Computers help coordinate troops.

• Position: Warfare

A software system that may help the U.S. military and its allied forces lift the "fog of war" in their theaters of operation is being developed by researchers at the University at Buffalo (N.Y.). The system is designed to fuse and share information received from multiple air and ground sensors used by the military to predict and track movements of enemy and friendly troops as well as artillery and aircraft, according to Tarunraj Singh, associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering.

"In the theater of war you have multiple, disparate sensors with different capabilities, some of which are looking at the same targets." explains Singh. "There is a need to network and fuse information from the sensors, screen out noise, get better [data], and reduce error in measurements. By combining and filtering the information, our system will give military leaders the ability to monitor the [action] with a lens that transitions from a soda-straw view to a bird's-eye view."

The software system can be used for real-time battle scenarios or for strategic planning to predict and simulate potential movements of friend or foe. They are displayed in 3-D perspectives on a computer...