Intel Common Ground
Written by Peter Buxbaum
GIF 2010 Volume: 8 Issue: 4 (May)
During a series of tests last summer at Empire Challenge ’09, U.S. Joint Forces Command assessed how the various flavors of the Distributed Common Ground System (DCGS) work together and the degree to which they could share data with command and control systems to create a common operating picture (COP). Geospatial information is the foundational layer upon which the common operating picture is based.
DCGS is a family of programs with common elements designed to meet the intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance needs of each of the armed services. While DCGS includes common elements, it is not, strictly speaking, a joint program. The Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps are each working on their own DCGS platforms.
DCGS, as it is being developed, provides an interoperable architecture for the collection, processing, exploitation, dissemination and archiving of all forms of intelligence.
DCGS does not eliminate the use of legacy systems. Instead, each service is adapting its legacy systems to the DCGS Integration Backbone (DIB), which provides a common operating environment for all of the DCGS programs. Systems that collect, analyze and disseminate geospatial information have become DIB enabled, and newer geospatial tools as well are being developed for use on DCGS.
“We saw a greater level of interoperability between the different programs than we had seen before,” said Chris Jackson, chief of integration at JFCOM’S Joint Intelligence Directorate, referring to Empire Challenge ’09.
The DCGS-C2 connection was “less than perfect and kind of clunky, but good,” added Frank Hunt, a project lead at JFCOM’s Joint Systems Integration Center. “Luckily, we had command and control engineers on site so they could take information back with them and try to work on it.”
Geospatial information forms the basis by which the common operating picture is generated, explained Jackson. “Data from the geospatial layer is used to populate the COP. The other geospatial piece within DCGS is to be able to manage all sources of geospatial information and intelligence, whether they are derived from military airborne platforms, national systems, commercial systems or coalition systems and to be able to integrate that into the COP.”
Tools have been and are being developed for DCGS to facilitate the capture, analysis and dissemination of geospatial intelligence.
MULTI-INT ANALYSIS
General Dynamics–Advanced Information Systems (GD-AIS) originally introduced the Multi-Int Analysis and Archive System (MAAS) in pre-DIB 1998 to provide the intelligence community with a work flow tool to help with what was then the new phenomenon of video for ISR. “MAAS is currently DIB enabled,” said Mike Manzo, director of motion imagery solutions at GD-AIS. “We demonstrated DCGS compatibility at Empire Challenge ’09. MAAS can be interrogated by the DCGS community and provide products to anyone on the DIB.”
The DIB provides a common operating environment and represents a transition from the old federated architectures utilized by the Department of Defense, in which systems were integrated individually on a point-to-point basis. Legacy systems tend to collect and disseminate intelligence data form sensors and other sources in a stovepipe fashion. The DIB, which slices across all of the service DCGS programs, allows data to be shared so that data coming from the Air Force, for example, could be accessed and processed across all DCGS systems.
MAAS provides several capabilities to imagery analysts. It captures and archives raw motion or still imagery and their related metadata. It allows these to be incorporated into intelligence products, which are then published and retrievable.
The system works by first capturing records of incoming video feeds from manned and unmanned aircraft. These are annotated with “clipmarks” by an imagery analyst, known as a screener, to indicate notable activities and events. The MAAS Digital Video Analyzer allows imagery analysts to exploit clipmarks and create a variety of different intelligence products, which are then published to a searchable Website.
The intelligence products generated by MAAS can incorporate data in a variety of formats and from a variety of sources. Besides still and streaming imagery, MAAS products can include signal intelligence and human intelligence. Sources of data include those gathered from airborne platforms, national technical means and others.
Originally developed for DCGS-Army, MAAS is also currently being used by the Air Force, and to a lesser extent the Navy. “You can put a MAAS component on an Air Force or Army node and get the same kind of connectivity and become a consumer or producer of intelligence products,” Manzo said.
The MAAS tool allows operators and analysts to view video as it is being streamed, often from Predators or Reapers. “With the analysis team they can come up with intelligence products to give to commanders or handed back to guys in the field to help save lives,” Manzo explained.
The ability to overlay intelligence data on a map is incorporated in MAAS.
“There may be a piece of video on a chip of a map,” Manzo explained. “If the intelligence product is a PowerPoint presentation, you could click on the map and play the video or view still imagery. Or it might be a snippet of an intelligence report playing on the bottom. Whoever is doing the intelligence briefing can convey a message based on whatever is important to them.”
MAAS tools also allow for the analysis and exploitation of intelligence data on a forensic, or after-the-fact, basis. “Analysts can go back and see how a mission was prosecuted from a holistic perspective,” said Manzo. “They can bring all sorts of capabilities to bear, which are then fused into one product that then can be disseminated.”
Forensic capabilities can also be used to go back and review imagery on events and developments that appear on the imagery but were tangential to the original analysis.
MAAS has been used by Task Force ODIN (Observe, Detect, Identify, and Neutralize), which was activated in Iraq in 2007 with the mission of providing ISR assets to U.S. Army commanders to better detect and act against insurgent forces. It has also been used in conjunction with Project Liberty, an Air Force effort begun in 2009 to identify targets in Iraq and Afghanistan from the air.
