Geospatial Trends in Government
March 2011 | Volume 3 | Number 3
BuckEye Strong
The Army’s BuckEye System provides high-resolution urban terrain imagery for tactical missions in Iraq and Afghanistan.
 You may not know what LIDAR stands for, but if you have ever driven over the posted speed limit, you may have been trapped by it.
LIDAR stands for Light Detection and Ranging and it is the technology a state trooper uses to calculate how fast you are driving.
In the Geospatial world, LIDAR is a laser beam that provides the data to visualize terrain. It allows the user to get a visualization of the contour of the land quickly and less expensively than with tripod and survey team. It is usually mounted on fixed wing aircraft or helicopters that scan the ground, not measuring speed and distance, but calculating contour and terrain very, very accurately. And it is one of the central components of the Army BuckEye System.
The Army relies heavily on Geospatial information and services (GI&S) for all of its Warfighting and peacetime operations, and the growing importance GI&S in all Army operations has made it a key commodity. BuckEye’s unclassified readily available, high-resolution imagery continues to provide the precision needed to correctly identify, assess, and act upon an adversary, as well as support reconstruction efforts necessary to restore critical infrastructure.
Born Out Of Need
According to the Army, the BuckEye System was born in 2004 out of the need for unclassified high-resolution geospatial data for tactical missions.
It started as a helicopter-mounted digital color camera system that produced high-resolution imagery for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) and change detection missions.
Then in November 2005, a new BuckEye system was deployed to Iraq on a fixed-wing aircraft to concentrate on the urban mapping mission. In addition to a digital color camera, it included a LIDAR sensor to collect high-resolution, high-accuracy elevation data.
LIDAR data supports improved battlefield visualization and line of sight analysis. Because of its 3-dimensional accuracy, LIDAR also supports the ortho-rectification of imagery, making it more accurate as well. Once ortho-rectified, image frames can be combined into large mosaics.
Then in May 2006, a helicopter-mounted camera system was deployed to Afghanistan to conduct Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) missions in support of Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF). In November 2007, a fixed-wing aircraft with both a color camera and LIDAR system deployed to Afghanistan.
“The usefulness of mapping in the military has been significantly extended with the advent of accessible satellite imagery,” according to SSG Eric Briscoe, 445th Civil Affairs Battalion.
“I was amazed at the level of detail I could see in the black and white satellite imagery I had access to with [other] software; then I saw BuckEye. Not only is Buckeye imagery extremely more detailed, and full color, it is also the most recent imagery available. BuckEye really paints a vivid picture of what an area actually feels like and is an invaluable planning and analysis tool from the troop on the ground to the decision maker on top.”
Present Operations
BuckEye systems have been supporting U.S. Central Command for more than four years. In Iraq, the BuckEye Imagery/LIDAR system is centrally-controlled to support the entire theater. It has collected over 67,000 square kilometers of data, primarily over urban areas, but also along main supply routes.
This revolutionary data set includes over 1700 tiles of LIDAR elevation data at 1-meter resolution that now covers most Iraqi cities. The imagery system has collected over 1,500,000 individual color images at 10 to 15-centimeter resolution.
They are quickly indexed and made available for viewing in a web page. BuckEye products are unclassified, so they can be carried into the field with combat soldiers.
In Afghanistan, the BuckEye Imagery/LIDAR system is controlled at the CJTF level. A large portion of the imagery and LIDAR is processed in-theater to provide rapid response to tactical mission planning. It has collected over 40,000 square kilometers of data.
The AGC has worked hard to make Buckeye data readily available to our fighting forces and supporting agencies. Data is both pushed to requesting units on DVD, and made available via the Internet on all DOD networks.
As soon as collected imagery is received at the AGC, it is indexed and made viewable on the center’s Web sites. LIDAR is processed into gridded tiles, edited and posted to the networks. Imagery ortho-mosaics are posted as they are completed and quality checked.
Other products available on-line include indexed image files as GeoPDF mapbooks, NITF Geocoded Image frames, and high-resolution Urban Tactical Planner databases.
Currently in testing is a prototype Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) with BuckEye sensors. A miniaturized LIDAR sensor has been developed to support a variety of Army UAS programs into the future.
BuckEye won the 2006 Army Greatest Invention of the Year award and the U.S. Geospatial Intelligence Foundation Geospatial Intelligence Achievement Award (Military category).
In Afghanistan, the BuckEye Imagery/LIDAR system is controlled at the CJTF level. A large portion of the imagery and LIDAR is processed in-theater to provide rapid response to tactical mission planning. It has collected over 26,000 square kilometers of data.
The AGC has worked hard to make Buckeye data readily available to our fighting forces and supporting agencies. Data is both pushed to requesting units on DVD, and made available via the Internet on all DOD networks.
As soon as collected imagery is received at the AGC, it is indexed and made viewable on the center’s Web sites. LIDAR is processed into gridded tiles, edited and posted to the networks. Imagery ortho-mosaics are posted as they are completed and quality checked.
Other products available on-line include indexed image files as GeoPDF mapbooks, NITF Geocoded Image frames, and high-resolution Urban Tactical Planner databases.
Currently in testing is a prototype Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) with BuckEye sensors. A miniaturized LIDAR sensor has been developed to support a variety of Army UAS programs into the future. n
Geospatial Saves Lives
Soldiers of the 25th Brigade know that having the right Geospatial data can save their lives.
At Geospatial Day, Army GIO Robert Burkhardt recounted how in 2004-2005, the 25th Brigade was being deployed to Mosul, Iraq—what they thought was a calm, not chaotic environment.
“What they thought they were going into a week before deployment changed dramatically,” said Burkhardt. “All police disappeared; all the police stations were taken over by Al Qaeda. It didn’t look like a calm environment; it looked like a combat environment. Everything they thought they knew they didn’t know any longer. It was a peaceful area and now it was immensely chaotic.”
To be sure, the 25th had people providing them information from various stovepipes. They had sensors; they had LIDAR. What they didn’t have were the Geospatial tools to find the information they were looking for to quell the insurgency.
The 25th turned to the Army’s Geospatial Center for help. “They asked us for help. But before we could help them, they had to put in a clear taxonomy on the way they described things,” explained Burkhardt.
“With that we were able to give them a simple web tool to track the trends and the things they needed to know such as whom the Imam is and who is selling gas.”
The commander used that simple tool go after his critical pieces of information. “I want to know about X and platoon leaders would find that out. That exposed patterns they could use to protect themselves. Plus it not only prepared the 25th, but the transition to the unit from Alaska that came behind them was the smoothest transition ever and that sharing information actually saved lives.” n
WATCH VIDEO
Special thanks to the Army Geospatial Center for their assistance with this article. Reprinted from OTFL Geospatial Trends, August 2010.
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