Expendable Local Area Sensors in a Tactically Interconnected Cluster (ELASTIC)

A persistent threat to US forces deployed in hostile territories is lack of knowledge of the engagement environment to avoid ambush. US forces constitute prime targets for hostile elements evidenced from the organized attacks and ambushes on US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Expendable Local Area Sensors in a Tactically Interconnected Cluster (ELASTIC) would constitute a small, light, wireless surveillance system that would be invaluable in these scenarios, providing situational awareness of a remote location to a squad of soldiers. Teamed with Innovative Wireless Technologies (IWT) and its University partner, Johns Hopkins University (JHU), Nova will address the critical elements of low bandwidth, image-based bandwidth compression techniques, and low power imaging sensors inter-connected via a reconfigurable mesh-network. During the Phase I program, Nova will develop and demonstrate ELASTIC, a dual sensor (visible and IR) breadboard network that utilizes off-the-shelf cameras communicating through an existing ad-hock mesh wireless network to transmit real-time video over a commercial network protocol. Under Phase II, the customized low-cost solution for ELASTIC will be fully developed into a prototype system with multiple nodes meeting the objectives of a system capable of being deployed to provide situational awareness of a remote location to a squad of soldiers.