Aerospace Engineering Programs

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NATO RAPID RESPONSE PROGRAM

The central objectives of NATO's Rapid Response (RR) is the dissemination of time-critical data and information to the war-fighter analyst and war-fighter. For RR96-98 ACT demostrated an interactive network-based image processing system that provides high speed access and processing to large volumes of remotely stored data.

ERS-2 and RADARSAT Browser implemented using ACT's ProVIEW and ProVIEW WEB.

Sample of Future Data Fusion Products. The image above shows the modulation of SAR imagery by known Bathymetry in the area of observation.

In support of RR-96, a total of 40 ERS-2 and one RADARSAT SAR images were acquired during the period August 12 to 5 October, 1996. The raw SAR data stream was first down-linked in real-time to the receiving station in West Freugh in UK. From there, the data was routed via high speed links to DRA Farnborough remote sensing facilities for image formation. Then, high resolution (150m) SAR images were sent via the INTERNET to Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) in Washington, D.C. for post-processing and image interpretation. Finally, the annotated feature maps were sent via the INTERNET from NRL to the SACLANTCEN World Wide Web (WWW) homepage. The approach used during the exercise by the image analyst was to view the low resolution (1.5 km) imagery, select regions and features of interest, and post the final products on the home page for the operator. While this approach served the demonstration purpose of the RR-96 which was the dissemination of data over the WWW, it severely restricted the end-user from interacting with the data or from choosing his/her own regions of interest. Thus it became clear that a new approach for information extraction was needed in order to realize the full benefits of high speed networking and to transform RR from a experimental concept to operational status.

During RR-97 we used only the ERS-2/SAR imagery, which because of it's high spatial resolution, is by far the most computationally demanding sensor, requiring massive amounts of storage, network throughput and processing power. A separate GIS module for multi-layered data integration and sensor fusion has been developed which uses a "hypercube" architecture. ACT is presently working on RR97-98. Under which additional sensor modalities will be incorporated.