EDA and EU SatCen demonstrate intelligence imagery integration

The European Defence Agency (EDA) and the EU Satellite Centre (SatCen) today demonstrated how intelligence images from many sources and in multiple formats could in the future be delivered to a single workstation at headquarters or in the field, in support of EU operations.

The demonstration of the initial functionalities of the Tactical Imagery Exploitation System (TIES) system took place at the EU SatCen in Torrejon, Spain, which is expected to be one of the main potential EU users of any such system in the future.

“Geospatial intelligence is a key enabler for effective ESDP operations. The TIES workstation is a major step forward in bringing that capability to operational decision-makers,” said Frank Asbeck, Director of SatCen.

“We are delighted to be working with EU Satellite Centre on this initiative, which demonstrates how this kind of European collaboration can produce real practical benefits both for our Member States and the institutions responsible for supporting EU operations,” EDA Chief Executive Alexander Weis said in Torrejon, Spain.

The project is the result of a decision by the EDA Steering Board in May 2006, which recognised the need for a workstation for Imagery Analysis, capable of receiving imagery data in different formats and fusing it into one usable and workable Intelligence product.

It aims to compensate the for lack of interoperability between imagery-producing Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) systems and ground terminals. Currently many systems can link only to a single, dedicated ground terminal that is not able to receive and process any data coming from other sources.

The demonstrator will remain available at SatCen so that individual participating Member States will be able to evaluate the product. They have offered to provide trained imagery analysts or have made available tactical imagery data to be used to test the system. The trials will end in September 2008.

A separate Ad Hoc Project Management Group on TIES has been established to discuss the results, and to propose any modifications if necessary.

The aim of the contract is to deliver a TIES demonstration/experiment based at EU SatCen in order to spur wider adoption of such capability within the EU Intelligence, Surveillance, Target Acquisition and Reconnaissance (ISTAR) community.

Source: European Defence Agency

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