Tactical Edge to demo ITV Capabilities
Building on their successful year one efforts, Tactical Edge is taking their Semantic In-Transit Visibility (ITV) Data-as-a-Service (DaaS) to Kaneohe Bay in October to participate in Agile Bloodhound 2015. In partnership with the Office of Naval Research, Tactical Edge’s DaaS leverages Semantic Technologies to build relationships across multiple traditionally “stove-piped” Marine Corps systems. Based on the characteristics and relationships of the data, this allows for new opportunities while searching, analyzing, and interacting with the data not given with traditional structured data services.
Paul Danckaert, Chief Technology Officer for Tactical Edge, is the Lead Researcher on the effort. Mr. Danckaert explains
In a traditional database, you have keys that relate data, and often for transactional systems, that is sufficient. But in the complex world of Marine Corps Logistics where the solution routinely consists of integrating data across multiple domains, that’s not always enough. Relationships across domains require purpose and direction. Semantic Data provides that purpose, and this context allows the Marine Corps to interact with data in ways that were once only dreamt of.
Agile Bloodhound is a demonstration event, designed “…to help scientists and officials from the acquisition community get an early look at undeveloped technologies and assess the feasibility of integrating those capabilities into various portfolios….” (Jontz, 2015). In 2014, Agile Bloodhound began looking for tools to improve situational awareness. Between the need for improved data visibility, and the Marine Corps migration from a net-centric to data-centric strategy, Tactical Edge’s DaaS is able to fill multiple gaps.
The core Semantic DaaS leverages real-time data processing technologies with integrated rules processing systems to provide useful insight into activities, and oversight into the supply chain. With this foundation, the DaaS verifies the integrity of data, sends notifications of anomalous activity, and builds correlations across the entire data service. Tactical Edge has been able to build a variety of interfaces in to and out of the DaaS, ensuring that the solution provides the data and notifications to all peer systems across the enterprise.
In preparation for the event, Tactical Edge sat down with Mr. Tim Petro, who was the Technical COR at the start of the ITV effort, but has now moved onto NAVFAC EXWC Program Manager. Tactical Edge demonstrated their capabilities through two unique User Interfaces (UI), each focused on a different user set and each with its own unique User Experience (UX). The first of which was an Android App named Telemetry. Telemetry was designed with the mobile Marine in mind. It will allow the Marine to receive notifications about shipments of interest, view shipment containers on a map, scan barcodes to retrieve information about a specific container, and if the container information is incorrect, Telemetry allows the Marine to update that information on the spot. With the fusion of data in the semantic environment, Telemetry simplifies and streamlines access to a broad spectrum of information, providing the necessary context to keep the supply chain moving.
The other UI demonstrated for Mr. Petro was web-UI build leveraging Ozone Widget Framework. OWF is popular among the armed services, as a light-weight framework that allows developers to build task-specific widgets that can be arranged into a dashboard. In this case, Tactical Edge leveraged the framework to display three integrated widgets geared towards a Distribution Manager. The first widget was a map displaying the location of all known shipments, a second widget displayed shipments that were overdue, and the third widget displayed information about the next shipment to arrive.
Mr. Petro left calling the work accomplished by Tactical Edge to date “extremely impressive.” And he sees potential follow on efforts where the technology can be adopted as an “alternative to conventional RFID tagging and tracking technologies at the tactical edge.”
Tactical Edge will next be demonstration their Semantic In-Transit Visibility Data-as-a-Service platform at Agile Bloodhound on Kaneohe Bay, HI, 21-30 October 2015. If you are interested in see a demo, but cannot make the late October demonstration, or would like to sit down and brainstorm how this “extremely impressive” technology can benefit your organization, contact Steven Palmer, Director of East Coast Operations, below. To find out more about the capabilities of Tactical Edge, visit our website and follow us across social media.
Tactical Edge is a San Diego-based software engineering company, responsible for designing, developing, and deploying software solutions for the U.S. military and commercial clients. Supporting customers in San Diego, CA, Washington, D.C., Huntsville, AL, and Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD. Tactical Edge solves real-world problems using a combination of emergent and proven technologies, best practices, and innovative thinking.
Contact:
Name: Steven Palmer, Director of East Coast Operations
Phone: (571) 298-3009
Email: steve.palmer@www.tacticaledge.us
References
Jontz, S. (2015, 02 01). Marine Corps Returns to its Expeditionary Roots. Retrieved from Signal AFCEA: http://www.afcea.org/content/?q=marine-corps-returns-its-expeditionary-roots