IMAGERY EXPLOITATION
BAE Systems also supplies an imagery exploitation tool, SOCET GXP, which Darren Stelle, a company sales official, described as part of the “baseline” for DCGS.
“That means that it is the standard training product for imagery exploitation in the Army,” he said. “When it is rolled out, it will be the imagery exploitation tool analysts will use to provide geospatial intelligence products to warfighters.”
SOCET GXP is a COTS software package that accommodates the needs of both imagery analysts and geospatial engineers, according to Stelle. “It is more of an analysis tool and an engineering tool combined together.”
SOCET GXP uses imagery from commercial, satellite and tactical sources to identify and analyze ground features. Users can automatically measure, annotate, store and retrieve ground features in a series of images to expedite geospatial production, image analysis and map creation. The data can be used to monitor changes over time, manage utilities and communications networks, facilitate infrastructure design and development, and coordinate operational missions.
“It allows soldiers to do simple intelligence product creation by bringing up images and using the underlying terrain data to analyze lines of sight and slopes quickly,” said Stelle. “These can be used to develop locations for helicopter landing zones, for example. Terrain information is critical for a lot of geospatial intelligence products.”
The tool can incorporate data from other sources such as Light Detection and Ranging, a system that uses laser beams to map terrain elevation, as well as imagery. BAE is currently working on improvements to SOCET GXP to allow the tool to better handle video and to enable the more efficient discovery of SOCET GXP products from desktops. Since SOCET GXP is a COTS product, any enhancements introduced by BAE Systems, Stelle noted, are automatically available both to the company’s government and commercial customers.
Lockheed Martin, meanwhile, has attacked the geospatial intelligence aspects of DCGS from a data management standpoint. “The Army gets swamped with data, but they find that the more data they get, the less intelligence they are able get out of it,” said Karen Duneman, technical director of the defense division at Lockheed Martin’s information systems and global services.
Lockheed Martin set out to create an automated tool that would optimize the volume of geospatial data being disseminated for situational awareness. “We are automating with some algorithmic work some key features and data extract pieces, fusing those together, and sending reduced data sets out to the field for situational awareness,” said Duneman. “This data set becomes its own layer on a geospatial map, to give analysts in the field overlays and drill down capabilities without having to send all data at one time.”
The data set provided by the Lockheed Martin tool provides users with requested features. Much as users of Google Earth might ask a map to display roads or gas stations, users of the military version of the same product might ask for a display mosques or lines of communications.
“We send specific information to Google Earth and other applications, which display icons on a map to let users know that there is fused information on that location,” Duneman explained. “When they drill down they can view accompanying information, which could include messages on troop movements or blue force tracking. Users also have the option to drill even further to pull up raw data if they want to see a video image. But the idea is to give users a quick and dirty look at situational awareness at the highest level possible to give them a place to start.”
For DCGS-Air Force Release 10.2, Lockheed Martin is providing a collaboration tool that allows users at different locations to mark up a map that displays the same information to all the users at all locations.
AGGREGATION CLASSIFICATION
Lockheed Martin has also attacked the problem that occurs when fused pieces of data from various sources reach a higher level of classification that prevents them from being widely disseminated. “Much of the data that is worked on in a multi-int environment is classified as secret,” Duneman explained. “But when you stick data together, it sometimes creates an aggregation problem and floats up to a higher classification level. Not a lot of the data may be higher than secret, but when you put two or three types of data together or when you include geospatial data, this often happens.”
Data that could expose sources and methods can also create this problem. “It may be hard to get this data to joint or coalition forces, or anyone deployed to the field who may have only low side access,” said Duneman.
Lockheed Martin’s tool implements two different guards that are responsible for taking all of the fused data back apart, scrubbing those elements that might take the data to a higher classification level, and then putting it all back together and sending it out at the secret level so that warfighters in the field can view it on their handheld devices.
“The guards sit between the Air Force DCGS nodes and the dissemination networks,” said Duneman. “Everything that goes out over the network to warfighters is automatically scrubbed.”
Lockheed Martin has also provided the Air Force DCGS with a portal tool that allows users to view the location of airborne ISR assets and allow them to request the provision of necessary geospatial information in near real-time.
“For example, a warfighter sitting overseas would log onto the Air Force DCGS site to bring up a map displaying the current positions of Predator, U2s, Global Hawks and other assets,” Duneman explained. “He has already viewed video collected over certain spots so he also knows what’s missing and what to request from airborne ISR assets.”
In the past, such a warfighter would have to wait 24 to 36 hours for the mission of the airborne asset to end and another 24 hours beyond that to get his request attended to. “Now, using this Web-based tool he can see that a Predator or other asset is positioned where he needs imagery and can ask it to take a picture,” Duneman said.
“The ability to post this information to a portal and display it on a Web map that external users can view has already impacted the end-user community,” she added. “It has been huge.” ♦
