STO-Activities: (no title)
Activity title:
Operational CBR Threat Situational Awareness
Activity Reference:
HFM-SET-353
Panel:
HFM
Security Classification:
Other
Status:
Active
Activity type:
RTG
Start date:
2023-03-23T00:00:00Z
Actual End date:
2026-03-23T00:00:00Z
Keywords:
CBRN situational awareness, crosspollination, information requirements, sensors
Background:
For the purpose of this Technical Activity Proposal (TAP) operational situational awareness is defined as the process of gathering, fusing and visualising information to allow commanders to make informed decisions concerning the threat and use of CBRN materials. It covers the operational and tactical command level, across the Prevent, Protect and Recover phases on NATO CBRN doctrine. Ultimately, operational situational awareness provides the context that allows command decisions to be taken based on the best possible information. This is achieved through the gathering and fusion of information from a wide range of ‘collect’ assets, including dedicated CBRN sensors and information sources that are not traditionally associated with CBRN. Commander’s decisions in the event of CBRN threats are likely to revolve around risk management and will be dependent on a very large number of factors, not all of which can be accurately quantified given the operational context and needs. Operational Situational Awareness therefore provides situation understanding, so that all decisions are taken with as much knowledge of alternative courses of action as possible. A wide variety of tools and techniques, ranging from the simple (availability of reference pamphlets for CBRN materials) to the complex (AI techniques) could be brought to bear on this essential aspect of the capability. In addition, information sources can similarly be diverse, including from CBR, acoustic, force protection sensors, etc., as well as from feeds such as Twitter and other open source intelligence feeds. Note that this area is not constrained to the Protect and Recover phases of a CBRN event and significant opportunities exist within Prevent phase.
Objectives:
This effort will allow a cross NATO collaboration panel to explore and identify opportunities to advance operational situational awareness across the Prevent, Protect and Recover phases of NATO operations. Importantly, it will exploit existing programmes across the areas of sense, AI, data science, etc. to develop capabilities that will meet the needs of NATO. The ultimate objective being to develop capability that will allow commanders to make risk-based decisions using the best available information. This could be achieved through the development of decision support tools, as well as through identifying and exploiting the most suitable information to inform those decisions.
It is proposed that NATO participants on the panel will collaborate on the following tasks:
1) Elicit and understand the commander’s information requirements for CBRN operations – this will involve NATO participants engaging with their respective users (military and civilian where appropriate) in order to understand their operational situational awareness needs with respect to CBRN. Note that several nations are already exploring this aspect thereby providing early collaboration opportunities. This activity will be used to scope the problem and identify key areas to take forward where risk-based decision tools will add significant value, for instance, the tactical level decision support during a CBRN attack, or opportunities for operational situational awareness tools in the Prevent space. The outcome of this will be a comprehensive NATO document highlighting the commander’s information requirements with respect to CBRN defence at the operational and tactical levels.
2) Identify potential sources that could supply data from which to base decisions on, including through CBRN sense assets, ISR assets, etc. - Based on the outcome of 1, the panel will look to understand which potential information source (CBR sense, ISR, force health data, social media, etc.) could add value to supporting the identified commander’s information requirements for a specific phase of a CBRN event. Outputs could for instance include a dashboard of assets available to the commander and the relative merits of each option for the activity at hand.
3) Exploit modern CIS – understand how the capability could be hosted, including the relevant communication protocols/ standards and their relative merits, as well as the benefits the different systems can offer, for instance end user devices. As such this item would identify how best to deliver the information to the commander.
4) Develop decision tools to present this information appropriately, thereby allowing risk-based decisions – determine the best way to fuse the information from the myriad of identified information sources in a timely way, allowing output to be refreshed as more information becomes available, through the use of data science, ML and AI techniques where appropriate. Understand the most appropriate way to present the information to the commander, through the use of appropriate visualization methods, etc.
Topics:
Much of the work under this TAP involves analyzing scenarios, identifying current and potential sources of information, gap analysis and algorithm development. The scientific fields that are associated with these activities include data science, communication and information systems, artificial intelligence and machine learning. Note however that some of the most important information sources may not be readily accessible due to extant communication structures, less sophisticated options may be included where appropriate. Therefore innovative methods to overcome these barriers will also be necessary.
Contact:
Open2Partners:
Title:
Created at 21/04/2022 16:00 by System Account
Last modified at 16/05/2024 13:00 by System Account
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