
March 3-5, 2015
Singapore
www.globalsecasia.com
Integrated Air and Missile
Defence 2015
March 16-18, 2015
Counter Terror Expo 2015
April 21-22, 2015
Olympia,
London
www.counterterrorexpo.com
ITEC 2015
April 28-30, 2015
Prague, Czech Republic
www.itec.co.uk
MAY 2015
LANPAC Symposium 2015
May 19-21, 2015
Honolulu, Hawaii, US
ausameetings.org/lanpac
IMDEX Asia 2015
May 19-21, 2015
Singapore
www.imdexasia.com
JUNE 2015
UDT 2015
June 3-5, 2015
Rotterdam,
The Netherlands
www.udt-global.com
Geoint 2015
June 22-25, 2015
Washington, D.C., USA
www.geoint2013.com
JULY 2015
Land Forces Africa 2015
July 5-8, 2015
Midrand Gauteng, South Africa
www.landforcesafrica.com
41 | GEOINTELLIGENCE JANUARY - FEBRUARY 2015
FEBRUARY 2015
IMAGE INTELLIGENCE
BEFORE
Before: Infra-red images show the densely populated village of Doron Baga
on January 2 - before the attack
AFTER
After: This image taken on January 7, following Boko Haram’s assault,
shows the village transformed by death and destruction
The destruction caused by Islamist militants in Nigeria when
they slaughtered an estimated 2,500 people have been revealed
in gut-wrenching satellite images. Terror group Boko Haram
outraged the world when they indiscriminately murdered
innocent men, women and children as they attacked the towns
of Baga and Doron Baga in Nigeria.
The militants attacked Baga on 7 January, four days after
overrunning a multinational military base in the town that had
been abandoned by Nigerian troops. New images obtained by
Amnesty International show how the towns were devastated by
the assault — with more than 3,700 structures including houses
and schools completely destroyed. Buildings and trees in the
densely packed towns in the north of the country have been
decimated and the infra-red satellite images instead reveal
grey areas where the militants savagely destroyed the towns.
According to Daily Mail UK, eyewitnesses have revealed how
Boko Haram militants shot hundreds of civilians in cold blood.
The Islamic insurgent group is believed to have existed in various
forms since the late 1990s and claims to have approximately 9,000
fighters in their ranks. They seek to overthrow the current Nigerian
government and replace it with a regime based on Islamic law.
Boko Haram has also declared an allegiance with Al Qaeda.
Source: BBC, WSJ
Credit: WFP/Abeer Etefa
42 | GEOINTELLIGENCE JANUARY - FEBRUARY 2015
Boko Haram Massacre in
Nigeria: The Aftermath
India 2015
11 - 12 JUN 2015
JW MARRIOTT, AEROCITY, NEW DELHI
CONVERGING GEOINT
IT & ENGINEERING FOR
NATIONAL SECURITY
DISCUSS AND DISCOVER
WAYS TO PROTECT THE NATION FROM EXTERNAL AND INTERNAL THREATS
KEY ISSUES TO BE DISCUSSED
STRATEGIC
S
ST
TR
RAT
ATE
EG
GIIC
CS
SPONSORS
PON
ONSOR
ORS
S
Assessing the latest technology solutions and
incorporating the convergence of geoint, IT and engineering
Benchmarking international geospatial and IT standards
Building effective enterprise architectures to allow
effectives exploitation of geospatial technology
ORGANISER
Integrate civilian and military geospatial intelligence
capabilities
www.geointworld.net
GEOINTELLIGENCE INDIA 2015 SECRETARIAT
A-145, Sector – 63, Noida (UP) – 201 301
Tel: +91-120-4612500, Fax: +91-120-4612555/666
Website: www.geointworld.net, Email: info@geointelligenceindia.org
CONTACT:
Kushagra Agrawal - Global Business Head - GeoIntelligence
+919871800023
Kushagra@geospatialmedia.net