New Delhi. Very few people in the world know of the little-known agency that helped kill Bin Laden. The US National Geospatial Agency mapped Bin Laden’s compound, analyzed drone data, and helped the SEALs simulate their mission
Collecting data is not enough. Truly understanding it and appropriately acting on it at the right time to impact performance - that’s the power of geointelligence.
Inaugurating the sixth edition of the annual GeoIntelligence Asia Conference, Lt. Gen. K Surendra Nath, GOC-in-C, Army Training Command (ARTRAC), stated that Geospatial inputs would be at the core of all future wars and Geospatial technology revolution will carry on at a much faster pace..
Geospatial Intelligence, or the frequently used term GEOINT, is an intelligence discipline comprising the exploitation and analyses of geospatial data and information to describe, assess, and visually depict physical features (both natural and constructed) and geographically referenced activities on the Earth.
Derek Ireson, Vice President, Defence & Intelligence Solutions Intergraph, USA , spoke about the need to have multi- intelligence data fusion and described data volume, speed and mobility and social media/threat as some of the major intelligence challenges before the security agencies.
Geospatial Intelligence data sources include imagery and mapping data, whether collected by commercial or government satellites, manned or unmanned aircraft, or by other means like maps and commercial databases, census information, GPS waypoints, utility schematics, or any discrete data that have locations on earth.
Lt. Gen. Anil Chait, GOC-in-C Central Command remarked that lack of accurate intelligence could be fatal for security forces personnel, particularly those involved in anti terrorist operations.
He observed that the “lack of mechanism to share data is a major problem among the agencies involved in such operations” and that better coordination would help manifold in all operations.
Geointelligence integrates several core intelligence functions. It makes maps and interprets imagery from satellites and drones; it also exploits the electromagnetic spectrum to track.
The representatives of the industry including John Day, Director of Global Defence, Esri , USA , Dr. MP Narayanan, Chairman Geospatial Media and Communications, emphasized that the industry is providing solutions to the Indian security agencies and is in a position to offer more solutions. He described geospatial information as a critical foundation for many aspects of defence and homeland security, emergency preparedness, disaster response and recovery, and border security operations.
Geo intelligence agencies the world over perform counterterrorism and other threat intelligence analyses related to infrastructure, borders, immigration, transportation, and maritime security as well as domestic threats to support a risk-based approach to prevention, preparedness, decision making and operations.
Lt. Gen (Retd) AKS Chandele, Managing Editor, GeoInteligence, pointed out that the balance of power is shifting from the west to east and China , India and Japan are new contenders for global power and military strength. All these countries have the need for modern assets in this regard, pointing out: “You can’t fight tomorrow’s war with yesterday’s tools.”
The conference deliberated in detail about building sustainable geospatial infrastructure which would enable intelligent flow of information among the concerned organizations. Securing the homeland is a complex mission that requires a coordinated and focused effort. Improving coordination and integration among stakeholder intelligence activities to promote a national, unified security intelligence approach while championing that approach to the larger intelligence and government communities is the most important factor.
Dr. R. Ramachandran of India ’s National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO), while explaining the importance of data for an efficient geospatial setup said that geointelligence is more than just imagery and maps. It consists of imagery, imagery intelligence and geospatial information.
The speakers including Lt. Gen P C Katoch (Retd), Mark Reichardt, President, Open Geospatial Consortium and others dealt with collaborative approach to common geoinfrastructure.
Think Spatial
Think Spatial
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