Integrated intelligence
26 September 2011
Esri demonstrates role of GIS in information superiority with counter-IED and warfighter exercises.
Geospatial capabilities company, Esri UK and sister company, Esri presented a Counter-Improvised Explosive Device(C-IED) and a Warfighter demonstration at this year’s DSEi to illustrate the how Geographic Information Systems (GIS) provide information superiority at a number of levels.
The demonstrations showed how GIS provides the visual thread to exploit information captured from multiple assets to create an integrated intelligence picture.
Esri UK’s latest version of its C-IED exercise illustrates how, using GIS, multiple sources of information from different collection systems can be overlaid on a geographic area and exploited to tackle specific challenges, such as to provide situational understanding to conduct pro-active C-IED operations. Esri also presented its ArcGIS for the Warfighter demonstration, which shows how Esri’s ArcGIS software can be configured to provide situational awareness across several levels of command, from the strategic to the tactical.
“In the current economic climate, and in the light of the challenges of current operations, there has never been a greater emphasis on making the most of the available hardware and systems and particularly the information they collect,” noted Budgie Dhanda, General Manager, Defence and National Security, Esri UK. “With around 80% of information having a location context, GIS is a powerful visual platform where disparate information sources can be brought together. The ability to combine, visualise and share this understanding must be a major contributor to information superiority.”
Making geographic information easily accessible to non-GIS specialists is key. In support of this, Esri UK’s C-IED exercise features a new intuitive interface, accessible via a secure web browser. The exercise illustrates how GIS can be used as an intelligence-sharing platform to exploit a vast range of data sources, including imagery, base maps and provide intelligence and social network analysis. The exercise shows how the data can be overlaid onto a geographic area in order to proactively identify and disrupt IED activity.
A similar capability is already in use, within the UK MoD’s recently deployed DataMan GIS capability, which is also based on Esri technology. DataMan is powered by Esri’s ArcGIS open standards-based COTS software and has been successfully deployed since March 2011 in theatre, in Afghanistan, by the UK MoD’s Joint Aeronautical and Geospatial Organisation (JAGO). It delivers a common geospatial picture to all users via a secure online browser called a Geoviewer and is being heavily utilised. DataMan, which currently integrates more than 300 layers of data, has recorded more than two million hits per month.
“With the introduction of intuitive user interfaces such as the Geoviewer that JAGO’s Dataman system uses, GIS is delivering this understanding to the fingertips of anyone in the chain of command,” added Dhanda.
ArcGIS for the Warfighter shows how a common geospatial server forms the backbone of a system by which the same intelligent maps and situational awareness can be shared with everyone in the command. The demonstration covers data management, planning and analysis, situational awareness, and how these capabilities extend from the command centre to mounted and dismounted forces in the field.
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