Date: Jan 01, 2012 Source: ARMY SBIR Success Story (
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Force protection dictates that our Soldiers have a low cost, easily deployable navigation system that can perform real-time route planning, provide threat assessments during movement, and enable Blue Force Tracking for relevant friendly forces location. Soldiers need to be able to gain and sustain situational awareness and generate multiple safe routes to support both routine movements and emergency situations. They should also be able to use "hot buttons" to compute safe routes back to the base and support ongoing missions and rescue operations.
The current capability objective is to leverage existing route planning technology found in commercial automobile navigation systems, but to provide enhancements for alternative multiple routes based on real-time threat information, known hazards, and user input to support route updates. The system should advise Soldiers to use different safe routes selected randomly to avoid complacency in convoy operations.
Current plans are for the next generation map display system to feature a fully functional real-time route planning capability for tactical and logistic vehicles in urban and suburban terrain. Under this SBIR project, Primordial developed a software application (Ground Guidance) that displays maps and navigation utilities for ground vehicles and specializes in generating fast and concealed routes through all terrain, both on and off roads. This software application can be used by dismounted Soldiers for real-time routing capabilities and more precise Blue Force Tracking.
The outcome of this SBIR project is ground guidance system enhancements capable of integrating with existing and future systems, allowing Soldiers to easily plan safe routes based on real-time information and generating safe emergency routes at any time. The software can integrate with existing systems, such as the Army Land Warrior System, Movement Tracking System (MTS), and Command and Control Mobile Intelligent Net-Centric Software (C2MINCS).
Technology Transition:
Primordial has received $2M in Phase III resources from the Communications- Electronics Command (CECOM), Army Geospatial Center, Adventium, Oshkosh, and General Dynamics. They are working to extend the capabilities of Ground Guidance to other Army programs by integrating the core functionality with these existing programs. Primordial has several customers interested in advancing Ground Guidance® technology including Magellan, Rockwell Collins, General Dynamics C4 Systems, and Concurrent Technologies Corporation (CTC).
