Delivering Imagery to Distant Air Force Field Personnel

Customer Challenge

The U.S. Air Force needed a way to deliver large-file imagery at high speeds over low bandwidth networks to combat forces.

Solution Achieved

As part of an Air Force-sponsored program, NV5 (formerly ITT Visual Information Solutions) has developed and delivered an advanced imagery management and dissemination solution for the Air Force that provides high-resolution, large-file imagery at high speed over low bandwidth to combat forces.

The new system incorporates the Advanced Geospatial Imagery Library Enterprise (AGILE) technology developed by NV5. Adhering to National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) NITF/JPEG2000 imagery standards, the system receives processed and unexploited imagery from various Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) sources, while providing the framework necessary for managing hundreds of images collected daily. This allows combat forces to quickly locate and access current imagery.

Based on original image sensor metadata, the solution incorporates a Web-based Search and Discovery feature to facilitate a user’s ability to rapidly find and retrieve desired images. A key feature of the system is its ability to disseminate imagery in near real time to users in the field at low bandwidths – even below 10Kbps. This is accomplished through dynamic access of the full frame image. This dynamic access makes the imagery readily available to tactical users where limited communications inhibit access to geospatial imagery and reduces the time for tactical decision making from days/hours to minutes/seconds.

“Our challenge is to significantly shorten the time it takes for critical users to obtain this high-resolution imagery,” said Bruce Wald, Vice President and Director, Image Information Solutions, ITT Space Systems Division. “Prior systems were slow because of difficulty sending large volumes over a small bandwidth. Our solution, which uses a non-proprietary architecture based on open standards for advanced compression and wavelet dissemination, allows the Air Force to deliver imagery far more rapidly.”

The core component of the system is the Image Access Solutions (IAS) commercial software product from NV5. It is the engine that provides data conversion, compression and dynamic image access. IAS software allows you to deliver, visualize, and integrate imagery with geospatial data for time-sensitive surveillance and reconnaissance missions.

Follow-on efforts with the Air Force will integrate NV5's geospatial intelligence software and technology into the Distributed Common Ground Station Integrated Backbone (DIB) and Global Command and Control System architectures. This will dramatically extend the numbers of users who will be able to benefit from the technology.

Benefits

• Combat forces can receive critical information more quickly than ever
• The Air Force is no longer limited to sending small files over low bandwidth networks
• Combat forces can now integrate imagery with geospatial data for time-sensitive surveillance and reconnaissance missions