The Space Force sees digitization as fundamental to all of its operations. (Getty images)
I/ITSEC — At this year’s I/ITSEC show, it was hard to miss that everyone seemingly wants in on the artificial intelligence craze.
It’s easy to see why: simulation, after all, is ultimately about managing data, with machine learning or AI at the heart of those efforts. So it’s no surprise that companies are touting what they can do in the artificial intelligence space.
One such firm is BAE Systems, which has zeroed in on the use of AI for image processing as a growth market.
“With the advent of so many unmanned airborne combat system concepts there are people who will declare ‘the last fighter pilot has already been born,’” Benjamin Kennedy, an account manager for BAE’s electronic systems division, said on the show floor. “In the same vein of future requirements, we look at the functionality of our system for processing imagery we like to say that the last imagery analyst has been born.”
High-resolution imagery, whether it is from commercial-based satellite systems or from airborne platforms – both manned and unmanned – can be processed at a speed far beyond that of that conducted by the individual imagery analyst using BAE’s SOCET GXP geospatial intelligence software, according to Kennedy.
With this software users and operators can rapidly identify, analyze, and extract information on specific locations or installations to a level that supports action-oriented decision-making.
Kennedy claimed that the package has been a successful property for BAE, and been provided to over 65 countries. There are several aspects to its functionality that make it attractive to numerous clients.
One is that the program can run in a server-based environment or on a desktop. All the system requires is adequate graphics processing hardware. Secondly, the SOCET package is also not limited to imagery processing solutions. It has “a myriad of functions, which include a learning process of how to convert imagery data to intelligence data and then form that processing imagery into simulator data,” per the company. And thirdly, the entire system can be operated on unclassified hardware as the software itself is also unclassified.
“This has supported situations where an allied or friendly was able to input commercial imagery and/or their own self-generated or collected data and use the SOCET software to analyze it in real time, said Kennedy. “In this way we have been able assist our friends and allies” in certain theatres of operation.
Data provided by a customer can be put through a long list of analytical process and moreover the type of formats of imagery that can be processed is not limited. The SOCET GXP program supports literally “thousands of different sensors. The customer also does not have to purchase any minimum number of licenses or copies of the software – customers can have as few as two copies or thousands or any number in between.”
“The way to think about SOCET package is to look at it as the main weapon of an imagery analyst. It is to that analyst what the Smith and Wesson M-4 carbine is to a Marine infantryman,” explained Kennedy who is himself a former Marine. “SOCET is that analyst’s version of an M-4.”
