Envisioning a Common Operating Picture

September 6, 2007 By: Cyrena Respini-Irwin

The Center for Asymmetric Warfare (CAW) conducted an Asymmetric Warfare Initiative exercise in the Pacific Northwest this past July, culminating in mock terrorist attacks in the Puget Sound area. The real-time drill gave military personnel and first responders practice with emergency-management challenges, including the difficult task of getting various agencies on the same page during a crisis. Such coordination requires a tool that can keep decision makers up to date on what's happening, where events of concern are taking place, and how disparate incidents are related.

A view of the incident reporting application used in the field to report back to the Common Operating Picture map. Users can incorporate multimedia elements — including photos, video, or even measurements from a laser range finder — in their incident reports. Image courtesy of NVision Solutions.

HazNet — a Web-based emergency-management system demonstrated during the CAW exercise — is designed to do just that. The system, which was jointly developed by NVision Solutions, The Boeing Company, and NAVTEQ, gathers incident reports collected with GPS-equipped handheld computers, conveys the data via a cellular or satellite wireless network to an emergency operations center, maps the incidents, and provides emergency personnel with a real-time common operating picture (COP).

Craig Harvey, NVision Solutions CIO, and Joel Lawhead, a program manager for the company, spoke with Geospatial Solutions about the components that make up HazNet. REACT (the Real-Time Emergency Action Coordination Tool), a Web-based GIS for command and visualization, forms the core of the system. A field incident reporting application, which can be used on any mobile device running Windows XE, including smartphones, enables communication between personnel in the field and the REACT server at NASA's Stennis Space Center. REACT was developed by NVision, under a cooperative agreement with the Stennis Space Center; Boeing developed the mobile reporting application; and NAVTEQ provided the road network data, which underlies the incident data.

According to Harvey, the scalable system is appropriate for large commercial facilities — such as an Exxon- or DuPont-sized firm, or a shipyard — as well as government entities of all sizes, from the city level to the federal. The solution is ESRI-based, so small organizations must take core software requirements, as well as the cost of handheld devices, into account when planning an implementation of the system. Lawhead noted that the system can exploit investments local governments have already made in hardware and software.

Harvey used the events of 9/11 as an example of the importance of linking seemingly disparate events: "It's important to know that things are going on in other states . . . was it one plane that was hijacked or was it four?" By the same token, are problems reported at multiple ports isolated incidences, or are they elements of a coordinated terrorist attack?

When a new incident is added to the map or an existing incident is changed in HazNet, it is highlighted in red. Users can hover the cursor over the incident to get critical information. Image courtesy of NVision Solutions.

To ensure that users see the information relevant to them, HazNet employs "contextual viewing." At the city level, Harvey explained, users see the details of what's going on in their city; "and the further up you get, the less detail you get." At the Department of Homeland Security level, users would see a top-level distillation of the available information, identifying which national assets are required to address an incident. "It's all based on the same information," said Lawhead, "abstracted as you move up the chain of command."

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