Rugged Computing Power for Small Platforms

Sunday, June 01 2008

Sensor-based imaging systems generate invaluable information for modern warfare, but a serious challenge exists to the timely use of that information. Data links that provide the transmission backbone from the sensor platform to the ground station lack the necessary bandwidth. Improvements in data communications will not be sufficient to meet the challenge, because the next generation of defense electronics systems will include new sensors. Hyperspectral imaging (HSI) and laser radar (LADAR) will augment, but not replace, the electrooptic infrared (EO/IR) and synthetic aperture radar (SAR) sensors currently used today. As data links increase in bandwidth, they continue to lag behind the breadth and depth of new, sophisticated sensors.

Imaging systems can address the challenge by using computing technology to make better use of existing data-link bandwidth. Processing power co-located on the sensor platform can be used first to turn raw data into images, then for image compression, and, at the most sophisticated level, to execute image exploitation algorithms, such as change detection in the comparison of two images. Each level requires more computing power, but enables the data link to be used more efficiently to transmit useful information.

While more compute power is required on the sensor platforms, another trend is making it difficult to deliver: the sensor platforms are becoming increasingly smaller. Defense forces always need more intelligence-gathering assets and, in recent years, much of this need has been met by placing sensors on unmanned vehicles (UVs) — which are airborne (UAVs), ground-based, or undersea. Early implementations of these UVs, such as the Global Hawk and Predator UAVs, are fairly large platforms, but each succeeding generation is smaller.

Cost is one factor behind a desire to make these unmanned platforms smaller, but so are changes in threats and operations. Next-generation platforms will operate in a more lethal battlefield environment brought about by the worldwide proliferation of advanced detection technology. Using multiple, smaller platforms offers a greater likelihood of system survivability than a single, large platform. More positively, new operational concepts, such as cooperative behavior and swarming, are expanding the potential capabilities of small platforms.