'Coin of the realm': military 'swimming in sensors and drowning in data'.

• Author: Magnuson, Stew
• Position: Battlefield Intelligence

SAN ANTONIO, Texas -- When it comes to battlefield intelligence, it's far better to have too much than too little.

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"I cannot see a situation where someone is going to say, 'Hey I can do with less of that,'" James R. Clapper, undersecretary of defense for intelligence, said of the terabytes of data that comes off the military's array of intelligence, reconnaissance and surveillance assets.

Unpiloted aircraft in the skies over Iraq and Afghanistan collect full-motion video. Satellites--belonging to both the National Reconnaissance Office and commercial operators--take images from space. Signals intelligence experts eavesdrop on the chatter of insurgents who may be planning to bomb civilian targets.

Also in the mix is low-tech human intelligence--information gleaned by spies from informants or during interrogations.

"It really is the coin of the realm," Clapper said of the myriad kinds of intelligence available to battlefield commanders and now being pushed down to the lower ranks. "It drives operations."

Synthesizing all these collection disciplines and disseminating them quickly is the challenge facing the military. If intelligence is the "coin of the realm," as Clapper and other senior leaders said at the GEO-Int conference here, then the military may soon have more cash than it can spend.

"We're going to find ourselves in the not too distant future swimming in sensors and drowning in data," said Lt. Gen. David A. Deptula, Air Force deputy chief of staff for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance.

Today, there is one video feed for every unpiloted aircraft combat air patrol, also known as an "orbit." An orbit is defined as one 24-hour continuous mission. Currently, the Air Force flies 39 orbits over Afghanistan and Iraq every day. The goal is to reach 50 orbits by 2011. Within a couple years, unpiloted MQ-9 Reapers carrying the new wide area airborne surveillance sensors will be able to track up to 12 different targets simultaneously Deptula said. The iteration after that will jump to 30 and there are plans to eventually reach 65. That's an increase from 39 possible video feeds to more than 3,000, given that the Air Force reaches its 50 orbit goal.

And Air Force unmanned aerial vehicles are just one part of the oncoming flood of data. The service flies manned ISR aircraft, and the Army has its own airborne collection platforms as well. Moreover, those using the data don't just want live...