The Army Brings the Cloud to the Battlefield

Grazed from FedTech. Author: Wylie Wong.

A real-time picture of the battlefield is an essential tool for U.S. combat forces, one that can provide a critical advantage over adversaries. If used effectively, information can be as important a weapon as any in the U.S. arsenal. The Army compiles this picture by sifting through petabytes of data, such as high-definition video from unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) as well as from cameras on the ground or attached to soldiers.

But putting the picture together and learning what it means can take hours, a time span that could mean the difference between life and death. The Army plans to speed up the process by equipping combat troops with small cloud computing systems that can quickly analyze extensive video footage and other intelligence to warn soldiers of impending threats…

The tactical edge cloud nodes, combined with advanced analytical tools being developed, will automatically collect, process and analyze the video within seconds, providing commanders with better situational awareness and improving their ability to make informed decisions quickly. The new technology tools will be part of an existing intelligence system, the Distributed Common Ground System–Army (DCGS–A), which the Army is updating and moving to a private cloud…

Read more from the source @ http://www.fedtechmagazine.com/article/2013/07/army-brings-cloud-battlefield