Sensing the Battlefield – A matter of digital intuition
At Thales we have a vision for the future of land warfare; a vision of dispersed sensors collecting and sharing data which is collated, analysed, and formed into understanding which provides collective and systemic protection, and informs decisions. Drawing on the benefits of Multi-Domain Integration (MDI) to gather data from increasingly diverse and dispersed collection assets this vision is inspired by something closer and more familiar to everyone than you may imagine.
Think of how we sense the world around us. We touch, hear, see, smell and feel – each sense adding bits of data to our perception. We also sense how others are behaving, reacting, or interpret and refer to what they have told us in the past or are telling us now. The brain, processing this data, immediately draws on a lifetime of experience, our knowledge of situations, inflection, movement, even changes in the ‘atmosphere’. This is intuition; a honed ability to join the dots offered by our senses to complete a fuller picture of the environment.
Digital intuition
Can you now envisage a battlefield observed with digital intuition? The senses include digital cameras and sights on myriad platforms, whether for aiding drivers or providing gunners with targets, all feeding in imagery from across the environment. Edge processing (software embedded in the sensor itself) augmenting the capability and deciding which data is important to pass on; terrain profiles, image recognition, anomaly detection, the action of processing reducing the actual amount of data being passed over crowded connectivity bearers.
Other senses could include acoustic sensors, building and confirming an aural picture of the same environment, looking for the signature of a T72 tank, helicopter, two-stroke engine , or machine-gun – pin pointing firing points even before they are seen. Radars of all types, from man portable, C-RAM, and long range air space protection radars, provide overlapping and inter-arcing coverage. GPS feeds from soldiers and vehicles, reports, HUMS data and even meteorological information from the targeting sensors/computers on main battle tanks all contribute to an understanding of the battlefield. Increased Multi-Domain Integration would mean that the data from air and naval assets; IR sensors on aircraft, EW assets on ships, satellite observation and cyber surveillance could also add to a near complete picture of the conflict environment.
Every waking second our body’s senses pickup and deliver eleven million pieces of information to our brain. You don’t request data from your senses, they are on constant send; from sensor to nerve endings via synapses to your brain; acting at once as a processing centre, a vast repository of information, and a decision maker. It would take years to work through the inputs consciously, almost all of it is filtered out, but if your brain picks up anything different, out of the ordinary, or special, you will sense that something needs attention.
Big data and AI
The application of Big Data Analytics and Artificial Intelligence using convolutional neural networks and self-learning algorithms help act as the ‘digital brain’, filtering the data, and applying ‘digital intuition’ to the ever changing and fluid situation. ‘Digital Crew’ sit metaphorically next to soldiers in armoured vehicles, or alone man autonomous platforms, enhancing and augmenting what they ‘see’ through their sensors, alerting them to what is different, dangerous, or of interest.
All of these ‘digital senses’ are connected across the battlefield via software defined and fully encrypted radios, ensuring the safe delivery and complete trust of the data delivered to the Defence Cloud where data, cross domain, can be collated, analysed, processed and shared. Personal digital identity, the type of which we exercise daily in access to our banking app or online secure information adding further security to allow access to all, as if you were keeping your thoughts to yourself or sharing your deepest secrets or greatest knowledge.
This is how Thales believes the future battlefield will work; dispersed sensors, sometimes operating autonomously, providing data and information into a central and ubiquitous shared cloud, providing information advantage and systemic protection through mutual support, to deployed forces and endangered populations and infrastructure in areas of conflict.
We believe this because this is what we deliver. Across the spectrum of the Land Defence domain and beyond through multi-domain integration, Thales offer capability across all of these sensors, bearers, processing and software, with experience in delivering complex systems of systems, bringing the most advance technological solutions to our customers in both the civil and defence markets helping them address the problems they face and move towards the future they desire.
We have a vision for the future of land warfare. It is a vision of digital intuition helping armies to see the unseen.
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