Project Overview
This project, a collaboration between academia and industry in both the United States and the United Kingdom, seeks to expand the technological capabilities of the US Army and UK Armed Forces to give them information advantage in challenging urban warfare situations that may include humanitarian relief, civilian and insurgent control, or full combat operations.The particular focus of the project is to develop technologies that support network centric operations, especially those involving coalition forces. Coalition forces operating in an asymmetric environment need improved interoperability and situational awareness to increase their operational efficiency, and providing this is the main aim of the project.
The driving idea is that situational awareness should be shared across different members of the armed forces and should cut across coalition boundaries subject to security and other established policies. In an urban warfare context, the coalition forces need to have an increased awareness of the complete picture at hand, including an understanding of the complex cultural and socioeconomic implications of any action. Operations and missions conducted by different coalition members should be seamlessly coordinated and precisely synchronized. Increased responsiveness to complex and urgent situations is required, and the systems used by coalition forces need to improve survivability, including means to reduce fratricide, civilian casualties, and property damage in the face of unpredictable actions taken by an adversary.
For example, an agile adversary who aims to disrupt urban peace-keeping operations through terrorist and guerilla warfare needs to be countered at a speedier operational tempo in which war-fighters can switch rapidly from one role to another.
