Lin Wells STAR-TIDES Blog 12-8-09 Camp Roberts Field Experiments

John Crowley recently has posted the results of last month's field experiments at Camp Roberts in central California (See his blog post and the attached file http://star-tides.net/files/RELIEF%2010-01%20AAR%20STARTIDES%20v3.pdf).

The November activities continued a most productive partnership with Dr. Ray Buettner and his team that conduct the quarterly RELIEF (Research and Experimentation for Local and Emergency First Responders) events. Since August, John, Ray, and a coalition of participants from the business, NGO (non-governmental organization), PVO (private volunteer organization), academic and defense communities have made tangible progress in areas such as:

- Processing satellite imagery distributed by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA)
- Demonstrating “proofs-of-concept” in crisis mapping applications
- Integrating photos from UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) with the crisis maps and overhead imagery
- Enhancing interoperability among open-source disaster management systems
- Building collaborative, trusted relationships among diverse communities
- Exploring new methods for field data collection, like Walking Papers and Talking Papers
- Integrating diverse information streams, such as low-bandwidth, near-real-time updates via SMS texting, geo-chat or Twitter.

Please check out John's After Action Reports (AAR) for more details. The overall thrust has been to (1) build a network of geo-spatial maps that quickly can be made operational, sharable and usable, and (2) enable decision-making processes built on local expertise and mechanisms. As a result, the experiments have been able to test techniques that can fill in mapping gaps that often exist in emergency situations for those working in the field, whether they are civilians or military, domestic or foreign. They also have supported real world events.

The next experiments in February 2010 will continue these threads, but also examine areas like deployable power, communications and water treatments in ways that can be sustained by local populations.

Look forward to having you join us in these exciting developments.

Lin