Advanced Architectures and Data Exchange Standards for High Performance Computing (HPC) Application to Wide Area Motion Imagery (WAMI) Tracking

ABSTRACT: The objective of this effort is to develop next-generation architectural and operational concepts, leveraging recent advances in High Performance Computing (HPC) technologies, to improve Wide Area Motion Imagery (WAMI) tracking capacity and performance. WAMI systems typically produce tens of thousands of moving target indicator (MTI) detections from city-sized urban areas at update rates greater than 12 Hz. As target densities and data volume expand, it becomes especially challenging for current generation tracking architectures to correctly and efficiently associate/correlate individual MTI detections. This effort provides the foundational capability to fully leverage HPC-based distributed processing to solve the high-density WAMI tracking problem. Specific tasks are: 1) Conduct a technology survey to establish current state-of-the-art and recent trends in HPC computing/processing platforms and software, WAMI systems (sensors and processing), DoD and NATO multi-intelligence tracking architectures and concepts of operation (CONOPs), and supporting data standards (e.g. STANAGs 4609, 4607, 4676, 4559, 4545); 2) Develop an overarching next-generation tracking architecture and common exchange format to support improvements to WAMI tracking mission performance via HPC technologies, including"big data"management concepts and cloud-based hosting; 3) Develop a CONOP that incorporates innovative tasking, collection, processing, exploitation, and dissemination (TCPED) concepts and includes new Track Management approaches. BENEFIT: The primary benefit of this Phase 1 activity is a common next-generation architecture with supporting data exchange standards, to enable the application of distributed HPC processing for dramatic improvements in high-density,"big data"WAMI tracking.