Australia will deploy next year a new fleet of advanced surveillance aircrafts. The Wedgetails planes are marrying Boeing 737-700 technology with battlespace analytics programs developed by the Australian's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO). According to Computerworld Australia, these planes are data center with wings. CSIRO has developed new software that automates the interpretation of combat and surveillance situations. This software platform, also known as the Cognizant Control Room, "provides intelligent ways of delivering information to operators that minimize the risk of information overload." Read more.
Before going further, here are two photographs of this flying data center.
This photograph comes from this news release from Boeing announcing the arrival of the Wedgetail aircraft in Australia on March 15, 2005 (Credit: Boeing). You'll find a larger version of this picture there.
This second picture comes from CSIRO where you'll find a much larger version of this image on this page (3,000 x 2,400 pixels, 4.01 MB).
Now, let's look at some short excerpts from the Computerworld Australia article mentioned above.
According to a CSIRO spokesman, a team of 20 scientists and engineers developed the new technology which automates the interpretation of combat and surveillance situations, and provides intelligent ways of delivering information to operators that minimize the risk of information overload.
Known as the Cognizant Control Room (CCR), the platform's software deals specifically with automated "situation assessment" of the "entire air picture" - including enemy force structure and its tactical intent.
Yes, take it all around, there is quite a good deal of information in the book. I regret this very much; but really it could not be helped: information appears to stew out of me naturally, like the precious ottar of roses out of the otter. Sometimes it has seemed to me that I would give worlds if I could retain my facts; but it cannot be. The more I caulk up the sources, and the tighter I get, the more I leak wisdom. Therefore, I can only claim indulgence at the hands of the reader, not justification.
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
CCR also contains feature to help operators think. Dubbed "awareness monitoring", the speech and actions of operators are analyzed and compared to the system's interpretation of events, with feedback provided.
On this page dedicated to Intelligent Interactive Technologies, CSIRO gives some more details.
The Task-Driven Interaction Module developed jointly with other CSIRO research groups, is composed of three components:
The Operator Graphical User Interface, which allows the operator to interact with the system
The Task-Recognition Parser, which analyses the operator’s activity to be able to both determine the current task in progress and predict the next one
The Virtual Document Planner (VDP), which delivers multimedia information tailored to the operators’ tasks
For more information, here are two other links about the Wedgetail project, this one at Boeing and this other one at Wikipedia.
As today’s children impress adults with their sophisticated ways, adults begin to change their ideas about children and their needs. . . . No longer need adults withhold information about the harsh realities of life from children. . . . Rather, they begin to feel it is their duty to prepare children for the exigencies of modern life. . . . As adults act less protectively . . . and as they expose children to the formerly secret underside of their lives—adult sexuality, violence, injustice—those former innocents grow tougher, perforce, less playful and trusting, more skeptical—in short, more like adults. We have come full circle.
—Marie Winn (20th century)
Sources: Dahna McConnachie, Computerworld Australia, August 19, 2005; and various web sites
Related stories can be found in the following categories.
Aerospace
Hardware
MilitaryApps
Software
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