When an improvised explosive device detonated among a U.S. Army infantry battalion in 2007 in Iraq, the perpetrators probably thought they could just slip away. But in a matter of minutes, a human intelligence team used a new system to gather information from multiple databases, geo-reference it on a map and nab nine insurgents.
The information came via the U.S. Army's Distributed Common Ground System, known as DCGS-A. Used in Iraq and Afghanistan, these computers consolidate nine Army intelligence stations into a single system and give battalion intelligence analysts access to national- and theater-level databases. The stations also are equipped with data-mining and visualization tools.
There is a tide of intelligence information in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the trick is to mine it quickly enough to create a useable targeting package, Army officials said.
"We have about three-plus years of data. If you have an IED [improvised explosive device] going off in the same spot, then you take that data and look at it from a different perspective with different tools. [Maybe] they're setting off the IED in this corridor because of the way the terrain is shaped, or whatever the theory is you want to test," said Lt. Col. Daniel Cunningham, manager for intelligence fusion at the Army's intelligence, electronic warfare and sensors office at Fort Monmouth, N.J.
In the old days, "We couldn't do that kind of data mining because info existed on several different programs of record or it existed on paper," he said.
The Army has begun deploying the next iteration of DCGS-A, called Version 3. These stations add a metadata system to tag data, such as information from interrogations of insurgents, with visual icons so that analysts can quickly determine whether they want to study a particular item. "Like a card catalog at the library is how we describe it," Cunningham said.
The Army decided to assemble the system itself rather than hire a company to do it. Key services and applications are provided by Nor-throp Grumman, Raytheon, SAIC, Textron's Overwatch intelligence unit, the CSP Technologies software company and the U.S. government-funded Mitre Corp.
Searching national databases will be much faster with Version 3, Cunningham said. "All you have to do is query, like a Google sort of query, on DCGS-A." In addition, version 3 adds the DCGS Integrated Backbone (DIB), a server that stores data in a common metadata format accessible by the military services and national intelligence agencies.
"On the metadata, you might get a chip" - a section of an image - "and then you would look through the different chips and decide if that is something you would like to look at," Cunningham said. "So the analyst doesn't have to go through all the data. He can see it at the metadata level."
Version 3 also incorporates a multifunction work station that comes with the tools an analyst needs. "He doesn't have to cut and paste from one application to another application," Cunningham said. "The data stays on his desktop and he moves tools to the data."
For users, the biggest change might be the addition of client laptops that allow battalion-level intelligence personnel to tap into high-level databases. The laptops connect to servers at brigade headquarters. The brigade servers for a DCGS-A mobile station come in a computer six-pack carried in a transit case.
Northrop Grumman is the prime integrator for Version 4, which is now in development. Users of Version 4 will be able to directly link to sensors when they want rather than having to go through the U.S. government's Secret Internet Protocol Router Network and the Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System, or having the data relayed through another ground station. This will reduce latency without any need for additional bandwidth, Cunningham said. Version 4 is scheduled for a limited user test in fiscal 2010 and initial operational capability in 2011.
What is good news for battalions in the field is bad news for the "brains," which are the supercomputers that users with laptops tap into at the Army's fixed DCGS sites. There are eight brains, including one each at the five theater-level military intelligence brigades, one each in Iraq and Afghanistan, and one for training at the Ground Intelligence Support Activity. "The brains will be less important because [users] will be able to get direct sensor feeds at the brigade level," Cunningham said.
However, the brains will still be retained to collect information. "The direct sensor feeds that V4 will receive [do] not come close to equating to all the intelligence information that is being ingested into the brains," Cunningham said.
There is no DCGS Version 5 formally in the works. "We do talk about that internally," Cunningham said. A fifth iteration might feature a long list of improvements such as text-based data analytics, multilevel data security, automated data discovery services, speech-to-text translation, document exploitation tools, automated or semi-automated target recognition for imagery, models for enemy force estimation, modeling intent and prediction, and optimization of sensor payloads for platforms.
By consolidating nine ground stations into one, the Army also has made life a little less dizzying for users. "Now you'll have one system. One look and feel to train soldiers on. One system that will be easier to maintain," Cunningham said.
Video 
Help
