NGA Showcases GEOINT AI Capabilities During U.S. Army Exercise

U.S. Soldiers assigned to 3rd Brigade, 10th Mountain Division, fly a small-unmanned aerial system during exercise Combined Resolve 25-1 at the Joint Multinational Readiness Center, Hohenfels Training Area, Hohenfels, Germany. (U.S. Army photo)

National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency teammates traveled to the Joint Multinational Readiness Center in Hohenfels, Germany, in February to participate in exercise Combined Resolve.

Combined Resolve, a U.S. Army Europe-Africa exercise is designed to prepare a multinational brigade combat team in support of NATO deterrence operations. USAREUR-AF implemented the Army's "Transformation in Contact,", or TiC, initiative, aimed at using new technologies and systems to enhance the Army's warfighting readiness and ability to respond to crisis or conflict.

The NGA team is no stranger to providing GEOINT services and products at the tactical edge. They focus on defining the warfighter's operating environment, identifying any capability gaps, and conducting rapid prototyping and fielding of tools and tradecraft to mitigate those gaps.

In response to the chief of staff of the Army request to exercise new GEOINT technologies during exercise Combined Resolve, NGA's Army Support Team turned to the agency's warfighter support team to deploy its expertise, experience and cutting-edge technologies.

"The Army is pivoting to encrypted unclassified systems for future warfare, and part of NGA's mission is to provide access to GEOINT in the austere environments that the Army operates in," said NGA's Army Support Team chief. "This was a perfect match of requirement and capability. The team was able to plan and execute this mission under an exceptionally short timeline with only two weeks' notice with outstanding results."

At Combined Resolve, the NGA team worked with the U.S. Army 10th Mountain Division's 3rd Brigade to showcase the GEOINT Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning Light-Edge Resilient System - or GAMBLER - technology, an integrated artificial intelligence capability designed to agnostically operate on small unmanned Aerial systems, or sUAS.

Live feeds from the sUAS go into GAMBLER, a part of the Tactical Assault Kit ecosystem. The data retrieved from the GAMBLER system is enhanced with AI inferencing and used to support targeting of both dynamic, and static elements in the field. Data from GAMBLER is disseminated down to end-user devices showcasing its tactical dissemination capabilities and providing situational awareness at the lowest echelons.

The bottom line - integrating this GEOINT AI capability provided the brigade commander with enhanced situational awareness across all echelons, ensuring a common operating picture providing better fidelity to support targeting.

The Army uses the TiC construct, along with lessons learned from the 101st Airborne Division and 25th Infantry Division, to further test new technologies and systems. Those lessons will inform how the Army's brigade combat teams operate.

The NGA team exceeded expectations by delivering integration of the GAMBLER system into the brigade organic architecture, showcasing the capability and potential for the future.

Editor's note: Portions of this article were taken from multiple Defense Department articles.