Preserving capacity, General Tom Lawson, Chief of the Defence Staff, Keys to Canadian SAR
Issue link: http://vanguardcanada.uberflip.com/i/653616
C C4Isr 16 FEBRUARY/MARCH 2016 www.vanguardcanada.com by sheila mason where are The wearables? Understanding of Big Data and the Internet of Things is key to the military application of technology t he coming of age of mobile te- lephony, the digitization of con- tent and the explosion of social media have created a connected economy that's reshaped our world. Now, the Internet of Things (IoT) – the term used to describe the concept of bringing this age of connectivity to physical prod- ucts – is becoming a reality. According to Business Insider, there will be 34 billion devices connected to the Internet by 2020, up from 10 billion in 2015. How can government defence departments capitalize on the IoT to im- prove both Command, Control, Commu- nications, Computers, Intelligence, Sur- veillance and Reconnaissance (C4ISR) to improve defence and security capabilities? Intelligence at the moment IoT helps provide organizations with "in- telligence at the moment" – access to in- sights and analysis of physical operations that weren't measurable in the past. Input from devices and sensors is transformed into data which is then used to better sup- port strategic and operational decisions. Business Insider estimates spending on drones will reach $8.7 billion in 2020 and according to Frost & Sullivan, 126,000 military robots will be shipped in 2020. While the IoT represents the conver- gence of advances in miniaturization, wireless connectivity, increased data stor- age capacity and batteries, it wouldn't be possible without sensors. Sensors detect and measure changes in position, tem- perature and light just to a name a few and they are necessary to turn billions of objects into data-generating "things" that report on their status, and in some cases, interact with their environment. Defence Advance Research Program's (DARPA) ULTRA-Vis, built for ground troops, is one example of a sensor-based wearable. Worn like a pair of goggles, the device can display a range of information right before the soldier's eyes, including the location of the nearest friendly units, distance to objective and satellite images of the area. The device tracks the direction and depth of the soldier's view, augment- ing reality with data. If the soldier is look- ing at a hill obscuring friendly forces, for instance, it will display an icon over that hill indicating the presence of friendly forces.