News From USJFCOM: Command to deploy new capability to assist commanders on the ground


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Command to deploy new capability to assist commanders on the ground

U.S. Joint Forces Command (USJFCOM) is preparing the deployment of Valiant Angel, a system which uses commercially-fielded technology to improve the warfighter's intelligence, surveillance and reconaissance (ISR) requirements. The technology will help access, retrieve and store large ISR data sets down range.

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By MC2 (AW) Nikki Carter
USJFCOM Public Affairs

(NORFOLK, Va., March 8, 2010) - Intel specialists in U.S. Joint Forces Command's (USJFCOM) Intelligence Directorate (J2) are preparing a system that will allow warfighters to access, retrieve and store massive amounts of still and video imagery for deployment to Afghanistan later this month.

Valiant Angel is a system that uses commercial technology to improve access to, movement of, and storage of large data files, including full-motion video (FMV) and wide-area surveillance (WAS) products for programs across existing networks and warfighters at the tactical edge.

Air Force Col. Skip Krakie, USJFCOM Valiant Angel lead, explained the command's part in the program.

"Our solution was focused on taking commercial technology. The commercial industry deals with large data sets already," Krakie said. "Whether it's the football game you watch on Sunday or a new movie Disney put out, that data needs to be moved about, to your house or from one production center to another. It's the same type of problem that we face. Either we are getting it to a warfighter or from one production center to another one.

"We were doing what the [Joint Intelligence Laboratory] is supposed to do and that is to find technologies that fit for the warfighter," he continued. "These technologies link very well with shortfalls that the warfighter has identified."

Krakie said Constant Hawk - an Army image analysis system mounted on aircraft - has numerous cameras that snap WAS photos at about two frames per second. It knits the images together to create a big mosaic made up of terabytes of data.

"That data was so voluminous that in 2008 the only way they could move it around was to drive it or fly it back to the states," Krakie said. "That's how we got it back from Iraq."

Krakie said the other piece of Valiant Angel involves making FMV from all the different unmanned aerial system platforms in theater accessible to users at the tactical edge.

He said there may be warfighters on the ground in theater with a 56-kilobyte modem using the Intelligence Surveillance Reconnaissance Information System, which provides FMV situational awareness. Valiant Angel will give commanders better visibility into real-time and archived video, which is collected from manned and unmanned aircraft and ground-based sensors, by enhancing the FMV with additional information tied to the video clip.

The system enables warfighters to:

• Collect, store and rebroadcast incoming video streams from a variety of sensors in a secure, networked database.

• Fuse intelligence data from multiple sources into incoming video streams. For example, the system allows users to discuss a video clip over instant messenger and then will embed their chat history in the video stream, when other users bring up that particular video they can then read what was previously discussed on the clip.

• Categorize and manage videos by keywords, geographic region or other tags and set up alerts to inform users of new clips with their specific descriptions when posted to the network. For example, users can type in "explosion" and the system will show the user all the video with the keyword "explosion" in it.

USJFCOM's goal is to transition this system no later than fiscal year 2012.