SOCOM to test SkyFi satellite imagery-to-tablet prototype
SkyFi's Sovereign Intelligence Platform for US Special Operations Command is designed to allow commanders in the field to task a commercial satellite for near-real time imagery.
SkyFi's Sovereign Intelligence Platform for US Special Operations Command is designed to allow commanders in the field to task a commercial satellite for near-real time imagery.
“Tactical operating system” for warfighters has evolved to provide more situational awareness of the battlefield.
The wargame will also test new aircraft weapons — a 20 mm cannon and a multi-payload launcher— and a host of electronics enabled by a plug-and-play open architecture, MOSA.
Over the southwest desert, drones large and small are autonomously avoiding anti-aircraft threats while feeding real-time targeting data over an AI network to troops on the ground.
For too long, the CAS program “was falling on deaf ears, because it didn’t quite fit exactly in somebody’s nice little picture of a program, and it wasn’t funded” within a traditional acquisition program.
The long-term solution may take "big, leap-ahead technology," said Maj. Gen. Pete Gallagher, head of the Cross Functional Team leading the network overhaul. But short-term solutions can be as simple as replacing bulky metal antennas with inflatable ones or loading new software on an off-the-shelf Android phone.
It was a Marine reservist, transport officer Maj. Chris Thobaben, who had the idea to repurpose the scout drones for logistics after seeing too many comrades killed or wounded on supply runs in Iraq.