Tactical Ground Reporting System (TIGR)

A recent article in MIT's online "Technology Review" describes a new location-based service called the Tactical Ground Reporting System (TIGR) (free subscription required). It marks a significant enhancement in counter-insurgency operations in Iraq and directly incorporates the experiences (combat, IED events, civilian interviews/reports) of soldiers in the field (e.g. patrolling) which may be accessed by clicking on icons positioned where the event occurred.

The following extracts from the article provide some insight into TIGR and its operational relevance:

The new technology--called the Tactical Ground Reporting System, or TIGR--is a map-centric application that junior officers (the young sergeants and lieutenants who command patrols) can study before going on patrol and add to upon returning. By clicking on icons and lists, they can see the locations of key buildings, like mosques, schools, and hospitals, and retrieve information such as location data on past attacks, geotagged photos of houses and other buildings (taken with cameras equipped with Global Positioning System technology), and photos of suspected insurgents and neighborhood leaders. They can even listen to civilian interviews and watch videos of past maneuvers. It is just the kind of information that soldiers need to learn about Iraq and its perils.

A prototype of the system was shown to soldiers for the first time during a training exercise at Fort Hood in April 2006, and in January 2007, it was introduced in Iraq. There, programmers observed how the troops used it; they collected feedback and quickly made changes. Finally--with help from the Rapid Equipping Force, an army unit devoted to quickly moving new gear into the field--the system reached the 1,500 patrol leaders using it now.

Michaelis says such anecdotes are not uncommon. "I can't name the number of times that patrol leaders and company commanders have turned to me and stated [that] their most important tool they have to fight this fight has been TIGR," he wrote. "I've had ... time-sensitive operations that were able to make associations between the target being handed to them and local residents, [allowing the soldiers to find insurgents who otherwise would have escaped]. I've had patrol leaders avoid potential IED hot spots or pass on IED tactics to their fellow patrol leaders."

And the technology is poised to expand. For now, it is accessible only at military bases. The next step, says Maeda, is to install it in Humvees and other military vehicles, allowing soldiers to download and act on new information in real time. Some of these vehicles already have some low-bandwidth connections, and Maeda says DARPA is working on ways to make the software work using these thin pipes. In addition, the system may soon deliver new kinds of information. In the next two to three years, it could offer surveillance pictures from circling unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or other sensor systems. It could store biometric information, so that a soldier could see if a civilian being interviewed was a known insurgent suspect. "There is a whole list of enhancements that users have requested that we want to fill," Maeda says.