Unifying media stream access for urban warfare intelligence

摘要

In the theatre of urban warfare, successful campaigns require the maximum efficacy of operational forces while minimising any associated collateral damage. Information acquisition and subsequent processing are of paramount importance to achieving this. Media streams are now well established as invaluable sources of military intelligence, e.g. audio telephony between targets, news media reports, aerial photography and videography, streaming video from over-battlefield transport mediums such as UAVs, as well as higher altitude intelligence such as thermal imaging from AWACS and satellite support. The development of UAVs (whether hand launched or remote operated), coupled with the ability to utilise cosmopolitan data networks and established video infrastructures, allows a succession of live, streamed, geographically-directed visual information. However, typically these streams are only able to be accessed independently and in the same manner in which they are captured: sequentially. It is therefore difficult for the operator to isolate and identify required content in real time so as to make tactical decisions quickly and effectively. We argue that real-time media streams of urban areas can be more effectively accessed when the geographical characteristics of that content are exploited within the access interface and the media control set. We therefore present the GeoVideoWorld, which provides unified, geographically-accurate access to all geospatial video content within an enriched four-dimensional environment. In this way, multiple, diverse media information relevant to the geographical urban war zone, such as CCTV, aerial photography and videography, UAV imagery, telemetry, and man on the ground photography, together with other relevant geo-sources such as cartography, digital elevation models, digital terrain models, and GIS modelling, are all unified, affording integrated operator access. The GeoVideoWorld also allows all media streams to be geographically cross-referenced in both spatial and temporal dimensions, thus revealing new perspectives on established information data sets. For example, the co-existence of multiple geo-sourced media streams enables the operator to examine a scenario not only in real time, but also to roll back sources to previous time periods so that historical movements of entities may be examined. This is deemed of paramount importance in determining a more accurate, intelligence-driven data set for current and future operations, and for post scenario analysis and de-briefing. Consequently, operators are able to make key decisions based on time-critical, simultaneously-relevant information sources, irrespective of their spatiality, temporality, dataset type, and irrespective of the underlying technology platforms with which they are delivered.