Exploiting the ISTAR information
collected
105. The MoD acknowledges that further improvements
are required in relation to the Direct, Process and Disseminate
elements of the ISTAR chain. Programmes such as DII and DABINETT
are aimed at delivering the required improvements in the future
(paragraph 8). Our inquiry focused on the contribution of UAVs,
primarily as collectors of ISTAR information, to current and future
ISTAR capability. However, issues about better exploiting the
ISTAR information collected were raised in many of the memoranda
we received. For example, the memorandum from Intellect states
that "the exploitation (rather than solely the gathering)
of information must be the focus of the UK's future development
of ISTAR capability".[113]
Intellect considers that:
A bias towards the acquisition of increasing numbers
of platform/collection assets…. runs the risk of consistently
gathering vast mountains of data which cannot be analysed….
Intellect's members are aware of an analysis which claims that
80% of the ISTAR gathering in support of Operation TELIC took
place to acquire material which had in fact been collected previously,
but was either not accessible or not known to be available.[114]
106. In its memorandum, Thales UK considers that
there is:
a strong value for money argument for the Watchkeeper
system to provide the basis for the UK based NEC Ground Infrastructure
exploitation and dissemination capability as one of the key components
to integrate the layered manned and unmanned ISTAR collector systems
across the different layers of command for maximum UK Forces benefit.[115]
107. We asked how the Watchkeeper UAV system
might provide this capability. Victor Chavez explained that:
At the moment so much data is stored but it is not
easily accessible; it is not easily catalogued; and it is accessible
typically through one system. Watchkeeper provides a distributed
information system where any number of users can access all of
that data. Watchkeeper at the moment, the ground information infrastructure
is really designed around the various sensors that are going to
be on board Watchkeeper—the electro-optic cameras, the infra-red
cameras and synthetic aperture radar; but there is nothing to
stop that being extended to the information that comes off another
UAV, a Reaper UAV, or off a Global Hawk UAV, or using different
sensors. If you were to add in communications intelligence sensors
or electronic support measures which detect signals, there is
nothing to stop you actually using that information infrastructure
to share that information. That would fulfill part of potentially
the requirement known as DABINETT…. DABINETT is certainly
one if not the highest priority ISTAR programming in the eyes
of MoD; because at the moment MoD has got quite a lot of collectors
of information but it has not got in place the infrastructure
to really get best value out of that, and that is why there is
such a high priority at the moment.[116]
108. The MoD acknowledges that the storage of
information and intelligence and its analysis at later date is
an area where improvements are needed. AVM Butler told us that:
I think the one thing it may be worth putting our
hands up about that we are not quite as good as we would like
to be as yet is storage and analysis of that information at a
later date; but you can imagine with something like Reaper, on
task for something like 15 or 16 hours, there is an awful lot
of data that we pull in and, again, it comes back to my earlier
point: if we want to improve and we clearly do, then it is that
type of thing that we would ultimately like to be able to get
a better handle on.[117]
109. Dr Moira Smith, representing defence SMEs,
considered it understandable that with the early UAV systems the
focus was on the information they were able to gather rather than
on the processing of that information. She said that there was
now an emphasis "very much coming through from the MoD funding,
to look much more at the data deluge problem".[118]
110. The need to improve the way the collection
of information and intelligence was directed and the resulting
data processed and disseminated was also an issue in the US. John
Brooks told us that:
these capabilities have to advance in harmony and
that, as we demonstrated, the extraordinary power of persistence
of a platform to not be episodic and pass over an area every great
once in a while, but to maintain surveillance on a broad area
for 24 or more hours, does place new demands, particularly on
the exploitation system but also on the dissemination system,
and it will require some level of manning and particularly some
new tools to help automate that so that it can move forward.
That is not to suggest that we should constrain our ability to
collect down to what may currently be our ability to exploit….
We are moving in that direction but it does have to go forward
in harmony so that you can capitalise on it.[119]
Ed Walby described an approach to tackling the issue
during the operations in Afghanistan:
what we were able to do as techniques were developed
was we took an intelligence group and attached them to Global
Hawk electronically in that as it collected and processed that
imagery it was immediately exploited. Then as we progressed further
we did some experiments on how we archive that information and
now we are to the point where the information that is collected
is archived, categorised and posted on secure websites for individuals
to go and retrieve what they want to retrieve. The requirements
of the collection may be dependent on a particular day but the
information collected may be relevant to the next day's mission
or the next hour's mission. All of that is at the hands of those
throughout the distributed system who have access to those classified
websites. We have even taken the server on board the aircraft
which was the mission recorder and replaced it with a 1.4 terabyte
server and connected that to a field radio so that a troop on
the ground can literally reach up and pull and retrieve right
off the Global Hawk. That is a capability that could be platform
agnostic as well. Because of its altitude, Global Hawk tends to
be a place that you can connect with other nodes. On the archival
of that information, we flew a Global Hawk in combat for a year
and collected every single image on that server and it only got
to about 70 per cent full, so you have got the entire library
of those images on board that system.[120]
111. The MoD faces a major challenge
to ensure that the systems which process and disseminate the ISTAR
information collected keep pace with the systems which collect
it. The MoD's progress in addressing this challenge is a matter
we plan to examine in future inquiries into ISTAR.
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